Theatre

Theatre Review If Walls Could Talk

Tip of the Tongue bring five anecdotal tales to The Carriageworks

Five young strangers sit in front of us, telling stories from their lives and punctuating each tale with a homemade musical segue. Household lamps, a chest of drawers, miscellaneous armchairs and a couple of stools make up the homely set from which the members of Tip of the Tongue recount their bitter and sweet anecdotes. And that’s it. That’s If Walls Could Talk in its entirety. And it’s just great.

Tom Black kicks things off with a story which blends a lingering obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine with the difficulty of having to ‘share’ his birthday with 9/11; Alison…

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Preview Michael Frayn Season at Sheffield Theatres

British literary heavyweight has a season dedicated to him in March at Sheffield Theatres

Michael Frayn has applied his intellect to just about every literary vehicle. The bibliography on his Wikipedia page dwarfs the text. He has mastered the novel, the memoir, the comic essay, the philosophical discourse, the translation (Chekhov, among others), the screenplay, the libretto, the dramatic handbook and, salient for our purposes, the one-act and the full-length play. It is his contribution to the dramatic forms that has brought the bulk of his dossier of awards across four decades. Nonetheless, in formulating a season of his work, Sheffield Theatres may have been relieved to be selecting from only the…

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Preview Waiting for Godot, West Yorkshire Playhouse

Samuel Beckett’s 1949 play comes to the Playhouse's Courtyard theatre

Literary alchemists might exchange views on what are and aren’t the indispensible tools of the playwright, but few before 1953 can have urged him to scrap the plot. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, written in 1949 but first staged in that year, is one of those pieces that refashion the cartography of literature, seizing and mauling our collective concept of what drama can, and perhaps should, do. It is simply a portrayal – hardly a ‘tale’ – of two men waiting for another man, and yet for well over half a century has scarcely ever stinted to enthral.

Though originally…

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Review Sister Act at Bradford Alhambra

Singing nuns prove a hit as the adaptation of the Whoopi Goldberg-starring film comes to Bradford

There’s something about singing and dancing nuns that guarantees a good time – so it’s no surprise that Sister Act, currently playing at the Bradford Alhambra, is a gloriously fun night at the theatre. Saint or sinner, there really is something for everyone here and with a talented cast, impressive sets and some great tunes, this ‘Divine Musical Comedy’ is a must see.

Based on the 1992 family comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg (who co-produces), Sister Act tells the story of Deloris Van Cartier (Cynthia Erivo), a jobbing club singer and wannabe star who seeks police protection after witnessing her…

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Review Top Hat at Leeds Grand Theatre

Classic movie musical is a roaring success at Leeds Grand

It is remarkable to consider that some 76 years after the classic RKO movie musical premiered, we finally have a stage production of – arguably – Irving Berlin’s finest musical, the wonderful Top Hat (1935).

American stage performer Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers) is visiting London to appear in producer/friend Horace Hardwick’s (Martin Ball) new production. Naturally boy meets girl, Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), and our rather haughty girl immediately takes a dislike to our cheeky Romeo – not least for tap dancing on her ceiling at night. Add in a cast of wacky characters, some spousal violence, comedy foreigners, the…

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Theatre Review We Will Rock You

James Robertson's socks are rocked off by the Queen musical at the Grand Theatre

I hate musicals: trite, insipid dross, which use the word “music” in the broadest sense of the term to string together a nauseating narrative that builds toward an ever-more inane, clap-along climax. With this in mind, I have to admit I was unsure of it as a suitable medium to critique the homogenisation of modern music – especially when it transpired that a guy from Hear’Say is the protagonist.

It therefore slightly pains me to confess that We Will Rock You actually rocked my socks off. Why? Well, undoubtedly, it helps that all the songs were written not by a…

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Interview Howard Marks

Sam JT Butterworth meets the former dope baron turned writer, performer and Leeds resident before his show at City Varieties

As I chatted with Howard Marks, he was friendly, entertaining, genuine and erudite – qualities that remained throughout his show at the City Varieties. Later that evening the historic venue reverberated with his gravelly whisper as he told tales of decadent episodes, including one involving Nepalese hash that made everything either very funny, or yellow. He also mentioned the characters he met on his travels: Shane McGowan, the only man he saw being carried into a pub; Bez, the only man who could outdo Howard on any drug of his choice.

He talked about his seven-year prison stretch (“getting all…

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Review Coelacanth

A funny and moving monologue at The Carriageworks

Ben Moor’s Coelacanthis a love story set against the (imagined) world of competitive tree climbing. A monologue which details a love story between Moor’s character and an unnamed American woman, the play dips in and out of the surreal, but the essence of this tenderly told story keeps both its feet on the ground throughout.

Both funny and moving, the story unfurls into a strange and hypnotic exploration of the human condition, charting a young man’s journey into love and grief, loyalty and loss. The monologue is dreamlike without being tedious and intelligent without being pompous or chilly.

Moor’s masterful…

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Review Paint it White

A play about the trials and tribulations of following Leeds United comes to the West Yorkshire Playhouse

In the unlikely event that anyone found themselves in the Courtyard Theatre at West Yorkshire Playhouse last night not knowing what to expect, this was comprehensively summarised within the first five minutes of Paint it White, the Les Rowley adaptation of Leeds Superfan Gary Edwards book. Before anyone had got comfortable in their seats Edwards, played with passion and vigour by Leeds-born Gary Dunnington, had offered us the ‘Leeds Salute’, serenaded us with a ‘Leeds, Leeds, Leeds’ chant and denounced “…that lot over the Pennine’s…” as ‘Scum’, and that was pretty much the theme of the evening.

Of course…

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Review Translunar Paradise

Theatre Ad Infinitum bring a heartfelt production to Leeds - what's our verdict?

Beginning with the death of an elderly woman and charting her husband’s life without her, Translunar Paradise harks back to a vaudevillian mode of physical theatre in a way that is both beautiful and tragic. A large chunk of the production sees the central performers (George Mann and Deborah Pugh) donning handheld facemasks as they perfectly capture the love, familiarity and dependence of an elderly couple.

The present action – where the old man is confronted by his now shattered world – is interrupted wonderfully by various tableaux of the life shared by our hero and heroine. It is a…

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