Preview August Theatre Round-Up
Simon Walker looks over forth-coming productions in York, Scarborough and Leeds
Preview: August Theatre Round-Up
Other Recent Preview Articles
In 2008, York Theatre Royal embraced the thick-set task of staging a new adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s The Railway Children at the National Railway Museum to create one of its most widely lauded productions in recent years. Its massive success meant that the show was reinstated the following year.
Possibly this has created extracurricular expectations of the follow-up of The Window in the Willows, now that York Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden and writer Mike Kenny are reconvening. The company seems anxious to stress that, despite its latest production being performed on its own premises, the set will boast some serious novelty value. “Our main house will be like nothing you have seen before,” it pledges, “as a new stage is built allowing the audience to sit all around the action at Toad Hall.” Audiences are encouraged to book picnic boxes with their tickets “so you can make your day out at Toad Hall magical”, but any opportunities to mess about in boats will, we’re afraid, remain vicarious.
At Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, cricket seems to be the season’s theme. While James Quinn’s Twenty:20 is one of two Off Peak Shows playing at lunchtimes and early evenings, artistic director Chris Monks is reviving his adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Oriental juggernaut The Mikado. “I was driving past a cricket ground,” he explains, “and realised that the batsmen looked like Samurai warriors.”
The piece is one of his three Gilbert and Sullivan adaptations, each of which premiered at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme in the ‘90s, and each of which hijacks the original from its digs and force-feeds it new ones. It is in this sense alone that they are adapted: although Monks’ background is in composition, his aim was not to tamper with cherished operettas, but to divert them toward skylines where he felt they would seem more immediate to contemporary audiences.
His HMS Pinafore, imprisoned in a fast food outlet, has fallen out of favour, but at this point last season Monks introduced the SJT’s drowsy hometown to his account of The Pirates of Penzance, which transposes the tale into Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dog-pound. The Far Eastern arm of the franchise last appeared at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre in 2004 and 2005, and its return no doubt reflects Monks’ eagerness to bestow his own creative bent on the SJT swiftly. After all, he has succeeded Yorkshire’s tunnel to the West End, Sir Alan Ayckbourn.
Indeed, a West End portrayal of Ayckourn’s 1975 misnomer Bedroom Farce – it’s no farce, director Tamara Harvey assured us when the Playhouse produced it last year – will reach the Grand this fortnight. It’s directed by Sir Peter Hall, who first staged it in 1977 having achieved the more or less peerless feat of founding the RSC the previous decade.
The Wind in the Willows, until 21 August, York Theatre Royal, St Leonard’s Place, York, YO1 7HD, 01904 623 568, £10–18;
The Mikado, until 4 September, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Westborough, Scarborough, YO11 1JW, 01723 370 540, £9–20;
Bedroom Farce, 16–21 August, Leeds Grand, 46 New Briggate, LS1 6NZ, 0113 222 6222, £11.50–26.50 (concs available)
Posted on Monday 26th July 2010
Sending you to Twitter, hold on... 
