Cast: Cory English, Jason Manford, Ross Noble, David Bedella, Tiffany Graves, Stephane Anelli
Director: Matthew White Writer: Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 150 minutes Start Date: June 8, 2015 In 2001 Mel Brooks adapted his hit comedy film The Producers into a hit Broadway musical. This week the Tony award-winning show arrives at Leeds Grand Theatre. The Producers is the story of Max Bialystock (Cory English), a theatre producer with a string of Broadway stinkers to his name. When accountant Leo Bloom (Jason Manford) reveals that more money can be made from a failure than a success, Bialystock sources a hideous script to be realised by an incapable director, in the hope of creating a guaranteed flop. With plans to escape with the show's investments to Brazil, the duo's hopes are dashed when Springtime For Hitler becomes an unexpected hit.
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Cast: Robert Webb, Jason Thorpe, Chris Ryan Director: Sean Foley
Writer: The Goodale Brothers Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 125 minutes Start Date: June 1, 2015 P.G. Wodehouse's celebrated creations Jeeves and Wooster show up at Leeds Grand Theatre this week in Perfect Nonsense, a West End transfer from the pens of The Goodale Brothers. Perfect Nonsense establishes the façade of an amateur one-man show, fronted by Bertie Wooster as he attempts to re-enact the events of a purloined creamer (in the shape of a cow) whilst being seduced by his friend's soppy fiancé. Struggling to play all of the diverse roles alone, Bertie ropes in his ever faithful butler Jeeves and the long-suffering Steppings, a doddery manservant. Cast: Emma Barton, Derek Elroy, Norman Pace, Jasmyn Banks, David Verrey, Edward Hancock, Gavin Spokes, Alicia Davies, Patrick Warner, Elliot Harper, Michael Dylan.
Director: Adam Penford Writer: Richard Bean Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 150 minutes Start Date: November 4, 2014 End Date: November 8, 2014 The National Theatre’s critically acclaimed One Man Two Guvnors transfers to Leeds Grand Theatre this week as part of a national tour. Based on 18th century comedy The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, One Man Two Guvnors follows the plight of Francis Henshall, a dumpling-like lackey who tries to maintain two jobs with two governors in the wake of a gangster killing and arranged marriage. When Henshall’s two bosses eventually collide, his world explodes into torment and chaos – all whilst trying to gain a date and stave off hunger for chips and warm ale. Cast: Henry Shields, Greg Tannahill, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Charlie Russell, Dave Hearn, Nancy Wallinger, Rob Falconer.
Director: Mark Bell Writer: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields. Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 120 minutes The Play That Goes Wrong stops off at Leeds Grand Theatre this week as part of a national tour. As its title suggests, the show runs anything but smoothly and promises audiences a white-knuckle ride of mishaps and calamity. Cast: Laura Baldwin, Tobias Beer, Kit Benjamin, Adam C Booth, Amy Booth-Steel, Jenni Bowden, Ricky Butt, Matt Harrop, Oliver Izod, Rachel Knowles, Lauren Logan, Rebecca Louis, Sally Mates, Joe Maxwell, Haydn Oakley, Anthony Ray.
Director: Daniel Buckroyd Writer: Alan Bennett Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 130 minutes Betty Blue Eyes transfers to the West Yorkshire Playhouse this month as part of their ongoing Alan Bennett season. Adapted by the author from his film, A Private Function, the musical tells the tale of a Yorkshire community suffering the woes of post-war rationing. When opportunities arise for the procurement of some unlicensed meat, a farce ensues with a Betty the pig at its centre. Cast: Philip Martin Brown, Christopher Chilton, Rob Delaney, Richard Gittins, Daniel Pape, Sian Reese-Williams, Vanessa Rosenthal, Marlene Sidaway, Samuel Baxter, Lawrence Guntert, Alex James McLeod, Shadan Noori, Jacob Philips, Liam Robbins
Director: James Brining Writer: Alan Bennett Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 150 minutes Start Date: May 19, 2014 End Date: June 7, 2014 Enjoy opened in 1980, fated to become Alan Bennett’s singular flop at the time. Over thirty years later, the infamously experimental show launches a new season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in honour of the Leeds-born writer. Set in the early Eighties, Enjoy traces the effect of council housing redevelopment in one of the few remaining back-to-back red brick terraces in Leeds. The tenants, Mam and Dad, are chosen to be documented during the transitional process by the mysterious Ms Craig from the council. As a normal day gives way to extraordinary events, the world of Mam, Dad and their offspring becomes emblazoned in a social media whirlwind of experimentation, extortion and exploitation. It is clear to see why an early Eighties’ audience rejected the wild ideas which Enjoy presents. The media machine which governs so many social habits of a new generation, such as Big Brother and Vlogging through YouTube, are staples of modern entertainment. The concepts of fly-on-the-wall documentaries and live feeds from people’s homes are commonplace forms of entertainment today. In 1980, however, things were very different. Television boasted three channels, documentaries were educational, news was functionally informative, and drama was just that. Enjoy not only blurs the lines of these standards, it blends them together into the horror we now recognise as reality television. Cast: Anna O'Grady, Jane Lambert, Lewis Collier, Rachel Barry, Paul Brightwell, Alistair McGowan, Charlotte Page, Jamie Foreman, Rula Lenska, Katie Hawgarth, Andrew McDonald
Director: David Grindley Writer: Bernard Shaw Theatre: The Grand Theatre Leeds Duration: 140 minutes Start Date: April 1, 2014 End Date: April 5, 2014 Bernard Shaw’s most famous play, Pygmalion, visits the Grand Theatre Leeds this month. Drawing its title from the Greek myth about an artist who falls in love with his own sculpture, Pygmalion has influenced a body of cultural work in the past century, including adaptations such as My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman and more subtle derivations in Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. It has even had artificial intelligence programs named after its leading lady. Pygmalion follows the story of Henry Higgins as he meets Eliza Doolittle, a waiflike cockney flower seller with aspirations to improve her diction and become ladylike. She visits Higgins with a view to gaining elocution lessons, but he readily sees Doolittle as an opportunity for a great linguistic experiment. As remarkable transformations take place at his home on Wimpole Street, neither foresee the challenge, conflict and division which her cultural evolution will soon create. Cast: Barry Humphries, Philip Bertioli, Jack Jefferson, Nick Len, Ross McLaren, Carley Meyers, Eve Prideaux.
Director: Simon Phillips Writer: Barry Humphries Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 180 minutes. Barry Humphries brings a collection of his best loved characters to The Grand Theatre this month as part of his farewell show, Eat Pray Laugh. Humphries began his career at the Melbourne Theatre Company in the 1950s, developing among other characters the acerbic Edna Everage, back then only a Mrs. He headed to Britain at the beginning of the 1960s, coinciding with the new wave of satirical comedy which included collaborations with Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Peter Cook. It was a time when a new form of character-based comedy was evolving, with comic personas emerging between straight stand-up and theatrical farce. Humphries’ richly textured and outrageously outspoken characters made him an instant hit with the British public, and by the 1980s Dame Edna had become an institution hosting several television series. She was no longer a character, but a celebrity in her own right. After over sixty-five years in the business Humphries has declared that Eat Pray Laugh is to be the final outing for his celebrated creations. Part cabaret-revue and part monologue, the show is an opportunity to experience first hand the characters many will have enjoyed on the small screen, with some lesser known faces in-between. Cast: Siân Phillips, Brigit Forsyth, Selina Cadell, Michael Thomas
Director: Nicholas Hytner Writer: Alan Bennett Theatre: Leeds Grand Theatre Duration: 135 minutes After a sell-out run at the National Theatre, Alan Bennett’s People arrives at the Leeds Grand Theatre with a new cast and much anticipation. People enters the world of Dorothy and Iris, two aging spinsters who live in the crumbling remains of a stately home. When Dorothy’s sister June insists the house is donated to the National Trust, Dorothy seeks other means of maintaining her beloved habitat. From selling her ancient heirlooms to renting out space for the filming of a ‘mucky’ film, the battle is on to secure her future and preserve her past – with the view of getting central heating and an ensuite bathroom. Cast: Maureen Beattie, Neil Pearson, David Bark-Jones, Thomasin Rand, Danielle Flett, Chris Larkin, Sasha Waddell, Simon Bubb, Geoffrey Freshwater
Director: Lindsay Posner Writer: Michael Frayn Theatre: The Grand Theatre Leeds Duration: 140 minutes Start Date: July 23, 2013 End Date: July 27, 2013 The Old Vic brings Noises Off to The Grand Theatre Leeds this week. Michael Frayn’s farce-within-a-farce sendup of theatrical comedy is considered by many as the funniest show of all time. After some thirty years, does Noises Off still sound out as many laughs as it once did? The action begins during a final rehearsal for farcical comedy Nothing On at the Grand Theatre Weston-Super-Mare. Director Lloyd Dallas (Neil Pearson) is struggling to get his cast off-the-book before curtain up. Things aren’t going well and as the show kicks off on tour to sunny Stockton, backstage shenanigans, affairs and an under-rehearsed show climax in a chaotic breakdown of theatrical proportions. |
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