Cast: Dean Chisnall, Faye Brooks, Gerard Carey, Idriss Kargbo, Bronte Barbe Nikki Bentley, Jennifer Caldwell, Candace Furbert, Stefan Harri, Will Haswell, Mai Lincoln, Rory Maguire, Neil Moors, Jenny O'Leary, Georgina Parkinson, Ryan Reid, Leo Roberts, James Winter, Kevin Yates
Director: Nigel Harman Writer: David Lindsay-Abaire & Jeanine Tesori Theatre: The Grand Theatre & Opera House Leeds Duration: 150 minutes Shrek The Musical launches its national tour at the Leeds Grand Theatre this month. Adapted from Dreamworks’ 2001 animated movie and the novel by William Steig, it tells the tale of Shrek the ogre in search of his own princess bride. Accompanied by a posse of classic fairy tale characters and a catalogue of musical numbers, can the stage version live up to the acclaim of its silver screen inspiration?
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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: Reece Dinsdale, Kate Anthony, John Arthur, Simon Roberts, Marjorie Yates
Director: Mark Rosenblatt Writer: Alan Bennett Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 110 minutes Start Date: June 2, 2014 End Date: June 21, 2014 Continuing a season dedicated to Alan Bennett, West Yorkshire Playhouse presents a double bill of the Leeds-born author’s work in Untold Stories. Bringing together Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, the show is anchored by Bennett as portrayed by Reece Dinsdale. Untold Stories begins as an intimate monologue recorded in a studio environment. Bennett reflects on his experiences growing up with music and his desire to perform and conform, underscored by the rousing strings of the Ligeti Quartet. Whilst brief and minimal, the piece is a rosy evocation, presenting Bennett in his older years as the confident orator. Composed of Cello, Viola and Violins, the Ligeti Quartet are seamlessly harmonized with Bennett’s lilting recollections, where days of violin lessons and escapades to distant churches on the West Riding are vividly described. As a palate-cleansing apéritif, Hymn prepares the table for Untold Stories’ main event; Cocktail Sticks. 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: Barrie Rutter, Andrew Whitehead, Jack Quarton, Ben Burman, Darren Kuppan, Brett Lee Roberts, Mark Thomas, Russell Richardson, Elizabeth Eves, Emily Butterfield, Sophia Hatfield, Lauryn Redding.
Director: Barrie Rutter Writer: Deborah McAndrew Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 140 minutes Start Date: April 8, 2014 End Date: April 19, 2014 Northern Broadsides in partnership with the New Vic Theatre bring An August Bank Holiday Lark to West Yorkshire Playhouse this month. Set during the outbreak of World War I, the play examines the effect of distant conflict on a small Lancashire community. New writing comes from the pen of Deborah McAndrew. Written with a rich Northern voice and warm sardonic wit, McAndrew successfully recreates an ensemble of early 20th century Lancastrian characters recognisable through universal identifiers; there is the family man, the ambitious poet, a reckless adventurer, a pushy single mill girl and a waiflike spinster. Naturally there is also the secret love affair which is interrupted by war. The community is centred on the Squire, a widower who fills his time tending his garden and co-ordinating Morris Men. John Farrar is a petty tyrant with petty concerns, all of which become subverted by tragedy on a global scale. 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: Aoife Duffin, Claudia Grant, Bradley Hall, Oliver Johnstone, Ekow Quartey, Ruby Thomas, Adam Welsh, Daisy Whalley.
Director: Ben Kidd Writer: Frank Wedekind with Anya Reiss Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 100 minutes Start Date: March 7, 2014 End Date: March 22, 2014 In a co-production with Headlong and Nuffield, West Yorkshire Playhouse present a reimagining of Spring Awakening; a daring odyssey into the adolescent world of violence, belief and sexual maturity. Anywa Reiss adapts Frank Wedekind’s controversial first work, now almost a century old, for the modern era. Transposing his story into a society influenced by digital media and social networking, Reiss presents a cross-section of adolescents as they struggle to come to terms with their changing hormones and physical urges. The transition works well, though an insistence on using the original names from the show – such as Melchoir – is a touch anachronistic and somewhat distracting within its modern, British setting. As its title infers, the show opens in the British springtime and establishes playful beginnings. The characters are typical teenagers loitering around parks, sparring and bantering. Directed with a documentary realism and downplayed by a cast acting younger than their years, the ensemble wholly convinces as a collective of hormone-driven teens. Much humour is found in the disparity between the characters’ physical and emotional development, with double acts exchanging crude anecdotes and bravado. Amusing at the outset, the attitudes towards sex soon shift in tone as innocence gives way to ignorance and a bullish confidence, fuelled by the unrealistic expectations which Internet pornography presents. Soon, bravado and flirting gives way to aggression and violence in an increasingly bleak descent into tragedy. Cast: Cornelius Booth, Kelsey Brookfield, Heather Christian, Andy Clark, Dyfrig Morris, Simon Holland Roberts, John Trindle, Henry Pettigrew, Johnson Willis.
Director: Mark Rosenblatt Writer: John Steinbeck Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 120 minutes Steinbeck’s popular novella Of Mice and Men has been boldly adapted for the new season at West Yorkshire Playhouse. A powerful and enduring piece, the show promises to theatrically re-imagine one of the most studied texts in the English Literature curriculum. Of Mice and Men signifies Mark Rosenblatt’s directorial debut as new Associate Director of the Playhouse. His direction has an immediate freshness and innovative simplicity. Act I is primarily played downstage with simple dressings and has a strong studio theatre feel, whilst Act II opens up broader vistas, exploiting the impressive depth of the Quarry Theatre. Rosenblatt’s visualisation, thanks to superb production design by Max Jones, expands in scale and story, partnered with the dramatic tensions of the play. A cloud-like spectacle of tungsten bulbs glow and ebb throughout the piece, counterpointing anxieties, whilst simply animated vistas – including a lazily turning windmill – provide a cinematic patina on stage. 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. |
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