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.
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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: 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: Kevin Trainor, Siobhan Redmond, Leah Brotherhead, Esther Ruth Elliott, Christopher Keegan, Gary Lilburn, Ann Louise Ross, Oliver Wilson.
Director: Dominic Hill Writer: Christopher Marlowe and Colin Teevan Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 130 minutes The West Yorkshire Playhouse joins forces with Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre to reimagine Christopher Marlowe’s controversial classic, Doctor Faustus. With two acts completely rewritten by Colin Teevan within a contemporary setting, the play brings Faustus’ horrific experiences into the domestic sphere embracing modern language and popular culture, bookended by Marlow’s original opening and closing acts. Cast: Trevor Michael Georges, Tahirah Sharif, Martina Laird, Burt Caesar, Ray Emmet Brown, Jude Akuwudike, Alisha Bailey, Shaun Blackstock, Bethan James, Sam Lloyd, Okezie Morro.
Director: Michael Buffong Writer: Errol John Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 130 minutes Talawa Theatre Company in association with the National Theatre brings Moon on a Rainbow Shawl to the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Faithfully adapted from Errol John’s award-winning play, we follow Ephraim as he decides to move away from the trappings of Trinidad – and parenthood – for a new life in the United Kingdom. Written in the late 1950s the play shows its age in terms of pace. The opening act exhausts stage time setting up characters and situations, establishing Ephraim and Sophia whilst Trinidad is represented as a courtyard area buzzing to the sound of crickets blazed in a midday son. It’s evocative theatre, with naturalistically witty dialogue creating an immersive theatrical environment, but despite the actors’ efforts the first hour sags under a few too many pages of script. The dialogue, however, has an authentic quality requiring a dedicated ear; some plot points are revealed in throwaway moments so it’s a show which demands concentration. The action picks up in the second act after Errol John fully engages his dramatic arsenal; Ephraim is planning to emigrate but there is a strong possibility a child will be born to him by his orphaned neighbour. Will he stay? The struggle begins and the play takes flight. Cast: Denise Van Outen
Director: Michael Howcroft Writer: Terry Ronald & Denise Van Outen Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 100 minutes Start Date: January 29, 2014 End Date: February 8, 2014 Denise Van Outen launches her one-woman musical at the West Yorkshire Playhouse this month. Some Girl I Used To Know tells the story of Stephanie, a successful businesswoman awaiting the arrival of a journalist to her hotel suite. When an old flame from the past promises to meet her in the interim, buried memories from the past are aroused and life-changing decisions are made. Some Girl I Used To Know features a number of melodic covers of Eighties and Nineties hits. Performed by Van Outen with typical West End vocal alacrity, the numbers do have something of the Lloyd Webber treatment – synth strings and all – but this is somewhat befitting for a play which eulogises the era with such warmth and fondness. Van Outen’s vocals are stirring and powerful, presenting an alternative take on pop songs such as Hold Me Now and Do You Really Want To Hurt Me. Rousing and resonating, the musical interludes are unobtrusive chapter points which agreeably compliment the story. Cast: Jacob James Beswick, Colin Connor, Daniel Copeland, Cait Davis, Andrew French, Shobna Gulati, Oliver Hoare, Jan Knightley, Ann Ogbomo, Anneika Rose, Paksie Vernon, Cath Whitefield.
Director: Liam Steel Writer: Rosanna Lowe Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 130 minutes Start Date: November 30, 2013 End Date: January 18, 2014 The West Yorkshire Playhouse offers up an alternative Christmas treat this season with a bold adaptation of Rudyard Kiplings’s The Jungle Book. Set in the Indian jungle, the story follows the journey of runaway infant Mowgli as he is raised by Akela the wolf, Baloo the bear and Bagheere the panther. Learning the tongue of wild animals and their relationship with the nature of the jungle, the boy grows up at one with the wild. As a young adult he is reunited with his mother and the culture of mankind, but finds enemies in this new world whilst also facing the a duel he’s been evading all his life: a battle against the king of the jungle, Shere Khan. Cast: David Birrell, Gillian Bevan, Niamh Perry, Michael Peavoy, Don Gallagher, Jason Broderick, Ian Caddick, Barbara Drennan, Elanor Fanyinka, Joshua Manning, Abiola Ogunbiyi, Corinna Powlesland, Sevan Stephan, Ben Stott, Sebastien Torkia, Everal A Walsh
Director: James Brining Writer: Hugh Wheeler & Stephen Sondheim Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 120 mins Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opens a new season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse this month, before transferring to the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. The musical also signifies James Brining’s directorial debut as Artistic Director of the Playhouse. Derived from a Victorian pulp magazine story, Hugh Wheeler’s book follows the fictional tale of Sweeney Todd, the maligned barber who, recently released from prison, attempts to re-establish his business in a declining and destitute Fleet Street. Things seem to be going well until Todd’s mysterious past catches up with him, and his razor blade becomes the weapon of choice to erase his problems. |
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