Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Writer: Gordon Meredith Director: Richard Avery Frederick Elwell (1870-1958) was an eminent artist, born in Beverley and based there for much of his career. His wife, Mary (1874-1952), was an equally distinguished artist. As part of the town’s recent revival of interest in them, Gordon Meredith has put together a most effective biographical play which gives due space to their paintings. The opening suggests a more experimental approach than, in fact, proves to be the case. The stage is dominated by two large picture frames covered in sheeting. When the sheets are removed, Fred and Mary are revealed, reproducing the…

Director: Matt Ryan Book, Music and Lyrics: Dan Gillespie Sells Hot on the heels of the Amazon Prime film (well, give or take a pandemic) Everybody’s Talking About Jamie makes a triumphant return to its home town with the feel good extravaganza that is the tale of Jamie New (Layton Williams) and his prom dress drag queen daydream life dream. The catchy song filled show tells a fictionalised version of Sheffield local boy Jamie Campbell, who shocked the world back in the tender year of 2011 by announcing that he was going to attend prom in a dress. An act…

Writer: Charlotte Bronte Adapted by Chris Bush Director: Zoe Waterman How do you adapt a novel like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre? One way is to focus on one part – probably the Rochester episodes – and leave the rest out? Or you can adopt a contemporary approach and re-focus our view of the characters? Or, simply, cover the whole plot and let the audience out at 11pm? Or – best of all – you take the Chris Bush and Zoe Waterman approach and deal wittily with the entire book, but concentrate on the most telling scenes, linking the whole thing…

Writer: Maeve Larkin Director: Rachel Gee Meet Bunnington, a dwindling Women’s Institute at risk of closure, barely able to afford its guest speakers or a new tin of biscuits. Enter Alice McKenna as the Catherine Tate-like PR guru, unafraid of stepping on anyone’s toes and determined to turn things around. Personalities clash and miniature tribes form as new and old members fight over the best way to keep the group going while staying true to tradition. First touring in 2015, Raising Agents has been revived to mark 125 years since the WI was first formed in Canada. Genius original music…

Composer: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Conductor: Gerry Cornelius Director: James Conway In his programme notes James Conway writes that this is “likely to be the first performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel at most theatres on tour.” That may well be so for York, but Opera North staged it in Leeds some two or three decades ago. The change in attitude is revealing: that was pure fantasy, this begins with a dedication to the people of Ukraine and all through references to the barbaric troops lined up against King Dodon and the claims that his nation has won the war strike uncomfortable…

Composer: Giacomo Puccini Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa Conductor: Iwan Davies Director: Christopher Moon-Little after James Conway La Boheme – that’s the one where Mimi dies of TB – right? Well, yes, but that’s only half the story. The first two acts (of four) are huge fun relieved only by 15 minutes of key-searching and candles being blown out – and even here there’s a knowing comedy behind the romantic exchanges. The opening horseplay between Marcello, Rodolfo, Colline and Schaunard is wonderfully infectious before, after the Mimi interlude, the Café Momus scene is a riot of comedy. It’s only…

Musical Directors: Abel Selaocoe and Rakhi Singh The Oracle is a collaboration between the innovative and ground-breaking ensemble Manchester Collective and South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe. The show starts with an improvisation between Abel, bass guitarist Alan Keary and African percussionist Mohamed Gueye. The result really rocks with enchanting and dynamic rhythms that conjure up the notion of ritualistic shamanism. This is followed by Vivaldi’s Concerto for Strings with haunting and bewitching strings in a baroque style providing sweet and simply gorgeous harmonies. 16th century composer Picforth’s In Nomine is the oldest work in the programme. It features…

Conductor: Garry Walker Soloists: Richard Watkins (horn), Nicholas Watts (tenor) The final concert of the 2021-2022 Huddersfield Town Hall season offered a chance to focus on the changes in British music in the last 120-plus years. Beginning with Mark-Antony Turnage’s Drowned Out, a response to William Golding’s novel Pincher Martin by a major contemporary composer, we moved on before the interval to the 1940s and Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor and Horn. Undoubtedly the great English composer before Britten was Edward Elgar and his Enigma Variations from 1899 concluded the evening, but not before Alexander Ling’s Minute Masterpiece, a young…