Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Writers and Directors: Julie McNamara and Hassan Mahamdallie Footage of real women relating their personal experiences of racial prejudice opens the show, with captions.  An imagined commentary follows as to possible consequences of the situation, filmed like a news commentary. The first physical scene is Detective Shade (Deni Francis) being brainwashed by Doctor Emmet (Lottie Bell). Shade is ordered to find the killer of Aileen Burnett (Lottie Bell) found murdered in her flat. Burnett is outcast for having married a ‘black’ man; two of their children are dead but the state wishes to track down the other two, this is…

Writers: Derren Brown, Andy Nyman and Andrew O’Connor Directors: Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman This review cannot tell you anything about the show you are going to see, as Derren Brown very politely asks his audience at the end of Showman not to tell anyone a single thing they have seen that night. And if Derren Brown tells you to do or not do something, you obey. Let’s face it, it’s kind of what he is famous for… So, speaking generally, the audience enter to a stage that could easily be reflecting a spooky stately home, or a Victorian psychiatric…

Opera North’s programming for the Howard Assembly Room returned to the classical with this recital by Andreas Haefliger which was challenging, technically brilliant, short (just over an hour and a half including interval) and perhaps a little puzzling. Haefliger, a noted Beethoven interpreter, performs and records his sonatas in the company of interesting and different piano pieces – and on the evidence of the Howard Assembly Room recital it’s difficult to believe that this works totally. The Beethoven in this case was the Piano Sonata, Beethoven’s final one and unusual in many ways, in particular, its form, two movements only,…

Staging Director: Barry Clark Conductor: Martin Handley If you put together eight operatic soloists including several veteran Savoyards and an orchestra of 26 under the accomplished baton of Martin Handley and present an evening of Gilbert and Sullivan favourites, you’re going to get a good show. Disappointingly A Gala Celebration of Gilbert and Sullivan is that and no more, possibly because this is the start of a short tour and things aren’t quite bedded in. The show was introduced by Barry Clark and Matthew Siveter, very amiably, but, unless my ears deceived me, things got a bit confused in the…

Curator: Akeim Toussaint Buck Radical Visions is born out of Akeim Toussaint Buck’s wild card programme at Sadlers Wells in January 2022. It gathers people together to experience live and contemporary work exploring race, ancestry and power, and showcases work from artists from global majority backgrounds. The evening opens with live music from the “in-house band” and food provided by Walla Dolla. The plant based Caribbean food is delicious and highly recommended. Journey to Love by Gerrard Martin Dance is then presented in the theatre space. This duet performed by Alecsander Nilsson and Gerrard Martin himself is a self-reflective journey…

Writer: Andrea Dunbar Director: Andrew Ashley Andrea Dunbar’s fierce and funny play has, in a sense, been overtaken by events. The passing of time gives a different perspective on the Thatcher years: we are less likely to be amused by the effects of deprivation. Dunbar’s wayward life-style and sad early death tend to overshadow her work. Most of all, the hint is there in the montage of 1980s images that precedes the play. Among the innocence of Grange Hill and Hi-de-Hi there it is – a Jim’ll Fix it badge! Quite simply we are much more aware of the sexual…

Writer: Virginia Woolf Adapter: Rebecca Vaughan The award-winning Dyad Productions return to the York Theatre Royal with their latest offering, a twenty-first century take on Virginia Woolf’s celebrated pre-TED talk. Here, actor Rebecca Vaughan performs Woolf’s 1928 exploration of the impact of poverty and sexual inequality on intellectual freedom and creativity. The dialogue is colourful, as crisp as an autumnal morning. Vaughan lectures her listeners with an often humorous case study on women and literature. Quintessentially British but with an air of maddening charm, she delivers this one act monologue with a gutsy intelligence. The audience in the packed out…

Writer: Jane Mclauchlan Director: Mike Friend and Adrian Rawlins Gladys and Alfie lead ordinary lives. Believable and relatable, they make idle chit chat glibly, as couples do, as if they had all the time in the world. The start of the play is mundane, the writing somewhat hum-drum and one wonders where this story is going. It’s only as the drama plays out you realise this is the intention. Jane Mclauchlan writes a brilliant and deeply moving play, the character studies being at the centre of the action. With solid support from Andrew Dunn and Candida Gubbins, the real star…