Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Writer and Director: Thomas Carruthers Following its Northern premiere, Righton Productions takes Are you there Mother? to London as part of Camden Fringe. In this one person play, a struggling actor finds himself becoming a fake psychic to comfort a grieving woman who has lost her mother. The fakery continues to escalate, in an attempt to keep the woman happy, until things come to a big climax. Thomas Carruthers writes, directs and performs the play. As a writer, Carruthers balances comedy and emotion fairly well. The earlier scenes of the play boast plenty of laughs and by the end, the audience is moved…

Writer: Madeleine Carter Director: Vilma Kitula When Mercutio dies in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, he uses the opportunity to make a pun: “ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” In Madeleine Carter’s Mabel, Mercutio’s death is the starting gun for a melancholic meander through his memories – he is a grave man indeed, and more of a romantic than he lets on in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. This poetic production provides a deeper look into the psychology of this Elizabethan party animal, taking him into a modern context, and showing the extreme effort needed to maintain his cool…

Writer: Jake Baker Director: David Hardcastle “Masculinity is in crisis!” Jake Baker informs us at the start of his show. For the next hour Baker then explores what we have come to know as The Manosphere, seeking to understand how it came about and not just point a ‘woke’ finger and call it stupid. He succeeds with humility, heart and heaps of humour. It is quickly evident that the audience is in the presence of someone who is quite comfortable with their level of manliness. What for some could be construed as self-deprecation comes across as self-awareness and self-confidence. Electing…

Newcastle-based female comedy troupe Your Aunt Fanny were formed at Live Theatre and have spent years working the circuit with their wild, often surreal and frequently hilarious sketches. Now one of the members of the group is trying her hand at a solo act, enthusiastically presenting it at Live Theatre prior to heading up to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Emma Crowley-Bennett describes her Fanny Bleach persona as a “Geordie drag thing” which is immediately a little confusing and slightly misleading. Crowley-Bennett is clearly a talented performer with very little in the way of inhibitions, but her act does not fall into the standard drag artist category. Even…

Writer and Director: Shaun Wilson “Not another piece of absurdist theatre that tackles war as comedy,” laments one of the characters in World War Why. It’s one of many knowing nods to a tradition as old as storytelling in a new take of military satire. It takes a brave production to put war on stage. The history of drama, from Ancient Greece to the present day, is studded with shows about battle. Heroic saga to searing indictment, via angry satire, there isn’t much room to say anything new. So World War Why?, a new production from Northern School of Art…

The Emma Rice Company announces full casting for Rice’s adaption of Tristan & Yseult, marking the return of Kneehigh/Emma Rice’s original production. It was first seen on stage in 2003 and last seen in 2017. Leading the cast are John Leader and Nandi Bhebhe as Tristan and Yseult respectively. They are joined by Matthew Churcher as Frocin, Tom Fox as Morholt and Brangian, Jack Heydon as Love Spotter, Stephanie Hockley as Whitehands, Edward Rowe as King Mark and Nigel Sudarkasa as Love Spotter. In the band are Pat Moran, Stu Barker, Harry Miller, Philippa Hogg and, as alternate for New York run,…

As the current UK tour cast prepare to take SIX the Musical to China, a new cast has been announced to continue the UK and international tour. The new Queens are Sedona Sky (Catherine of Aragon), Eve Humphrey (Anne Boleyn), Billie Kerr (Jane Seymour), Tia Antoine-Charles (Anna of Cleves), Léa Desjacques (Katherine Howard) and Amena El-kindy (Catherine Parr). Joining the cast as Alternates are Rosie Itzel, Eve Parsons and Charlotte Anne Steen, with Super Swings Eve Knagg and Lara Vina Uzcatia. The cast are backed by the all-female band, The Ladies in Waiting, led by Musical Director Sara De Sanctis. Written by…

Writer: Olivia Hannah Director: Alex Mitchell Grace (Florence Odumosu) is in her late 20s and has just been diagnosed with cancer. Abbie (Madeleine MacMahon) is the estranged childhood best friend who crashes back into her life because she knows exactly what is coming for Abbie, having beaten it herself. Sh*t Life Crisis doesn’t pull it’s punches right from the very start, but it does tell their story via the medium of dark humour and karaoke. You’ll sing, you’ll bark with laughter, and you’ll probably sob a little bit too. Odumosu is immediately engaging as Grace, punctuating her passion and her determination…