Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Writer: Shelagh Stephenson Director: Karen Traynor Shelagh Stephenson was born in Tynemouth and, whilst creating work that has been produced both nationally and abroad, has a long-standing relationship with Live Theatre. Astell & Woolf is the third play in her Cullercoats Trilogy to be produced there, following A Northern Odyssey and Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing. The play is set in a bleak, characterless waiting room in the afterlife, where Mary Astell, a Newcastle born writer and philosopher from the late 17th century, often described as the first feminist, is shackled by a rope to an exit. We are meant…

Writer: Malory Blackman Adapter: Sabrina Mahfouz Director: Esther Richardson Noughts and Crosses is one of those books that defines a generation. First published 25 years ago, it would be hard to find a millennial adult today who hasn’t read it. It was adapted by the RSC in 2007, and again in 2019 by Pilot Theatre. The 2007 show is a straight adaptation. The 2019 show is a little more abstract. The 2026 tour unfortunately uses the latter script. Sephy Hadley (Brianna Douglas) is a Cross, the black skinned leaders of society and the upper class. Her best friend Callum McGregor…

Writers: John Cleese and Connie Booth Adapter: John Cleese Director: Caroline Jay Ranger Fawlty Towers first aired on BBC Two in September 1975, running for just twelve episodes across two series before its creators called time. Written by John Cleese and his then-wife Connie Booth, it followed Basil Fawlty, a desperately snobbish hotel owner who is perpetually at war with his wife Sybil. Through the series the audience sees his guests, his catastrophic incompetence and the antics of the hapless waiter Manuel and unflappable chambermaid Polly. It is routinely cited as one of the greatest British sitcoms ever made, and…

Ahead of their upcoming performances of their new play How to be the Perfect Couple at Otley Courthouse and Buxton Fringe, we spoke to real-life married couple Jon and Katie Rand of Randmade Productions about the play and what it’s like working together as a married couple. Can you tell us what How to be the Perfect Couple is about? Jon: It’s a comedy featuring married couple, Doctor Veronica and Professor Robert Stenk – two renowned marriage experts, who are delivering a lecture on how to have the perfect relationship while their own falls apart spectacularly, live on stage. Where did the idea for How to…

Opera North has announced that leading soprano Katie Bird and star of stage screen Edward Bennett will star as Maria and Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music this summer at Leeds Grand Theatre. Bennett is an RSC Associate Artist whilst Bird is part of the Chorus of Opera North. Bird was seen as Eliza Doolittle in 2024’s My Fair Lady, a co-production between Opera North and Leeds Playhouse. Bennett’s recent TV appearances include Lockerbie, A Search for Truth, SAS: Rogue Heroes and Bridgerton, whilst his stage work includes A Man for All Seasons, Breaking the Code and numerous Shakespeare productions with the RSC. Several roles will be taken on…

Writer: Mohit Mathur Director: Phil Willmot Mohit Mathur plays the only part – aspiring influencer Uday Kumar – in his pertinent and frequently amusing play about the difference between the UK seen from abroad and witnessed first-hand. It is perhaps not as surprising as the publicity would have us believe: after all we all have experience of Indian call centres and only the most unimaginative could believe that the UK welcomes immigrants with open arms and no red tape. Mathur skilfully portrays the many aspects of the character of Uday who leaves India and the call centre for the glories…

Writer: Eugene O’Neill Director: Jake Murray Eugene O’Neill was a towering figure in American drama. Harnessing the form of dramatic realism, so often associated with Chekhov, he wrote over thirty plays, winning a total of four Pulitzer Prizes over his long career. Long Day’s Journey Into Night is his most autobiographical piece, with the thinnest of veils thrown over his own family, so much so that he insisted it not be performed until 25 years after his death in 1954. In fact, it was performed only three years later, winning the Tony for best play and the Pulitzer Prize. It…

Music: Alan Menken   Book  and Lyrics: Howard Ashman  Based on the Roger Corman Film with Screenplay by Charles Griffith  Director: Sarah Brigham Before they helped revitalise Disney feature animation by writing the songs for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken collaborated on a bizarre little Off-Off-Broadway musical based on a super low-budget schlock horror movie. In the intervening 44 years, Little Shop of Horrors has become a phenomenon with several (On) Broadway and West End productions, as well as countless other tours and amateur productions all over the world, as well as the wonderful 1986 movie version. A Faustian tale of a lowly…