Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Writer: James Graham Director: Rupert Goold This was, as they say, a play of two halves, the second much better despite a rush through the closing events, hardly surprising as they hadn’t even happened when James Graham first completed the play. The first half is wonderfully energetic in places, Rupert Goold’s direction a masterly deployment of a cast of 23, some playing as many as five parts. However, the tone fluctuates between serious and caricature. The sound played over the scene changes could better be described as a noise: as the evening wears on, the ear become accustomed to explosive…

Writer: Torben Betts Director: Philip Franks Have you ever wanted to see a soap opera about gangsters, live on stage? Well, Murder at Midnight has you covered. It all starts in three rooms of a modern house in the East End of London, where two police officers (Bella Farr and Andy McLeod) are investigating a crime scene. They clean up as they talk through the deaths, and then we’re cleverly back in time and meeting OAP Shirely Drinkwater (Susie Blake) and her carer Christina (Iryna Poplavska). It’s New Years Eve, and Shirley’s son Jonny ‘The Cyclops’ Drinkwater (Jason Durr), a…

Guitarist Tom Ollendorff’s rise has been meteoric: two years ago he brought out his first CD, now he visits Leeds to celebrate his second as part of a world tour of monumental proportions. Only four of 30-plus dates are in the UK; the rest take him to Finland, France, Italy and Germany, plus such distant countries as China, South Korea and Australia. Not only that, but on this leg of the tour he has the services, alongside his excellent regular bassist Conor Chaplin, of jazz legend Jeff Ballard who, having played with the likes of Ray Charles and Chick Corea,…

Original Director: Phyllida Lloyd Revival Director: James Hurley What is it about a story of love and loss and struggling artists that retains its constant appeal? Revival director James Hurley has ensured that Opera North’s La Boheme, originally directed by Phyllida Lloyd, is as relevant and engaging as in its first iteration at the end of the 19th century. The notion that artists struggle – for both money and recognition – is enduring and strangely romantic – to suffer for one’s art. Opening in a Parisian garret, splattered with paint, with a filthy, empty fridge and an ill-stoked stove, four…

Reviewed as part of the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festivals 2025. Helen Lederer has been a familiar face in British comedy since the 1980s. Starting out as a stand up at The Comedy Store in London, she quickly started getting parts in her contemporaries’ TV shows, most notably playing Catriona in Absolutely Fabulous, a role she is still instantly recognisable from even now, as well as supporting roles in French and Saunders, Bottom and Naked Video. She was one of the first female stand-up comedians to feature on ITV’s Saturday Night Live, and she has trod the boards in a number…

Reviewed as part of the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival 2025. Alex Partridge founded both UniLad and LadBible, two popular news and viral entertainment websites primarily aimed at young adults, in his early 20s, not long before dropping out of university. At 34 he was diagnosed with ADHD, which apparently explained a lot. Now a neurodivergence advocate aiming to spread a message of self-awareness, acceptance and growth, he hosts the podcast ADHD Chatter, where he speaks to experts and celebrities about living with ADHD, and which boasts an impressive 4.9 star rating on Spotify. And he recently released his second book…

Reviewed as part of the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival 2025 Your reviewer has to admit that she arrived at this talk knowing nothing about the subject except that it was something to do with spies in World War Two. She left both entertained and well informed. The SOE (Special Operations Executive) was a British organisation formed in 1940 with the goal of helping to bring down the Nazis, using sabotage and subversion, aiding local resistance groups – or in the words of speaker Dr Kate Vigurs “to set Europe ablaze”. In her book Mission Europe: The Ordinary Women Who Did…

Writer: Jeremy Fletcher Co-Directors: Marcus Bazley, Will Holyhead In 2019 the village of Fishlake, near Doncaster, suffered devastating floods, with many families temporarily homeless and many properties devastated. Later meetings of villagers shared their memories of the floods until they were refined down and assembled into a play by Jeremy Fletcher, a Fishlake resident whose home was flooded. Fletcher happens to be the co-founder of Sheepish Productions who have now brought the play into Cast for three performances, followed by two more in the locality. It’s a comparatively simple arrangement of six actors taking one main part each and various…