Brand new Indie musical How Soon Is Now? is set to embark on a UK tour this autumn. The musical tells a story of mates, music and magic – finding your place and finding yourself. It celebrates Northern voices and features a live soundtrack of iconic 90s Indie anthems from the likes of The Stone Roses, Radiohead and The Smiths. The show captures the high and lows, darkness and light of a big night out on New Year’s Eve. Bethan McLean plays Jean, a Welsh outsider, is stuck in a life that feels too small. In a 90s nightclub in Manchester, Jean…
Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East
The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East
The Yorkshire & North East team is under the editorship of Jacob Bush. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s global sensation Cats is currently enjoying a summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. The production will head out across the UK and Ireland on a major tour, produced by Michael Harrison for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals. Initial casting for the tour has now been announced. The UK and Ireland tour cast will include: Fin Adams (Alonzo), Kalisha Amaris (Old Deuteronomy), Carla Bertran (Electra and Co-Dance Captain), Elliot Broadfoot (Bustopher Jones and Gus), Grace Burrows (Offstage Swing), Matthew Caputo (Skimbleshanks), Josie Chambers-Sims (Syllabub), Brianna Craig (Rumpleteazer), Katie Dunsden (Bombalurina), Joshua Samuel-Freeman (Tumblebrutus), Regan Garcia (Pouncival), Aaron Jenkins (Offstage…
This Christmas, the New Theatre Royal in Lincoln will present Beauty and the Beast as their annual family pantomime. The is Lincoln’s longest running pantomime and promises a classic yet revitalised story full of humour, heart and a talented company of actors, who have now been revealed. Olympic medallist and Strictly Come Dancing winner Louis Smith MBE returns to the New Theatre Royal Lincoln pantomime in the role of Flash Hugo. This marks his fourth pantomime at the theatre. Also returning is Lincoln’s dearest dame Alex Singh as Mrs Tallulah Potts. This year will be Singh’s fifth pantomime in Lincoln. Shane Tyler also returns…
Principal casting has been announced for Newcastle Theatre Royal’s pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. The spectacular new production will be written and directed by Michael Harrison. A number of Newcastle panto favourites will return for the production. Danny Adams and Clive Webb will star as Jack Trott and Farmer Trott, alongside Chris Hayward as Dame Trott. Joe McElderry, winner of Best Magical Being at The Pantomime Awards 2026, will play the Spirit of the Beans. Mick Potts plays Pat the Cow in what will be his 15th pantomime at Newcastle Theatre Royal and Wayne Smith returns to the Theatre Royal to…
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…