Author: The Reviews Hub - Yorkshire & North East

Opera North’s programme took a rare dip into the jazz of the 1920s and 1930s with the appearance of The Easy Rollers. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of their founding in Manchester (and with a cake to prove it), they promised “1920s swing”, but actually produced something rather more ambitious, with a setting of a Langston Hughes poem perhaps the most striking example of departing from their safety zone. Similarly the arrangements were unfailingly clever. The band’s spell on the cabaret circuit showed in the splendid banner behind the band and the precise arrangements and disciplined playing, though some of the…

Conductor: Garry Walker Soloist: Alexander Gavrylyuk This was another of Opera North’s ingenious concert programmes linking the various pieces in some way. This time it was four pieces that used music of the past as a basis for something new. Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Thomas Ades’ Three Studies from Couperin were self-explanatory. This left Brahms to open and close the concert with his joyous Academic Festival Overture which utilises student drinking songs including Gaudeamus igitur (dating back to the 13th century) and his mighty Fourth Symphony which concludes with a modern version of the old Baroque…

Improv comedy is alive and well in York, with different formats available and troupes who perform with more or less regularity across the city. Tonight’s offering from Right Here, Right Now took on a decidedly Shakespearean theme, as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival running from 21st April to 3rd May. The Bard’s Birthday Bash was only very loosely Shakespeare themed to be fair, with some games more tenuously linked than others, but that really didn’t matter. Living up to it’s website description, the Bash was funny, foolish, fit for family audiences, and it really did make it up…

Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara are incredible dancers. But then Strictly fans – who surely made up 95 per cent of the audience at Gateshead’s Glasshouse last night – already know that. From the moment they came on stage the husband and wife team’s feet seemed to barely touch the floor in their romantic first number Night & Day. Janette entered with a graceful sashay and that super shiny dark bob. Aljaž appeared with his trademark wide smile and twinkle which became a gentle wink at the audience. They have real star quality and exude warmth and joy. Those who…

Writer and Director: Gareth Durasow A rack of suit jackets stands between a desk and two mannequins. A bespectacled man peers out through it as the audience file in. This is the first introduction to John Taylor, the youngest master tailor in England. John Taylor junior that is, John Taylor senior has been dead for a while. Not that that stops him… Set in a struggling Northern tailor’s shop, The Tailor’s Ghost is a haunting exploration of a father-son relationship, the expectations we have of ourselves, and the burdens our parents can put upon us with their judgement and actions.…

Based on the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Adapted from the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen Director and Choreographer: Matthew Bourne Composer: Bernard Herrmann “There really is nothing in the world that can be compared to red shoes” – Hans Christian Andersen From a fairytale warning about the sin of vanity, through a film about the intense love of performance, to this culmination of a ballet about ballet, The Red Shoes is an iconic story in the traditional sense of the word. It seems unthinkable that it took until 2016 for Matthew Bourne, the current king of dance,…

Directed, written and produced by Ed Gamester Norse mythology and wrestling – when you think about it, it’s a wonder that it hasn’t been done before really. Far more brutal than the Greeks, and far grittier than the Romans, if there was ever a batch of stories about gods that deserved the WWE treatment it’s this one. A whirlwind whip through the timeline, Mythos: Ragnarök starts with the meeting of Loki (Ed Gamester) and Odin (Howard Drake), defying the prophecy that should fire meet ice the world will end. Together they defeat Odin’s father and form Asgard, then set about…

On Sunday 19 April, the winners of The Pantomime Awards 2026, staged in partnership with Trafalgar Entertainment and ATG Entertainment (ATGE), were announced by the UK Pantomime Association at a star-studded ceremony at Wycombe Swan, presented by Vernon Kay. The Special Recognition Awards, which celebrate productions and individuals representing the values that the Association seeks to promote, were presented to: Terry Parsons who received the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pantomime. Terry is a designer whose imaginative and iconic work, from Cinderella with Stanley Baxter to Mother Goose with Danny La Rue and Dick Whittington with Barbara Windsor, has shaped…