North East & Yorkshire

Writer: Helen Mort Director: James Beale Reviewer: Dawn Smallwood Proper Job Theatre Company and Halifax’s Chapel Arts Centre, in partnership, are bringing Medusa on tour during autumn 2017 including a stop at Leeds’ Carriageworks Theatre.  Medusa forms the second part of a trilogy of plays about mythical monsters.   Following the premiere of Nosferatu in 2015 it is only fitting for ...

Writer: Charles Dickens/M.R. James Adapter: Simon Corble/Nobby Dimon Director: Vivienne Garnett Reviewer: Ron Simpson What North Country Theatre does is good old-fashioned barnstorming, not there are any actual barns on their astonishing tour of nearly 50 venues, only one of them for more than one performance. Most are village halls, there are a few theatres and arts centres and a ...

Halloween hit Huddersfield early this weekend, attracting ghosts and ghoulies and killer clowns galore into the Lawrence Batley Theatre for a Spooktacular take over by the paranormal. A mixture of regularly repeated short plays and walkabout experiences supported two singular main stage events, with a much-appreciated pie and peas supper available to the wandering fancy dress-clad audience. The main stage ...

Performers: The Gavin Bryars Ensemble Reviewer: Ron Simpson Nothing like the Sun was commissioned by Opera North and the Royal Shakespeare Company some ten years ago. Now the Gavin Bryars Ensemble has brought his song-cycle based on Shakespeare’s sonnets to the Howard Assembly Room. As it runs to about 50 minutes, it is usually supplemented by other works. In its ...

Writer: Charles Dickens Adaptor: Olivia Race Directors: Olivia Race, Samuel McKay Composer: Robert Collins Musical Director: Claire-Marie Seddon Reviewer: Ron Simpson Olivia Race’s concept for Front Room Productions is imaginative and engaging. Oliver Twist is acted out in Leeds’ Kirkgate Market (Edwardian, not Victorian, but with a suitable period feel), an audience of 40 promenading through various locations in the ...

Writer/Director: Lucy Campbell Designer: Laura Ann Price Dance Artist: Vanessa Grasse Reviewer: Ron Simpson Huddersfield-based Dark Horse Theatre offers training courses in theatre to adults with learning disabilities and helps some of them to become professional actors. With You Have Been Watching, which ended its short Yorkshire tour at Scarborough, the company has been able to field a full cast ...

Devised by: The Paper Birds Co-Directors: Jemma McDonnell, Kylie Walsh Projection, Video & Sound: The Media Workshop Reviewer: Ron Simpson An audience of up to eight people sits in a conventionally comfortable caravan while the rain beats on the roof (at least it did on the first night in Harrogate) and a pleasantly chatty young woman hands round biscuits and ...

Writer: Agatha Christie Adaptor: Leslie Darbon Director/Designer: Michael Lunney Reviewer: Ron Simpson The problems with Agatha Christie plays are mainly a matter of balancing plot and people and presenting an archaic Englishness without too much stuffiness or implied chauvinism. Christie herself could do this with a suitably light touch between the dramatic revelations, but in Middle Ground Theatre’s production Leslie ...