North East & Yorkshire Reviews

Composer: Gaetano Donizetti Libretto: Robin Norton-Hale (after Bardari) Musical Director: Paul McKenzie Director: Robin Norton-Hale Designer: Kate Lane Reviewer: Ron Simpson OperaUpClose, celebrating its 10th anniversary, began by staging La Boheme in a 60-seat venue above a pub. The company also uses non-theatrical spaces, in the case of the tour of Mary Queen of Scots many of them historic buildings. ...

Book: Peter Stone & Rupert Holmes Music & Lyrics: John Kander & Fred Ebb Director: Paul Foster Reviewer: Mark Clegg The easiest way to describe the concept of Curtains is that it is a cross between Kiss Me Kate and an Agatha Christie whodunnit (Kill Me Kate?). A murder investigation takes place backstage at a production of a western-themed musical ...

Writer: Nick Darke Director: Richard Avery Sound: Ray Williams Reviewer: Ron Simpson As a playwright Nick Darke, who died in 2005, was known for his work at the extremes of British theatrical life: the major national companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and small quirky or innovative companies such as the Victoria in Stoke and Kneehigh in his native ...

Writer: Winsome Pinnock Director: Amit Sharma Reviewer: Rich Jevons One Under consists of a tight and highly emotional script by Winsome Pinnock. Pinnock weaves a complex web of interwoven vignettes which raise as many questions about the characters’ reality as they answer. The short sharp shock treatment given is at times a tad confusing as we try to grasp who ...

Writer/Director: Joe O’Byrne Sound/Music: Justin Wetherill Lighting: David Heald Reviewer: Ron Simpson Hallowe’en at Whitby, home to the Dracula legend, should have been the perfect creepy setting for The Haunting of Blaine Manor, but at the half way stage, despite some dramatic sound effects and narration of supernatural events in England’s most haunted house, calm still reigned among the audience ...

Book and lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Director: Bartlett Sher Musical Director: Malcolm Forbes-Peckham Reviewer: Rob Atkinson It takes quite a show to get Yorkshire folk onto their feet and applauding enthusiastically, cheers and tears both in evidence, and all this for a revival of an old standard. But this production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and ...

Devised by Breach Theatre Director: Billy Barrett Dramaturg: Dorothy Allen-Pickard Set Designer: Luke W. Robson Costume Designer: Kitty Hawkins Reviewer: Ron Simpson After two award-filled years at the Edinburgh Fringe, It’s True, It’s True, It’s True has embarked on a seven-week UK tour of mostly one-nighters. Devised by the members of the cast, using verbatim material from 1612, and written finally by ...

Writer: William Schwenk Gilbert Composer: Arthur Sullivan Director: Jeff Clarke Musical Director: Michael Waldron Designer (Set): Graham Wynne Designer (Costume): Nigel Howard Reviewer: Ron Simpson In its 25 year history Opera della Luna has become celebrated for versions of comic operas and operettas, notably Gilbert and Sullivan, which reflect the originality and (sometimes) eccentricity of director Jeff Clarke. They are ...