Tag Archives: Oldham Coliseum

Writer: Moira Buffini Director: Jo Newman Reviewer: Sam Lowe It is an eye-catching title, Handbagged. Meaning, a woman who verbally attacks a person or idea ruthlessly and forcefully. Margaret Thatcher was labelled “The Iron Lady”, and appeared to always speak her mind and even be pugnacious. Tonight’s comedy play is about women in power. This is an Oldham Coliseum Theatre, ...

After twenty years of working at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, Sarah Frankcom has announced that she is stepping down as the theatre’s Artistic Director. Frankcom joined the Company as Literary Manager in 1998; ten years later she was made Joint Artistic Director and in 2014 took up her current position as sole Artistic Director. Frankcom is leaving the Royal Exchange ...

Writer: Fine Time Fontayne and Kevin Shaw Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Matthew Forrest The Oldham Coliseum is garnering quite the reputation for putting on great productions and this year’s pantomime Cinderella is no exception. This is an absolute treat for kids from 6 to 86, that will have them grinning like Cheshire cats! It is a tale we all know and ...

Writer: Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding Director: Noreen Kershaw Reviewer: Lizz Clark The Brontë sisters are an unimpeachable part of the British literary canon, their works echoing down the centuries. But there is also a reverent sense of mythology surrounding their own lives – three imaginative young women sequestered in a vicarage on the blasted moors of West Yorkshire. As ...

Writer: Lucy Prebble Director: Jake Murray Reviewer: May Mellstrom ‘Why are we still tied to the notion of the sane and insane? Why not call ourselves the insane and the ‘not insane at the moment’?’  With a growing recognition of the prevalence of depression and mental health problems throughout society, Lucy Prebble’s award-winning play The Effect has become even more ...

Writer: Ian Kershaw Director: Amanda Huxtable Reviewer: May Mellstrom Asked to write a ‘state of the nation play’ for Oldham Coliseum, playwright Ian Kershaw has chosen to look to the past in order to comment on the present.  Not the recent past, nor the local, instead, telling the story of the so-called ‘Bread & Roses Strike’ of 1912 in Lawrence, ...

Writer: Compton Mackenzie Adapted by: Philip Goulding Director: Kevin Shaw Designer: Patrick Connellan Reviewer: Ron Simpson Oldham Coliseum’s touring production of Whisky Galore is based on at least three promising ideas. Unfortunately, in Philip Goulding’s stylish, but dramatically inert, script and Kevin Shaw’s oddly conservative direction, none comes to fruition. Indeed sometimes the intentions seem to conflict with each other. ...

Writer: John Godber Director: Chris Lawson Reviewer: Iain Sykes Over thirty years after its inception in the rugby league heartland of Hull, John Godber’s comedy Up’n’Under is as sharp as ever in another hotspot of that particular sport. This Oldham Coliseum production has the unusual aspect of the Oldham audience cheering for a group of Yorkshire lads rather than the ...