Tag Archives: Sue Devaney

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:  Tom Wells Director: Chris Lawson Reviewer: Richard Hall Following the success of his debut production, Jumpers for Goalposts, the Coliseum’s Associate Director, Chris Lawson, closes the theatre’s winter season with another of Tom Wells’ award-winning plays The Kitchen Sink. Winner of the Critics’ Circle Award for most promising playwright in 2011 and the George Devine Award in 2012, The ...

Writer: Charles Dickens Adapter: Neil Duffield Director: Ben Occhipinti Reviewer: Jay Nuttall It may still be November but Christmas shows up and down the country are beginning to open and none are quite as Christmassy as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. With early evening performance times of seven o’clock and a running time of just under two hours, this production ...

Book and Lyrics: Bertolt Brecht Music: Kurt Weill and Elizabeth Hauptmann Director: David Thacker   Reviewer: Harriet Mallion Adapted from John Gay’s 18th-century ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera, Bertolt Brecht’s iconic play The Threepenny Opera traditionally offers a socialist critique to a struggling world. The latest production from The Octagon transforms the dominant themes of poverty and corruption into a ...

Writer: J.B Priestley Director: Barrie Rutter Reviewer: Carol Lovatt J B Priestley’s When We Are Married is a comic masterpiece and a wry observation on the joys and perils of that great institution, marriage.  Most famed for the classic An Inspector Calls, Priestly proved in his time that he was a maestro of wide ability in his capacity to dramatise ...

Writer: J B Priestley Music: Conrad Nelson Director: Barrie Rutter Reviewer: Janet Jepson Playwright J B Priestley was born in 1894 in Bradford, and although he left the city to go to war at the age of 19, he never forgot his native roots, drawing much of the social aspects and moral ideas of his plays from the West Riding ...

Actress Sue Devaney has become one of TVs most recognisable faces, with iconic roles in Dinnerladies, Casualty, Johnny Briggs and Coronation Street behind her. Devaney though also has an extensive stage career and is currently in rehearsal for J. B. Priestley’s When We Are Married for Northern Broadsides and York Theatre Royal. She spoke to Glen Pearce about the play ...

Writer: Philip Goulding Director: Kevin Shaw Reviewer: Donna Kelly 37 years after her death, Dame Gracie Fields’ extraordinary life story is brought to life in a brand-new stage production written for Oldham Coliseum and New Vic Theatre. The former mill girl from Rochdale rose to international fame in 1931 with Sally In Our Alley, the film which featured her signature ...