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News: some good-looking non-London shows to consider

‘My hands are shaking you know. I haven’t been so keyed up about anything since I was the Virgin Mary.’

Sheffield Theatres announces their new production of Talent, written by Victoria Wood, at the Crucible Theatre from Wednesday 30 June to Saturday 24 July 2021. Cast in the play are: Richard Cant (The Country Wife), Daniel Crossley (Me and My Girl), Jamie-Rose Monk (Dick Whittington), Jonathon Ojinnaka, (Coronation Street), James Quinn (Democracy) and  Lucie Shorthouse  (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie).

Directing Talent is Paul Foster (Kiss Me, Kate). Originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, Talent tells the story of a young woman with dreams of showbiz glory. Continue reading “News: some good-looking non-London shows to consider”

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Review: Royal Court’s Living Newspaper #5

Edition #5 of the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper takes a more reflective approach to great effect

“Most people do it. Not me, I have a conscience”

The Royal Court’s Living Newspaper continues with edition #5 which feels a little less reactive to the headlines and a little more reflective on the state of the world as we find it today. It looks back, probing into how our history has shaped us but it also identifies the precipice of the current moment and how, more than ever, so very much is at stake. 

The quiet fury of Dalia Taha’s A Warning takes aim at Israeli border policies through the medium of books, Kayla Meikle’s devastatingly contained performance a real stand out. And Zia Ahmed’s elegiac scene/unscene finds a brutal poetry in its takedown of the systemic racism in the theatrical establishment, skewering good liberal intentions perfectly. Continue reading “Review: Royal Court’s Living Newspaper #5”

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News: writers and cast for Living Newspaper #5

Written by Zia Ahmed, Leo Butler, Guillermo Calderón, Nick Cassenbaum, E.V. Crowe, Maud Dromgoole, Nessah Muthy, Iman Qureshi, Marcelo Dos Santos, Nina Segal, Dalia Taha, Joel Tan and Maya Zbib.

Who has created our country’s past and who is shaping its future? Who gets to have their cake and eat it?

Edition 5 sets out to dismantle histories – be that personal or political – whilst finding allies in bookshop glances, questioning who is desperate for hygge comfort and looking to our comrades and weather reporters for the true future.

As we look back and forward, Edition 5 is a provocation to find joy in the cracks and the spaces left behind. Continue reading “News: writers and cast for Living Newspaper #5”

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TV Review: The White Princess

The TV adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novel restarts a little unsteadily with The White Princess

“The England we once knew has gone”

For whatever reason, it took four years for the Philippa Gregory TV adaptations to restart with The White Princess following on from The White Queen. And it is a series saved by the introduction of Michelle Fairley and Essie Davis as the feuding mothers of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, intent on relitigating the Wars of the Roses even as the marriage of their children was meant to have ended it.

A pre-Killing Eve Jodie Comer and Jacob Collins-Levy take on the roles of the couple forced together in the name of their country. With years of enmity between their houses and any number of horrific, murderous actions committed by them or in their names, it does require a fair bit of remembering your history lessons (or the first series) as so much is carried over. It does make you wonder a little why only one cast member (Caroline Goodall) was carried over from The White Queen. Continue reading “TV Review: The White Princess”

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UK theatre casting news – November update

Theatre Royal Bath will reopen on 3 December with a revised performance schedule for Oleanna and Copenhagen, the final two plays in the theatre’s Welcome Back Season.

David Mamet’s provocative  drama Oleanna, directed by Lucy Bailey will star Rosie Sheehy  and Jonathan Slinger, who replaces John Heffernan in the role of John. The play will now run in Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio from 3 December to 22 December and again from 4 January to 16 January 2021. Reduced capacity at the Ustinov Studio will allow for an audience of 60 persons per performance.

The November run of Michael Frayn’s multi award-winning  Copenhagen has been postponed until the new year when it will play Theatre Royal Bath’s Main House from 20 January to 6 February 2021.  Directed by Polly Findlay it will star Haydn Gwynne, Philip Arditti, and in a change to original billing of Michael Gould, Malcolm Sinclair. Continue reading “UK theatre casting news – November update”

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More September theatre news

SIX reunite, The Theatre Channel switches on, The Shows Go On return and casting is revealed in Bath

© Danny Kaan

The Reunion is the first stage+streaming concert performance by seven powerhouse vocalists who rose to fame as the original West End queens of the musical SIX: Aimie Atkinson, Alexia McIntosh, Grace Mouat, Jarneia Richard-Noel, Maiya Quansah-Breed, Millie O’Connell, and Natalie Paris. The show will be livestreamed by theatre platform Thespie but a lucky few will also be able to get tickets to see the concerts live on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th October.

Performances will be held in Oval Space, a spacious and well-ventilated East London venue that has been entirely reimagined for safe, seated music and theatre performances. The seating plan is entirely flexible which allows seating to be customised to the audience that books. Audiences book for themselves and their household or support bubble only (to a maximum of six), and Thespie’s technology determines a seat plan that ensures safe spacing between households and optimises use of the space. Continue reading “More September theatre news”

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TV Review: Black Earth Rising

A cast led by Michaela Coel, Noma Dumezweni, John Goodman and Lucian Msamati make Hugo Blick’s complex Black Earth Rising watchable if not quite essential

“That is why I made a deal like that”

A tricky one this. At this point, you know what you’re getting with a Hugo Blick drama (qv The Shadow Line, The Honorable Woman), weighty complex dramas with amazing casts tackling inscrutable global conspiracies. And Black Earth Rising is no different, as it puts the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath under the microscope, examining Western colonial and capitalist attitudes towards Africa along with the role of the Iinternational Criminal Court.

And with a cast led by Michaela Coel, Noma Dumezweni, Harriet Walter, John Goodman and Lucian Msamati to name just a few, it is naturally eminently watchable. Coel plays Kate Ashby, a young woman with a complicated relationship with her barrister mother Eve (Walter). Eve adopted Kate from Rwanda years back but her decision to take on a case prosecuting a Tutsi general who, after helping end the genocide, went on to commit war crimes in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, outrages Kate who is also Tutsi.
Continue reading “TV Review: Black Earth Rising”

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TV Review: Twenty Twelve (Series 2)

Despite an excellent Samuel Barnett, the second series of Twenty Twelve isn’t quite at the level of the first, though still very enjoyable

“I’m not from the sanitary world, I’m from Yorkshire”

Perhaps inevitably, the second series of Twenty Twelve doesn’t quite live up the revelatory quality of the first, the tinkering with the formula knocking the exact chemistry of the ensemble ever so slightly off-balance. Split into two (although you wouldn’t know it watching it now), the final episode ran just a couple of days before the Opening Ceremony of London 2012, and the show’s success was such that it made the move from BBC4 to BBC2.

In many ways, the recipe for John Morton’s mockumentary series didn’t change. The Olympic Deliverance Commission continued their hapless march towards the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games, battling their own ineptitude and institutitional intransigency as personal ambition sets up against religious rights, the Royal Family, the nation’s comparative lack of interest in women’s football and sportsmen’s innate lack of personality to name but a few. Continue reading “TV Review: Twenty Twelve (Series 2)”

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TV Review: Spooks – Code 9

Spooks – Code 9 is a spin-off that spins off too far, nowhere near deserving of the Spooks name

“Don’t make me look like a dickhead”

An absolutely baffling one this. Spooks – Code 9 was commissioned by the Beeb as a spin-off of the Spooks franchise that was aimed at the 16-24 demographic. Conventional wisdom dictates that a spin-off has at least some connection to its parent but for some reason, the decision was made to completely sever this new show, with no crossover with Spooks whatsoever.

Not only that, it is also set in an entirely different universe as this series is set in a UK that is reeling from a nuclear attack during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics Games. With London irradiated and most of its staff killed, MI5 has had to evacuate Thames House and set up regional field offices. Because the only way to justify setting a show in Leeds is to make London radioactive…(and even then they can’t keep away for the finale). Continue reading “TV Review: Spooks – Code 9”