Theatre and performance in Greater Manchester & other places.
Royal Exchange Young Company. 15 August 2018. Closed for the summer, and largely deserted, North Manchester's Abraham Moss School seems an unlikely substitute for the island setting of Shakespeare's The Tempest. There's something happening in the hall, but it's not clear what. Are we being asked our names at the door or is a register [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 20 - 22 July 2018. CO:LAB is the Royal Exchange's annual festival showcasing works-in-progress by "the next generation of North West theatre-makers". The weekend-long event is part of the theatre's Open Exchange talent development programme and it provides local artists with an opportunity to test out their work in front of a [...]
Altrincham Garrick Playhouse. 14 June 2018. "I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot". Time and Again Theatre company premiered Greyhounds as part of last year's Greater Manchester Fringe Festival. It's now heading to the Edinburgh Fringe in August. In advance of that, Manchester audiences had an [...]
The Carriageworks, Leeds. 22 June 2018. Roy Castleton's play On Behalf of The People begins as the Second World War comes to an end. Set in a Yorkshire mining town it views the early post-war period through the eyes of one local working class family. Soldier Tom Mason gets a hero's welcome from his mother [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 8 & 14 May 2018. Up go the lights. Five women doing their own thing. Dancing with a lampshade on their head, stroking a toy dog, playing the piano, conducting an imaginary orchestra or transfixed by a spinning chandelier. We're not in Kansas anymore, but then neither are we in an unnamed [...]
53two, Manchester. 9 May 2018. "It's just you and them, and the music". Dropping in on three different years, Loop begins in 1965 with a young woman leaving behind her frustrating life in London to start a new one in Manchester. Then, after eavesdropping on two teenagers falling in love in 1985, it all comes [...]
Bolton Octagon at Bolton Town Hall. 26 April 2018. Bolton Octagon's annual REVEAL Festival promises "original and exciting theatre" although it also offers the additional bonus of seeing performances in non-theatre venues across Bolton. So far I've perched on a bar stool to watch a performance in a pub and sat on a row of [...]
Bolton Octagon at the Venue Bar. 25 April 2018. Bolton Octagon's annual REVEAL Festival promises "original and exciting theatre" although it also offers the additional bonus of seeing performances in non-theatre venues across Bolton. So far I've perched on a bar stool to watch a performance in a pub and sat on a row of [...]
Royal Exchange, Manchester. 11 & 14 April 2018. A beat. Hear it. Making music, pulsing through the body and marking time. Beats can come together to make something bigger - a song, a crowd, a symphony, a city and a show. Press START Mixtape is a collection of beats, powered by the rhythms of young [...]
Contact Theatre at Alankar House of Saris, Manchester. 14 March 2018. Rani Moorthy's new play about a mother and son at odds over the future direction of their family's struggling sari business, is given an added layer of authenticity by being performed within a real life Rusholme sari shop. Rajesh (Ashraf Ejjbair) feels a strong [...]
Circles & Stalls 