Month: July 2015

Following the last-minute postponement of Sarah Cracknell’s City Varieties appearance on Sunday June 21^st (due to a throat infection) a rescheduled date of Sunday 26^th July has been confirmed.

All ticketholders will be contacted regarding the new date and anyone unable to attend will be offered a refund from point of purchase.

Sarah, known as the voice of Saint Etienne, has recently released her highly acclaimed second solo album, Red Kite, available from Cherry Red Records.

Sarah Cracknell is at City Varieties Music Hall on
Sunday 26th July at 7.30pm.

Tickets are still available and priced from £20.60

Book online at cityvarieties.co.uk or call box office on 0113 243 0808

This big, bold and beautiful musical comedy will begin its UK tour at Leicester’s Curve theatre on 9 September 2015 and will then tour to more than 25 venues across the UK, including a Christmas residency at Birmingham Alexandra Theatre in December 2015.

Hairspray will star Tony Maudsley (ITV1’s Benidorm) as Edna Turnblad, TV and stage actress and presenter Claire Sweeney (Educating Rita, Guys and Dolls) as Velma Von Tussle, Olivier Award nominated actor and much-loved Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan (BBC1 Tumble) as Wilbur Turnblad and British singer and West End performer Brenda Edwards (Chicago, We Will Rock You, The X Factor) as Motormouth Maybelle.

Freya Sutton will reprise the role of Tracy Turnblad alongside established musical theatre performerJon Tsouras (A Chorus Line) who will play the role of Corny Collins. Dex Lee (The Scottsboro Boys) will play Seaweed, Ashley Gilmour (Miss Saigon) will play Link Larkin, Lauren Stroud (Wicked) will play Amber, Monique Young (Top Hat) will play Penny, Karis Jack (Urinetown) will play Little Inez, Adam Price (Hairspray) will play Male Authority Figure, Tracey Penn (Made in Dagenham) will play Female Authority Figure and Layton Williams (Bad Education, Billy Elliot) will play Duane.

It’s Baltimore 1962, where Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with big hair and an even bigger heart, is on a mission to follow her dreams and dance her way onto national TV. Tracy’s audition makes her a local star and soon she is using her new-found fame to fight for equality, bagging local heartthrob Link Larkin along the way.

Hairspray is a musical based on the 1988 film of the same name which starred Divine and Ricki Lake by cult filmmaker John Waters. With music and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, Hairspray originally opened to rave reviews on Broadway in 2002 and subsequently won eight Tony Awards. The production opened in London at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2007 and won four Laurence Olivier Awards including Best New Musical. Proving to be an international success, Hairspray has also opened in South Africa, Japan, South Korea, China and Dubai. Following the musical’s phenomenal success on stage, a film of the musical was released in 2007 which starred John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer and James Marsden.

Hairspray is produced by Mark Goucher and Laurence Myers, Tom O’Connell for QNQ, Just for Laughs Theatricals, Gale King Productions and Curve theatre, Leicester.

Joan Armatrading is to perform at Darlington Civic Theatre on Thursday 23 July as part of her final major world tour.

Three times Grammy nominated, Brit award nominee and Ivor Novello winner, producer and musician Joan Armatrading MBE is recognised as one of the world’s leading singer / songwriter / guitarists.

This is a fantastic opportunity to see Joan perform songs spanning the whole of her career including Love and Affection, Willow, Drop the Pilot and Me Myself I.

Joan said “I will never retire but this will be the last major tour that I will undertake. For the first time these concerts will be me solo on stage playing the guitar and piano and singing. I want these concerts to be a special, lively, interactive one to one experience. I have absolutely enjoyed the last 42 years of performances but now, with my final major tour, I want to capture a unique memory for both myself and the audience.”

Joan Armatrading is at Darlington Civic Theatre on Thursday 23 July. Tickets* are £28.50 and £30.50.

*Includes £1 restoration levy

To book contact the Box Office on 01325 486 555 or visit www.darlingtoncivic.co.uk

Mark Benton and Noel Sullivan stopped off for a quick pic as they arrived at Leeds Grand Theatre yesterday (Tuesday 30^th June) for the opening of the West End Hit Show Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The pair are clearly enjoying each other’s comedic company – jostling for the camera, exchanging banter and jovially endorsing a Noel Sullivan album on sale at the theatre as part of the show’s merchandise.  “It’s great to be back in ‘Costa del Leeds’’ joked Sullivan as they stepped out into the heatwave on Briggate.

Based on the legendary 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Michael Caine and Steve Martin the comedy-musical is at Leeds Grand Theatre until this Saturday 4^th July.

Starring Michael Praed (Robin of Sherwood), Noel Sullivan (Hear’Say, We Will Rock You), Carly Stenson (Hollyoaks, Spamalot, Shrek) and Mark Benton (Waterloo Road, Doctor Who, Hairspray), audiences will be transported to the luxurious lap of the French Riviera where the decadent world of sophisticated conman Lawrence Jamieson (Praed) is set to come crashing down with the arrival of larger-than-life Freddy Benson (Sullivan) – a conman of an entirely different order. 

Soon realising the town ain’t big enough for the both of them, the two find themselves going head to head in the con of their lives, pulling out all of the stops in a bid for the affections of millionaire soap heiress Christine Colgate (Stenson).  Little do they know what they’ve let themselves in for.

Noel Sullivan was last in Leeds with We Will You Rock You also at The Grand. He said:

“Leeds Grand is such a beautiful theatre … I like playing up north because in places like Leeds people go out for a good time and you really feel the difference down south where I think people are a bit more reserved.”

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is at Leeds Grand Theatre until  Saturday 4^th July

Tickets are on sale now at £25

Book online at leedsgrandtheatre.com or call Box Office on 0844 848 2700

Civic Theatre, Darlington – 30 June 2015

Arnold Ridley’s Ghost Train arrives in Darlington this week in a tense thriller.

Telling the tale of a very mixed group of passengers reluctantly  spending the night in the bleak Fal Vale station in Cornwall because there is no train to the next stop, Truro, for nine hours.  Sam Hodgkin (Jeffrey Holland) is hugely-believable as the grumpy station master who regales them with spooky tales, with a warning that the place is haunted, and anyone who sees the ghost train will die.

Ben Roddy as Richard Winthrop and Corrinne Wicks as his wife Elsie excel as they argue their way towards a separation while Chris Sheridan and Sophie Powles are perfectly cast as newly weds Charles and Peggy Murdock.   Judy Buxton is the eccentric Miss Bourne, who has a parrot in a cage, and for someone supposed to be teetotal can knock back her spirits, and spends the majority of the play comatose on the table.  However,  Tom Butcher stealing most of the laughs as upper class twit Teddie Deakin, who seemingly pulled the communication cord as a joke but we learn that there’s more to him than the nitwit in waistcoat, loud tweeds and plus-fours jumping about like a jack in a box.

Liz Garland as Julia Price, along with David Janson (her brother Herbert Price)  and John Hester as Dr Sterling introduce a sinister note to the proceedings, while William Towler as a small but important part as police officer Jackson.

The waiting room set is simple yet effective, and there is excellent use of light to suggest the passing of trains outside, and of sound to convey the raging storm.  And the costumes, Wicks and Powles in particular, are glorious and beautiful.

To be honest, time has not been kind to some parts of The Ghost Train script and it’s interesting to consider how much of the phraseology which would have been commonplace 90 years ago, now sounds simply comical, creating far more laughter than would have originally been intended.  But the story has suspense and tension with more than one jump-out-of-your-seat moment, and a twist in the tale.  Its then such a shame that such a well written play seems to end so suddenly, as if Ridley ran out of time and idea’s.  An extra ten minutes and the ending could have been so much better.

In Darlington until Saturday 4th July