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York Theatre Royal – 18 May 2017.  Reviewed by Marcus Richardson

So I went to Romeo And Juliet on Tuesday and then I went to see Twelfth Night on Thursday. Two Shakespeare plays and one company, what I wasn’t prepared for was it was the same cast; I only found out when looking in the program for R+J and found it was the SAME cast. At first I was a bit cautious, but oh lord! Sometimes the talent of cast will amaze me beyond belief.  

The comedy which involves cross dressing and stockings alike will make anyone laugh.  With every actor taking on another role in twelfth night I would’ve expected some performances to be lacking in energy and finesse, but I loved to be proved wrong. It was just as much perfection as you would expect than any other show. The main character of Viola dresses up like a man and ends up causing a lot of chaos and confusion, played by Rebecca Lee who did a suburb job of creating and working with such a hilarious character and even more hilarious situation.

Another actor who stood out was also the actor who stood out in R+J, Lauryn Redding who played the drunkard Sir Toby Belch an extravagant man who likes to cause the drama. It would be rude of me not to mention Peter Dukes who played Malvolio the steward of Olivia a Countess, a snobbish character who then ends up doing both unspeakable and hilarious acts for love.

The Set had a lot of similarities with the R+J set with the same structure but different ways of using it and presenting it. I loved the use of this as it shows how much thought and creativity went into producing both of these shows. All the actors played instruments again, and I have to say I lost track of how many instruments each of the actors could play.

With it being set in the 1920s the music and dance style had to be jazz and I know as much as anyone, jazz is very hard to do, with so many instruments it can be easy to lose the rhythm and the power of music, but this wasn’t the case.

I personally enjoyed this show more than R+J but that’s because I love comedies, I found myself entertained throughout all of the play, I felt like it was fast paced and each of the actors had amazing moments on stage and worked together to create a Shakespeare comedy which can be a hard task.

Soho Theatre 16 May – 6 June.  Reviewed by Claire Roderick

Charlotte Josephine’s intense play should be put on the National Curriculum. Never mind the mechanics of sex, the dangers of digital technology are laid bare in this show. The impact of shares and comments made anonymously in front of keyboards and phones, venting vicious and misogynistic bile, is portrayed unflinchingly, making the audience question why people feel the need to shame or destroy someone they’ve never actually met.

Charlotte Josephine and Daniel Foxsmith portray 5 characters whose lives are affected by social media. A woman whose teenage sister is the victim of revenge porn, a father struggling with his daughter’s sex education and his addiction to porn, a shy girl who takes photos of herself and naively shares them, a woman who is ghosted by her boyfriend and decides to post revenge porn, and an IT guy whose uselessness and sexism leads to a social faux pas that snowballs into a campaign of rape threats from strangers on Twitter.

The need to share and belong, to not feel invisible, and to try to live up to the unreal lifestyles of celebrities is personified sensitively in the girl whose nude photos are shared online. There are no main characters named – creating an atmosphere conducive to the anonymous and disconnected world of the internet – and the fast pace of the interchanging stories does feel like you’re flicking idly between apps or windows keeping track of various feeds at once.

The IT guy gives a lecture on how to design apps, and Josephine includes some of the neurological research used when creating apps that focus on the reward centre of the brain and ensure our need to keep using the app. Scary stuff.

Both actors are phenomenal, working up a sweat as the pace of the narrative gallops at breakneck speed towards an exhausted and downbeat finale. Josephine gives each of her characters distinct body language and accent, and takes your breath away as the big sister erupting in fury and frustration. Foxsmith manages to keep your sympathy as the two, frankly useless, male characters, excelling at their more clueless moments, and Josephine cleverly gives the father a chance to explain why he turned to porn that is completely believable.

Director Edward Stambollouian keeps things tight and slick, and James Turner’s design is stunning in its simplicity – with the characters performing on a familiar red circle and flanked by cameras and light boxes.

Fun, fierce and frantic, Blush looks at the darker side of our digital world and mob mentality of cyber bullies with honesty, horror, humour and a whole lot of heart. Unmissable

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER AND PAUL TAYLOR MILLS ANNOUNCE

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AND FIRST WORK IN PROGRESS SERIES

“HEATHERS THE MUSICAL”, “DR FEELGOOD”, “JOYBUBBLES”, “BONNIE & CLYDE” AND “THE LITTLE BEASTS”

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paul Taylor Mills are delighted to announce details for The Other Palace Development Programme and first Work in Progress series until December 2017.

The Other Palace opened in February 2017 as a new home for musical theatre. The venue aims to discover, develop and reimagine musicals. The team want the spaces to be used to nurture the next generation of musicals, and the creatives behind them; celebrating the very best of the art form, from the established to the brand new.

The Other Palace’s Development Programme has been created to identify, explore, encourage and support musicals at every stage of their journey. The venue will be offering creatives space, time and resources; enabling them to explore and test their work, both privately and with an audience.

For audience members, The Other Palace’s Development Programme offers the opportunity to see new shows in their infancy and be part of the process, providing the creative team with invaluable feedback.

The Other Palace is proud to have partnered with Sli.do, a pioneering app which involves audiences in the conversation and provides an easy way to create interaction and solicit invaluable feedback, through live polls and surveys pre and post show.

Andrew Lloyd Webber said: “I want The Other Palace to become the London space where writers and producers can try out and perfect new work, offering audiences the opportunity to see and contribute to musicals in development. My hopes for The Other Palace are based on my experience with “School of Rock” in America.  I presented “School of Rock” as a staged workshop at the Gramercy Theatre, a rock venue in New York. By not premiering the musical in a finished form with elaborate sets, it gave the creative team complete flexibility to refine the material. It was a liberating experience for all of us.”

The Other Palace Artistic Director, Paul Taylor Mills added: “We’re delighted to be hosting a series of initiatives that truly nurture artists and their work, and allow our audience to be an important part of the action. Our Development Programme is at the heart of our vision to advance the musicals of tomorrow whilst reimagining the classics.”

In our first Work in Progress series we’re developing two brand new British musicals and rediscovering two American musicals. This breadth of style and the varying stages of the pieces cements our commitment to ensuring that The Other Palace really is the home for all things musical theatre in the UK.”

The Other Palace Development Programme contains a mix of networking events, opportunities to experiment, workshops and shows to assist musical creatives who would like to bring their creative vision to life.  We want to support initiatives at every stage of their journey – from discussing draft ideas with peers to holding workshops and residencies as a precursor to full productions.

Creatives Connect is an informal opportunity to meet fellow theatre-makers and share ideas in our destination bar. Have a drink, meet The Other Palace programming team and find out about the ways in which The Other Palace could support your project. Dates:

Wednesday 13 September, 8.30pm – 10.30pm

To register go to www.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions

Pitch Days offer artists and creative teams the chance to show 20 minutes of their work to Artistic Director Paul Taylor Mills and The Other Palace programming team. These days are aimed at people who prefer to share their work ‘live’. The panel will make recommendations about how best to move the project forward.  Dates:

Wednesday 24 May, 10.00am – 4.00pm. This date is now full.

Wednesday 11 October, 10.00am – 4.00pm

Please make submissions for Pitch Days via www.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions

Open Mic Nights (in association with The BRIT School) gives emerging artists from all disciplines the opportunity to perform completely new material for the first time. Open Mic Nights are for anyone who wants to try out new material in front of an audience. Dates:

Monday 25 September, 9.00pm – 10.30pm

The event is free to attend, and no tickets are required. If you want to participate contact us viawww.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions.

Musical Bites (in association with Mercury Musical Development) showcases four new musicals that are in the early stages of development. During the evening, 15 minutes of each piece will be performed to a paying audience, who are encouraged to provide feedback in order to advance the work to the next stage of their development process. The next Musical Bites will be:

Thursday 5 October, 8.00pm

Tickets are available at www.theotherpalace.co.uk. If you would like us to present your work, please submit your creative ideas at www.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions.

The Other Palace Work in Progress series offers productions a short residency at the venue which allows companies to create, develop and explore their work. These residencies will include a number of public sharings where audience feedback will be collected to inform the next stage of the project’s development. The ambition is that these productions will have a future life either at The Other Palace or beyond.

If you are a creative team that would like to apply for a residency, please submit your ideas atwww.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions.

Tickets are now on sale for the first Work in Progress series:

“Heathers The Musical” (Studio) 

Book, Music and Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe “(Legally Blonde” and “Bat Boy”) and Kevin Murphy (“Reefer Madness” and “Desperate Housewives”) and original production directed by Andy Fickman.

“Heathers The Musical” is the darkly delicious story of Veronica Sawyer, a brainy, beautiful teenage misfit who hustles her way into the most powerful and ruthless clique at Westerberg High: the Heathers.

Tuesday 30 May, 8.00pm

Thursday 1 June, 8.00pm

Friday 2 June, 8.00pm

Saturday 3 June, 3.00pm and 8.00pm

“Heathers the Musical” is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French Ltd.

“Dr Feelgood” (Studio)

Book and Lyrics by Alex Baranowski, Music and Lyrics David Watson, Directed by Sam Yates.

When the wife of an ambitious young doctor dies at the hands of the medical system he reveres, he sets himself along a vigilante-like path, using unorthodox, unethical medical practice to propel him towards the top of American society, but ends up disgraced, as nothing more than a high-class drug dealer.

Saturday 10 June, 8.00pm

“Joybubbles” (Studio)

Book and Lyrics by Carl Grose, Music & Lyrics by Alex Silverman, Directed by Raz Shaw.
Joe Engressia was born in 1949 completely blind but with perfect pitch. This gift enabled him to escape into theworld of the newly-established telephone network. But when this is taken from him, Joe decides to become five years old again and changes his name to Joybubbles. And boy, does he have some stories to tell…

Saturday 17 June, 8.00pm

“Bonnie & Clyde” (Studio)

Book by Ivan Menchell, Lyrics by Don Black, Music by Frank Wildhorn

When Bonnie and Clyde meet, their mutual cravings for excitement and fame immediately set them on a mission to chase their dreams. Their bold and reckless behaviour turns the young lovers’ thrilling adventure into a downward spiral, with the lovers resorting to robbery and murder to survive. As the infamous duo’s fame grows bigger, their inevitable end draws nearer.

Monday 26 June, 8.00pm

Thursday 29 June, 2.00pm

Friday 30 June, 8.00pm

Saturday 1 July, 3.00pm and 8.00pm

Performed by arrangement with Music Theatre International (Europe) Limited.

Perfect Pitch presents “The Little Beasts” (Theatre)

This dark and imaginatively comic musical follows a selfish little girl who runs away from home and discovers a magical menagerie filled with animals that used to be children before their naughtiness brought them to untimely ends. When the menagerie’s menacing proprietor tasks her to choose one animal to set free, she must decide which one, if any, has learned its lesson. But things are not what they seem, and is any child truly naughty?

A musical for aged 7+ with magical and innovative puppetry.

Friday 14 July, 11.00am and 7.30pm

Saturday 15 July, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

Thursday 20 July, 11.00am and 7.30pm

Friday 21 July; Saturday 22 July; Thursday 27 July; Friday 28 July and Saturday 29 July, all at 2.30pm and 7.30pm

Tickets for Work in Progress productions start at £7.50 and are available at www.theotherpalace.co.uk

General Submissions: For artistic teams that have creative visions to share, they should submit ideas to The Other Palace’s programming team, providing a short synopsis, information about the journey of the piece to date and two contrasting songs.  The team will review submissions on a regular basis, shortlisting the most promising, and then guiding the creative teams into the most relevant step of the Development Programme, from Pitch Days to Works in Progress.  More information about how to submit can be found on the website www.theotherpalace.co.uk/submissions.

LISTINGS

For more information about The Other Palace and further listings information about each of the initiatives and shows please visit: www.theotherpalace.co.uk

Tickets:

Online: www.theotherpalace.co.uk

Phone: 020 7087 7900

In person:  Box Office is open from 10.00am-6.30pm on show days and 10.00am – 6.00pm on non-show days.  Sundays and Bank Holidays may vary.

Address: 12 Palace St, Westminster, London SW1E 5JA

Ben Forster to reprise lead role in
Elf: The Musical for its Christmas 2017 season

At The Lowry Fri 24 November 2017 – Sun 14 January 2018

Casting has been announced for the upcoming production of Elf: The Musical which will run for a strictly limited season this Christmas.

TV and West End ‘Superstar’ Ben Forster will reprise the key role of Buddy the Elf, a role which he originated in the UK première in 2014 in Plymouth and continued to perform throughout the record-breaking 2015 Christmas run in the West End.

The West Ends leading man is currently performing the prestigious role of the Phantom of the Opera in London’s West End.

Ben was the first actor to take on the role of Buddy the Elf outside of the USA. A role which he garnered considerable critical acclaim for his portrayal of, receiving a nomination for Best Actor in a Musical at the What’s on Stage Awards.

Ben Forster won the 2012 ITV1 show Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s TV talent search for the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and went on to play the title role in the UK arena tour. Other recent theatre roles include starring as Brad Majors in the reinvented 40th anniversary production of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show and Magaldi in Evita at the Dominion Theatre.

Other confirmed cast members include Joe McGann as Walter and Jessica Martin as Emily Hobbs, roles they both performed during the London run.

Elf: The Musical returns to Theatre Royal Plymouth for one week only, from Sat 11 – Sat 18 November before heading to The Lowry, Salford. The Salford venue will host the show’s first Christmas season outside of London from Fri 24 November 2017 until Sun 14 January 2018.

Based on the beloved 2003 New Line Cinema hit starring Will Ferrell, Elf is the hilarious tale of Buddy, a young orphan child who mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts and is transported back to the North Pole. Unaware that he is actually human, Buddy’s enormous size and poor toy-making abilities cause him to face the truth. With Santa’s permission, Buddy embarks on a journey to New York City to find his birth father, discover his true identity, and help New York remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Michael Rose in association with the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin present the Theatre Royal Plymouth production of Elf at The Lowry.

Elf: The Musical features a book by Tony Award winners Thomas Meehan(Annie, The Producers, Hairspray) and Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone), with songs by Tony Award nominees Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin (The Wedding Singer).

The production will feature direction and choreography by Morgan Young (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), set design and costumes by Olivier Award winner Tim Goodchild, lighting design by Olivier Award winner Tim Lutkin, orchestrations by Doug Besterman, video design by Ian William Galloway and sound design by Avgoustos Psillas & Terry Jardine for Autograph.  Musical supervision will be by Stuart Morley.

Theatre Royal Bath Productions, Cambridge Arts Theatre and Rose Theatre Kingston present
LAURENCE FOX IN TOM STOPPARD’S THE REAL THING

• LAURENCE FOX TO STAR IN TOM STOPPARD’S THE REAL THING, DIRECTED BY STEPHEN UNWIN
• PRODUCTION WILL EMBARK ON LIMITED UK TOUR TO CO-PRODUCING VENUES CAMBRIDGE ARTS THEATRE, THEATRE ROYAL BATH AND ROSE THEATRE KINGSTON FROM WEDNESDAY 6 SEPTEMBER

Theatre Royal Bath Productions, Cambridge Arts Theatre and Rose Theatre Kingston are delighted to announce Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing will embark on a limited UK Tour from September, starring Laurence Fox and directed by Stephen Unwin. The production will open on Wednesday 6 September in Cambridge before touring to Bath and Kingston, with national press night on Wednesday 27 September at Theatre Royal Bath. Further tour dates to be announced.

The Real Thing was first staged in London’s West End in 1982 and subsequently transferred to Broadway where it went on to win multiple awards including the Tony Award for Best Play in 1994 and, 16 years later, the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Stoppard’s poignant classic offers an intellectual and entertaining examination of infidelity.

Henry is the smartest and sharpest playwright of his generation. His wife, Charlotte, an actress has been appearing in a play by Henry about a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse. Max, her leading man, is also married to an actress, Annie. When Henry’s affair with Annie threatens to destroy his own marriage, he realises life has started imitating art. But are they really in love? Is it the real thing?

Laurence Fox is best known for his role as DS James Hathaway for seven series of Lewis. Other television roles include A Room With A View and Wired with film credits including Gosford Parkand Becoming Jane. Fox’s theatre credits include Strangers on a Train (Gielgud Theatre) andOur Boys (Duchess Theatre).

Tom Stoppard is a multi-award winning playwright with many notable plays includingRosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, The Hard Problem andThe Invention of Love. Stoppard also co-wrote Shakespeare in Love which won the Academy Award for best screenplay.

Stephen Unwin founded English Touring Theatre (ETT) in 1993 prior to becoming Artistic Director of Rose Theatre Kingston for five years. Unwin’s credits for Theatre Royal Bath includeMoon Tiger starring Jane Asher and Present Laughter starring Samuel West and Phyllis Logan.

Listings

Cambridge Arts Theatre (Tickets on sale at 12 noon on Friday 19 May)
Wednesday 6 – Saturday 16 September 2017
Box Office: 01223 503 333
Website: www.cambridgeartstheatre.com
Performance schedule: Evenings 7.45pm, Thu & Sat mats 2.30pm (No performance Sunday 10 September)
Prices: £23 – £42

Theatre Royal Bath (Tickets on sale on Saturday 3 June)
Monday 18 – Saturday 30 September 2017
Box Office: 01225 448 844
Website: www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Performance schedule: Mon – Wed 7.30pm, Thu – Sat 8pm, Thu & Sat mats 2.30pm
Press Night: Wednesday 27 September, 7pm
Prices: £19.50 – £35.50

Rose Theatre Kingston (Tickets on sale at 10am on Friday 19 May)
Monday 2 – Saturday 14 October
Box Office: 020 8174 0090
Website: www.rosetheatrekingston.org
Performance schedule: Mon – Thu & Sat 7.30pm, Fri 8pm, Thu & Sat mats 2.30pm
Prices: £10 – £45

The Steamie

Written and Directed by Tony Roper

Songs by David Anderson

• FULL CAST ANNOUNCED FOR THE STEAMIE 30th ANNIVERSARY SCOTTISH TOUR

Opening in Kirkcaldy on Wednesday 6th September, 2017, the show will celebrate 30 years entertaining audience across Scotland with a tour which takes in His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, Dundee Rep, Ayr Gaiety, Eden Court Inverness, the Macrobert Arts Centre Stirling, Kings Theatre Glasgow and the Kings Theatre Edinburgh.

The 30th Anniversary touring cast brings together Mary McCusker (reprising her role as Mrs Culfeathers from the 2012 production), Steven McNicoll (wrote and starred in seven series of the BAFTA Nominated BBC sketch show Velvet Soup), Libby McArthur (Gina Rossi in River City),Carmen Pieraccini (Kelly-Marie Adams in River City) and Fiona Wood (also reprising her role as Doreen from the 2012 production).

The Steamie is a Scottish theatre classic; an ode to the hard working women of the 1950’s and to a bygone Glasgow. The young Doreen envisions a new future, while Mrs Culfeathers looks back to the past – the play is a snapshot of a society, of a time and a cross section of strong women, all rolled up in Roper’s hilarious comedy. As The Scotsman said in 2012, it is a“wonderful pattern of humour, pathos, and laugh-out-loud comic set-pieces.”

The play is written by Tony Roper and produced by Neil Laidlaw, both alumni of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Libby McArthur who plays Dolly is a well-known face having appeared in many popular Scottish television programmes. She is most famous for her role as Gina Hamilton in River City. In her time, she has had more than one Session with John Peel; ridden The Tube with Jools Holland and been usurped in her role as mother to her son by Liam Neeson and Jessica Lang in Rob-Roy. On television she has played wife to Ford Keirnan; daughter to Miriam Margoyles, Annie Ross and Johnny Beattie; sister to Andy Gray, Forbes Masson, and Bobby Carlyle and has even been taken advantage of by Stefan Dennis.

Mary McCusker is back reprising the role she loves from the 2012 production of the show, Mrs Culfeathers. She is best known for her work in films Turner & Hooch, The Client and Up. Her theatre credits include appearing in Miss Firecracker Contest, Al Franken & Tom Davis Show, Art of Self Defence and Twenty- Four Hours. In the 1990’s she switched from acting to coaching.

Steven McNicoll who stars as Andy wrote and starred in seven series of the BBC sketch showVelvet Soup on radio and later television, which earned him a BAFTA nomination. He is also known to viewers for playing the young Rab C Nesbitt in the series of the same name and appears regularly as Bra’s Jeff in Donald McLeary and Sanjeev Kohli’s Sony Award winning BBC Radio 4 sitcom Fags, Mags and Bags.

Carmen Pieraccini plays Magrit. She appeared briefly in the Gillies MacKinnon film Small Faces, the Saul Metzstein’s film Late Night Shopping, and the music video for the Belle and Sebastian single Jonathan David, before appearing in River City. She played Tina in the comedy seriesDear Green Place, opposite Ford Kiernan. On stage, she appeared as an army private in the 2008 play An Advert for the Army.

Fiona Wood could not get enough of The Steamie and has returned to the show as Doreen, after appearing in the 2012 production. She is best known for her roles in films Money Kills,Sketchland and has just wrapped up filming short film, The Last Supper.

This is the third time Neil Laidlaw has produced a tour of The Steamie, first in 2009 and then the 25th Anniversary Tour in 2012. Neil said “The Steamie is one of the greatest Scottish plays – I am extremely proud to have had the opportunity to have been associated with it in the past and am now even more excited to be producing this 30th Anniversary celebration. We’ve brought together a fantastic cast of actors combining Mary McCusker reprising her wonderful portrayal of Mrs Culfeathers and Fiona Wood’s Doreen, with fresh faces down The Steamie with Libby McArthur, Stephen McNicoll and Carmen Pieraccini. I can’t wait to get into the rehearsal room and see another cast have a ball getting to know this play.”

Tony Roper (Scottish actor, comedian, writer, playwright and director) says “In my late forties I sat down with a biro and a jotter and wrote my first ever play. 30 years have since passed andThe Steamie is still there, giving laughter and tears and touching that intangible something in an audience that has made it a favourite night out.”

Listings

Week commencing

• 4 September Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy www.onfife.com/venues/adam-smith-theatre
• 11 September Her Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen
• www.aberdeenperformingarts.com/venues/his-majestys-theatre
• 18 September Dundee Rep Theatre www.dundeerep.co.uk/
• 25 September Ayr Gaiety http://ayrgaiety.co.uk/
• 2 October Eden Court, Inverness www.eden-court.co.uk/
• 9 October Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling http://macrobertartscentre.org/
• 23 & 30 October King’s Theatre, Glasgow www.atgtickets.com/venues/kings-theatre/
• 6 November King’s Theatre, Edinburgh www.edtheatres.com/kings

Oriental City Restaurant, Leeds – 18 May 2017.  Reviewed by Dawn Smallwood

On the Wire’s From Shore to Shore originally came from a series of interviews with a wide range of people of Chinese birth and heritage. The stories developed into an inter-generational drama, written jointly by Mary Cooper and M W Sun, which led to a “work in progress” production back in 2015. Leeds’ Oriental City Restaurant could not be more fitting to host intimately this play, under the direction of David K S Tse, with its intimate ambience and thematic decor.

Over a delicious Chinese banquet meal the audience have the opportunity to listen to stories of three individuals who shares the same heritage but their journeys could not be any more different. The play begins when the characters “arrive” and are received by the waiting staff who doubled up as actors.

Cheung Wing (played by Jackie Lam) whose journey goes far back to Imperial China and before Japan invaded China during World War II begins proceedings. He shares his moving account about consuming chicken soup and finding his mother and how food mattered to him for hope and survival and settling in Leeds, he knows what its like “to be starving” and what it “means to be fed”.

Mei Lan (played by Yvonne Wan) recounts her life in Hong Kong where she lived with her grandmother while her parents worked in a takeaway in Leeds. She and her siblings had to help out with the duties in her grandmother’s apartment and when she moved back to Leeds she helped Mum out at the takeaway after school hours. According to Chinese clichés she was expected to do well at school and following adversaries in her life she found solace in the church.

The third character is Yi Di (played by Dandan Liu) who grew up the 1980s at the time when the one child policy was adapted in China. Her father was unhappy not to have a son and Yi Di’s life was impossibly pleasing her father with the expectation of being top of the class at school. With resistance and determination she was able to get a one way ticket to Leeds which she refers to as a “small city surrounded by hills”.

The play does explore themes of family honour, cultures, expectations, endurance and crucially hope combining with the relationship of food. Each story is parallel to the true stories shared by those originating from the motherland to their current home in Yorkshire. The intimate staging with its minimum use of props in the restaurant compliments the performance, tri-lingual dialogues between the performers, and the combined use of music including Chinese percussion effectively link the scenes together.

This is an excellent evening of storytelling which offers one to look into the Chinese community in Leeds and how its members’ life journeys celebrate the spirit of diversity and humanity. From Shore to Shore will now continue its national tour until the 10th June 2017 in York.

York Theatre Royal – 16 May 2017.  Reviewed by Marcus Richardson

Oh Romeo, oh Romeo… if you can’t tell what play this is already, then I think you’ve been living under a rock for the past 400 years. Now we all know the famous Classic tragedy of woe and love, some of us love it and some of us hate it with a passion. With most productions of Romeo And Juliet, directors and theatre creators find a way to modernise the play though use of setting and time period. Setting the play modern day with a gangesque feel is often done, but I don’t know how to describe the feel I got from the adaptation, but I can say that I loved it but I don’t know why. I find myself rarely thinking this, for me it stood out from the endless sea of Romeo and Juliet’s.

When you first walk into the main theatre the show had already begun with, actors on stage singing modern songs my regret here is that I was spending my time at the bar and not listening to the songs since they were strong singers with great musical talent playing a variety of instruments as well. When the play officially started we were given ‘Take Me To Church’, this really suited the aesthetic and really set the feel for the play. It would be hard not to talk about the actors who played the title roles, with Aruhan Galieva playing the 13 year old independent Juliet and Stuart Wilde taking on the role of Romeo a 17 year old who is constantly in love and devoted to it. These two were both exceptional and both very strong actors, but I found myself leaning towards two other actors; Victoria Blunt who played Benvolio was out of this world switching the gender of the role and also creating a relationship with her fellow actors on stage, the other actor was Lauryn Redding who played the nurse the role of the nurse offers a lot of comic relief throughout the play even to one of the saddest moments, I think she bought extra to the role with me finding standing out of the crowd with the other R+Js I’ve seen.

The stage was fairly brought to live by its set, but it was used with the countless scene changes in the play, bear with me here, we had a bar to the back of the stage and the ever so famous balcony, but we didn’t wait for scene changes at it snapped from scene to scene, with little hidden feature lending for great stage craft and I thank them for this since scene changes are something I mostly hate.

Now without a word of a doubt, I would say go and see this show, and I have to admit R+J isn’t for everyone and I think people overlook this play because I have to admit it is overdone. But that’s because it is a good play and in this instance a strong cast, I found myself entertained throughout the whole play and I’ve seen other productions before and this stood out by a mile, so drop the overdone excuse of not seeing it, and go see it.