Reviews

Date reviewed: 1 May 2009
Venue: York Theatre Royal

In cast lists of Twelfth Night Curio is one of two gentlemen attending on Duke Orsino and Fabian a member of Olivia’s household, Curio barely defined as a character and Fabian so ambiguous that directors constantly redefine his role: many years ago, at the old Leeds Playhouse, he became an icecream salesman! At York Theatre Royal, however, they play a major part in creating the style of the production as, armed with flute and violin, they come close to replacing Feste as the troubadour(s) linking the palaces of Duke and Countess.

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Date revieved: 28 April 2009
Venue: Hull Truck Theatre

Funny Turns is a well chosen welcome to Hull Truck’s splendid new premises on Ferensway. John Godber’s new play is very much within the company’s tradition: people on hard times in Hull find their lives transformed Cinderella-style, but by their own boldness rather than some fairy godmother (though Funny Turns boasts a sort of fairy godmother, but he’s a large, hairy roadie!). The doubling of parts, the strong sense of ensemble and the short blackout scenes carry on the old Spring Street ways. On the other hand, it’s doubtful if the Spring Street stage could have accommodated a speaking chorus of eight (male) and a dance troupe of the same size (female), both from the Truck Youth Theatre – a neat way of celebrating both the spacious new venue and the future of the company.

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News

Gareth Tudor Price has today asked Hull City fans to donate their club memorabilia to Hull Truck ahead of this season’s revival of Confessions of a City Supporter by Alan Plater. Truck’s artistic director has appealed to followers of The Tigers to lend items such as club shirts from past seasons, scarves, flags, caps and rosettes to the company before the updated version of the play, which recounts the club’s route to its first ever season in the top flight of English football, opens on 21 May.

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Hull Truck gave the first access to its new home yesterday at the building’s press launch. Designed by architect Wright and Wright, the £15m structure incorporates two auditoria – a 440-seat main house to replace the 290-seat Spring Street theatre and a new 134-seat studio theatre. The new build, which opens on 23 April, also encompasses two café-bars that will open all day and an education facility.

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Interviews

In the second part of an extended interview, Chris Monks tells Simon Walker about his first production as artistic director of the SJT

Chris Monks’ choice of Moonlight and Magnolias for the opening production of his reign as artistic director of Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre is soaked in meaning. “Because it’s based around Gone with the Wind, I thought, ‘Here’s something to tap into, because this theatre used to be a cinema’,” he remembers. “It was an Odeon cinema in the 1930s, when Gone with the Wind was produced and the play is set, so I thought, ‘I can do something here that’s sort of site-specific’. It’s part of a three-pronged representation of the theatre’s past through the three plays in the main house this season. This one sort of represents the building’s past when it started; then we’re going to have a revival of an Alan Ayckbourn play that hasn’t been revived by him for forty years, which represents its nearer past; then my musical adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance represents where I want to take it.”

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Simon Walker guides you through this year’s season of new plays by northern writers at the WYP with the help of authors Boff Whalley and Tom Wells

The West Yorkshire Playhouse’s seventh annual Northern Exposure season is now imminent. A programme of new writing from “the North” (meaning, you’ll be pleased to hear, chiefly God’s Own County), it supplies a platform to promising local writers, and therefore complements rather than overlaps with the WYP’s commissions to more established local playwrights like Mike Kenny. This year’s collection, the largest yet, consists of three productions by northern theatre companies, one of which premieres at the WYP, and a double bill of short plays by three writers that each took its So You Want to be a Writer? course (SYWTBAW) in 2007.

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