Review: The Hounding of David Oluwale
February 6, 2009
Date reviewed: 4 February 2009
Venue: West Yorkshire Playhouse
Considering how I might respond to The Hounding of David Oluwale before I saw it ushered me toward the question of what theatre’s purpose is. There’s a canyon between what seems an appropriate response to fictional and factually-grounded tragedies. When you see a great production of Hamlet, for example, it moves you, and you derive pleasure from, and feel admiration for, its ability to move you. However, it would surely be frivolous to treat a dramatic account of a real man’s downfall purely, or perhaps even primarily, as entertainment. To be moved seems fitting; to enjoy the fact that you have been moved does not.
Dennis to make WYP debut
February 5, 2009
The West Yorkshire Playhouse announced today that Les Dennis is to make his first appearance at the Leeds theatre in its forthcoming production of Bradford-born playwright JB Priestley’s When We Are Married. The production, which is to be directed by WYP artistic director Ian Brown, is a joint one with Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse that will be performed at the WYP between 4 and 25 April, before resuming at the Liverpool Playhouse between 30 April and 23 May.
Past/Present/Future for … Alan Ayckbourn
February 5, 2009
Alan Ayckbourn will be seventy this April and, although he has physically slowed down since his stroke three years ago, getting about with the aid of a stick and his constant companion and second wife Heather Stoney, he shows no signs of slowing down on the work front. He has a full diary for the next two years, starting with this week’s opening of his own revival from Scarborough of Woman in Mind starring Janie Dee at the Vaudeville, the theatre where the play first opened in London in 1985. Sir Alan retired last year as the artistic director of the “in the round” Stephen Joseph Theatre he has run, in three separate buildings, in his adopted Yorkshire home town, since 1967.
Review: Only When I Laugh
February 4, 2009
Date reviewed: 3 February 2009
Venue: Harrogate Theatre
After an initial week at Greenwich the Love & Madness Ensemble is touring Jack Shepherd’s new play, Only When I Laugh or A Class Act, through Scotland and the North, with its first stop at Harrogate. Sadly there is no sign of the play living up to its sub-title.
John Godber on Spring Street and Ferensway
February 4, 2009
“I never really expected it to come alive,” John Godber admits. “It’s been an idea in the ether for 30 years and now it’s actually built. We can’t wait to get into it. Using a sporting simile, we’ve been playing in an old tin hut and winning 2-0 against the rain for 30-odd years. Now we have the opportunity to get into a purpose-built theatre that won’t leak and will have all the things that most other renowned theatre companies don’t even think about, like proper rehearsal facilities and showers that don’t give you salmonella poisoning.”