Leeds Premieres Bad Girls Musical in New SeasonDate: 4 January 2006
The long-planned stage musical version of ITV drama Bad Girls will receive its world premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds (See The Goss, 21 Nov 2002), where it will have a limited six-week season from 6 June 2006 (previews from 27 May) to 1 July.
Written by the creators of the television series, Bad Girls The Musical, has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus with music and lyrics by Kath Gotts. An idealistic new Wing Governor tries to make changes for the better on G Wing, but a dangerous mix of deception, romance, revenge and corrupt officers stand in her way. Maggie Norris directs. No casting has yet been announced.
WYP’s spring/summer 2006 kicks off, in the Quarry Theatre, with Mike Poulton’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, running from 22 February (previews from 17 February) to 11 March 2006 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Norwegian playwright’s death. The co-production with the Liverpool Everyman is directed by Matthew Lloyd.
It’s followed, from 1 to 22 April 2006 (previews from 24 March), by another collaboration: the three-part Wars of the Roses, which is presented with Northern Broadsides and which continues on tour after Leeds. Charting the bloodiest episodes of English history, Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III, which are adapted and directed here by Northern Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter, can be seen separately or all in one day.
In the smaller Courtyard Theatre, WYP premieres Scuffer, a new play by local writer Mark Catley. Danny is skint, and has just one day to come up with £800 or else risk having his legs broken by the heavies. Directed by Alex Chisholm, it runs from 15 March to 1 April (previews from 10 March). In April/May, the Courtyard will also host the fourth annual BBC Northern Exposure season of new writing, in which two Leeds-based playwrights’ will have work showcased - Foxes by Alice Nutter and Bus by Mark Kirkby – and six plays from up-and-coming European playwrights will be presented under the title of Janus.
Visiting productions during the spring/summer include: Pilot’s East Is East, Kneehigh’s Nights at the Circus, RJC Dance’s The Dancical, Randi Moorthy’s Curry Tales, En Masse Theatre’s The Ignatius Trail and and Blind Summit Theatre’s The Spaceman in the Courtyard; and in the Quarry, Eclipse Theatre’s Three Sisters, relocated to colonial Trinidad in 1941 and Phoenix Dance Theatre’s triple bill Stories in Red.
- by Caroline Ansdell & Terri Paddock
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