News

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Following today’s announcement by Arts Council England, West Yorkshire Playhouse is able to confirm that it will receive an annual 2.7% increase on its current funding level in line with inflation, for the three year period between 2008 and 2011.

As a result of this increase, the annual grant for West Yorkshire Playhouse via Arts Council England will increase to £1 533 147 in 2008-9, rising to £1 574 542 in 09/10 and then £1 617 054 in 10/11. West Yorkshire Playhouse is one of a number of arts organisations to receive an inflationary rise following the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, which sees an extra £50 million investment in the arts via Arts Council England between 2008 and 2011.

On news of the inflationary rise, Playhouse Artistic Director and Chief Executive Ian Brown said: Read more »

Reviews

Year of the Rat
Venue: West Yorkshire Playhouse
Date Reviewed: 19th March 2008

Year of the Rat begins with George Orwell (Hugo Speer) alone on the Scottish isle of Jura banging out 1984 on his archaic typewriter. He is joined by the strong-willed and independent Sonia Brownell (Claudia Elmhirst), the model for Julia in his totalitarian classic novel. Perhaps partly out of pity for Orwell’s loneliness and depression she whisks him off to bed in the first scene, with the audience treated to a fleeting glimpse of her assets.

But, just as with Winston and Julia in ‘1984’, this is no straight-forward romance. They are visited by the bombastic and arrogant Cyril Connolly (Orwell’s life-long friend and publisher of London’s trendy ‘Horizon’ magazine, played extravagantly by Nicholas Blane). A seriously objectionable misogynist, he is known in city circles as the ‘Dick of Death’ and he wastes no time in exposing said member to an aloof Sonia. Read more »

Rapunzel may be a familiar enough fairy tale but given the Kneehigh treatment it takes on a magical life all of its own. Mother Gothel (camped up by Charlie Barnecut) finds a displaced baby left to survive alone. She brings her up amongst sprouting flowers and hanging herbs and intends to pass on all her knowledge as a herbalist.

But when Rapunzel (bravely played by Edith Tankus) becomes mature she is locked away in a tower. Here her hair grows long enough to hang down for a visiting prince (Patrizio, Pieter Lawman)  to climb up to her and begin his wooing. This infuriates her surrogate mother who blinds the prince and banishes Rapunzel to the wilderness.

The Duke of Tuscany (James Traherne) offers his kingdom to whoever can find his son Patrizio, alive or dead, which encourages Paulo (doubled by Barnecut), to bribe Umberto to kill the lost prince. Clearly, the tale ends with a happy ending, but not without much sorcery, villainy and plain good fun on the way. Read more »

Interviews

What were your original aims and intentions when you set up Kneehigh?

I called Cornwall my home and I’d been in the sharp end of the theatre business in London and got really jaded with it. So I went back to Cornwall as a place I believe you can make things happen and started Kneehigh as a company for children and their families. There aren’t really any theatres down here – there were quarries, old gunpowder works, some amazing places to tell stories. That was the original notion and if you see ‘Rapunzel’ I think it’s pretty close to those early shows.

They tell a good story, the use of music, colour, lots of humour – it’s quirky and witty as well. People recognise it as being immediate and it gives you a good night out. It’s the opposite of being in a black box studio theatre or behind a proscenium with a metaphorical fourth wall. We grew up playing in daylight and it’s embarrassing if you’re pretending the audience isn’t there, you can directly talk to the audience. Then the story can get darker and more emotional and take people on a journey. Read more »

Rich Jevons discusses British singer-songwriter Gwyneth Herbert’s Blue Note album Between Me and the Wardrobe in advance of her show at Leeds College of Music’s The Venue.

How much of your work is autobiographical?

Between Me and the Wardrobe is a particularly personal album and I did it at a time when it was something I really needed to write. Some of them are about me and some of them are loosely autobiographical, the songs take on a life of their own and progress into things that you never thought would be. Read more »