Key Yorkshire openings this February

As the dreaded winter freeze approaches, here is this month’s pick of our region’s openings to encourage you to brave the weather and get your crampons on.

Running 1 – 16 February, Hull Truck (Hull)

SIXTY FIVE MILES

Sixty Five Miles. The distance between Hull and Sheffield. The distance between a man and the daughter he’s never met. Pete and Rich are two very different brothers. Reunited after nine years, both are seeking forgiveness. Rich needs to confront ex girlfriend, Lucy, and the shadows of his recent past…

Pete’s search is for the one woman in his life he’s never known and never knowingly hurt, his daughter. As they each embark on a journey of forgiveness, they soon discover that – even separated by sixty five miles – people never forget.

With echoes of Arthur Miller‘s Death of a Salesman, this is the world premiere of Matt Hartley‘s electrifying and moving drama about families and the ties that bind.

Running 2 – 25 February, Crucible Theatre (Sheffield)

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

When you live in a world of extravagant parties, outrageous fashion and scandalous gossip, image is everything.

So when Mirabell, a man with a reputation for wine, women and song, decides to go after the girl of his dreams, he knows it won’t be easy. For one, he’ll need the consent of the formidable Lady Wishfort before he can make his match. And to get that, he’ll have to resort to what he does best: deceit, slander and seduction…

A fresh new staging of William Congreve’s classic Restoration Comedy about morals, money and everything in between.

Running 3 – 25 February, West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds)

WAITING FOR GODOT

Waiting for Godot is a funny and poetic masterpiece, described as one of the most significant English language plays of the 20th century.

On a bare road with a single tree, two men, Vladimir and Estragon, wait. They are waiting hopefully, helplessly and haplessly for the one who never comes.

They are waiting for Godot. Over two days, they argue, get bored, clown around, reminisce, sing, exchange hats and contemplate suicide. Brilliantly subtle the play gently and intelligently speaks about hardship, friendship and what it is to be human.

Ian Brown directs one of the 20th century’s finest plays, in the first UK production to feature an all Black cast. It includes Jeffery Kissoon (Antony and Cleopatra, Liverpool Playhouse) as Vladimir and Patrick Robinson (War Horse, Rough Crossings) as Estragon and, for this groundbreaking production, the Playhouse is delighted to be working once again with Talawa Theatre Company (Rum and Coca Cola, The Colored Museum), Britain’s foremost Black-led theatre company.

Running 7 – 11 February, Theatre Royal (Wakefield)

WEEKEND BREAKS

Martin Dawson is a promising academic and aspiring film writer, having married into TV royalty, a recent extra marital fling has left him trying to patch things up with his wife and his disapproving working class parents. In a comedy about culture clashes, wine, wit and Whitby, Weekend Breaks sees John Godber at his perceptive best, as Martin rediscovers his roots and what it really means to love your parents; even when you want to kill them!

Running 11 February – 3 March, West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds)

ANGUS, THONGS AND EVEN MORE SNOGGING

Along with her posse the Ace Gang, 14 year old Georgia Nicolson is on a mission to win a Sex God boyfriend in the form of the local band lead singer Robbie. With the help of her crazy cat, Angus and her best mate Jas, a snogtastic plan develops.

Can Georgia use her newly acquired boy-entrancing charms to lure the Sex God away from his girlfriend Wet Lindsey? Or will she decide to go after Italian Luurve God Massimo? And what about Dave the Laugh? A great mate but would you go past number one on the snogging scale with him?

This new stage adaptation of the “Queen of Teen” Louise Rennison‘s Fab Confessions of Georgia Nicolson is for anyone who’s a teenager, has ever been a teenager, or knows someone who is about to be one soon….

Suitable for ages 10+

Running 14 – 18 February, Hull Truck (Hull)

DNA

A group of teenagers do something bad, really bad, then panic and cover the whole thing up. But when they find that the cover-up unites them and brings harmony to their otherwise fractious lives, where’s the incentive to put things right?

First performed at the National Theatre in 2008, this startling play is fast becoming a contemporary-classic with young audiences and has recently become a core set-text on the GCSE English syllabus, studied by 400,000 students nationwide each year. This brand new touring production directed by the National Theatre’s Anthony Banks features a cutting-edge design & soundtrack and an exciting cast of young actors.

Running 17 February – 3 March, Theatre Royal (York)

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

Anne Frank‘s world famous diary charts two years of her life from 1942 to 1944. This extraordinary personal account of hope, courage and survival has united and touched people world wide.

Whilst hidden from the German Nazis, with her Jewish family, in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Anne documented her hopes, frustrations and day to day experiences in confinement.

Anne’s wry observations of herself and her companions have been dramatised in this stunning play, evoking all the original sentiments of a young girl’s dramatic and heartbreaking diary, written in the most hostile of environments.

From the same partnership that produced last spring’s sell out production of To Kill A Mockingbird comes another classic text.

Running 22 February – 3 March, Theatre Royal (York)

BED

In Jim Cartwright’s extraordinary play about sleep, insomnia and growing old, eight elderly characters relive their lives and evoke their dreams. Old Bomb, the theatre company behind recent productions of Pinteresque, Cigarettes and Chocolate and Waiting for Godot, bring you another intimate and atmospheric show, complete with specially composed music and a very large bed…

Running 28 February – 10 March, West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds)

TOP GIRLS

An unparalleled story of success and, chillingly, what happens to those left behind. One of the seminal plays of the twentieth century, Top Girls flashes with razor-sharp wit and ingenious theatricality.

Thatcher’s England: hard-nosed, go-getting businesswoman Marlene is hosting a dinner party to celebrate her promotion to MD of the Top Girls Employment Agency. Her guests, all powerful women from myth and history, make for an extraordinary gathering.

Max Stafford-Clark directed the premiere of Top Girls in 1982. His brand new production was a hugely acclaimed hit in the West End in 2011.

Running 29 February – 10 March, Lyceum Theatre (Sheffield)

COPENHAGEN

In 1941, at the height of the Second World War, two old friends meet for the last time.Niels Bohr, the leading quantum theorist of the time, half Jewish but remaining in occupied Copenhagen; ]Werner Heisenberg], a German and the former protégé of Bohr, working for his country on a new project. On opposing sides, these two men have the ability to change the course of history.

This Tony Award-winning play is an intriguing and powerful exploration of the uncertainty of the past and the inevitability of the future told through a story based on actual historic events.

Running 29 February – 10 March, The Viaduct (Halifax)

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Take four dashing young men.
Add a vow of celibacy.
Throw in a handful of beautiful young women …and wait for the sparks to fly!!!!

Northern Broadsides celebrates its 20th anniversary year with a delicious comedy that will entertain and delight. Romantic, mischievous and filled with youthful exuberance, Love’s Labour’s Lost fizzes like bubbles in a champagne glass.

Barrie Rutter directs a charismatic cast of 17 multi-talented northern actors who will literally fill the stage in this fast-paced battle of the sexes. In true Broadsides’ style there’ll be rousing song and dance, scintillating performances, jaw-dropping comic timing and hilarious ‘steal-the-show’ scenes.