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Dateline: 7th March, 2010 News from the North West
Library's Beautiful House castingManchester's Library Theatre has announced the casting of its production of Cathy Crabb's Beautiful House, which opens at the theatre at the end of April. Crabb, a well-known writer and performer in the Manchester fringe theatre scene, originally acted in the play herself when it was performed at Studio Salford and later revived in the Library's Re:Play Festival last year. The revival will be directed by stage and TV actor and director Noreen Kershaw and will star well-known TV actor John Henshaw. Playing opposite Henshaw as his wife will be Janice Connolly, a familiar face on the comedy circuit with her character Mrs Barbara Nice. As the younger couple, Shameless star Sally Carman will take the role originally played by the author alongside the only member of the original cast, James Foster. Henshaw and Connolly are a couple who have given up their big house in the country to their seriously-ill daughter and her husband and moved to the unfamiliar world of a Salford tower block where they form an uneasy alliance with their younger neighbours. It runs at the Library from 22 April to 8 May.
Coronation Street on Lowry stageIt has just been announced that popular TV soap Coronation Street will find its way to the Lowry stage this summer as part of its fiftieth anniversary celebrations. The script will be written by regular Coronation Street writer Jonathan Harvey who has also written extensively for TV, including the sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme, and for stage with plays such as Guiding Star and his acclaimed early work Beautiful Thing. However it will condense classic moments from the last fifty years of TV episodes into two hours, including the viaduct collapse, the coach crash, the tram running over Alan, Frank capturing Valerie, Tracy killing Charlie, Todd kissing Nick and Gail marrying Brian, Martin, Richard and Joe. Characters such as Ena Sharples, Hilda Ogden, Percy Sugden and Alf Roberts will be recovered from the vaults alongside more recent Street residents such as Richard Hillman and Karen McDonald and a few who have bridged the years on the programme such as Ken and Deirdre Barlow and Jack Duckworth. 50 Years of Coronation Street Abridged Live will be at The Lowry from 12 to 21 August.
Palace Stage Experience auditionsManchester's Palace Theatre has announced the audition dates for this year's Stage Experience, a two-week summer project for young people culminating in a run of performances on the Palace stage of Frank Loesser's classic musical Guys and Dolls. The project will run from 2 to 14 August for young people aged from 10 to 21 years (on 2 August), giving the participants and the professional team just two weeks to rehearse, build sets, find props and make costumes for performances on the last three days. Auditions will be held on 10 April for ages 10 to 14 years and 11 April for ages 15 to 21 years with callbacks on 6 June. For more information and to download an application form, go to www.livenationtheatres.co.uk/news_details.asp?newsid=1675&VenueID=106.
NW productionsCP Taylor's wartime play And A Nightingale Sang directed by Sarah Punshon will be at Oldham Coliseum Theatre from 11 March to 3 April. In Newcastle amidst the air raid sirens and fears of poison gas, Mam makes Spam sandwiches, Dad makes his own entertainment and Grandpa mourns his dead whippet, whilst daughters Joyce and Helen discover the joy and heartbreak of first love. Bolton's Octagon Theatre revives its production from a little over two years ago of new play And Did Those Feet by Les Smith and Martin Thomasson directed by former artistic director Mark Babych, tracing the lives of two families in the build-up to the appearance of Bolton's Wanderers football team in the 1923 FA Cup Final at the newly-built Wembley Stadium. It runs from 11 March to 10 April. David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross set in the cutthroat world of real estate salesmen in Chicago will be directed by artist director Chris Honer for the Library Theatre from 12 March to 3 April starring David Fleeshman and James Quinn. Rani Moorthy's Handful of Henna will be at The Dukes in Lancaster on 12 and 13 March. Being dragged by her mother back to the family village thousands of miles away is no fun for 13-year-old Nasreen, but with the mystical power of henna she discovers some unexpected truths about her mother. Young French-Canadian acrobatic performers Les 7 Doigts de la Main will perform their acclaimed show Traces at The Lowry in Salford from 8 to 10 March. Also at The Lowry, Ballet Boyz—Michael Nunn and Willian Trevitt—will perform their latest show The Talent for one night only on 8 March. Any Dream Will Do winner Lee Mead will star alongside Gary Wilmot, Kate O'Mara, David Ross and Derren Nesbitt in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime by Oscar Wilde at Manchester's Palace Theatre from 8 to 13 March. At Unity Theatre in Liverpool, The Suitcase Ensemble will perform Clunk, which follows the daily drudgery of three cohabiting young adults who are struggling to engage with a world that baffles them, on 12 and 13 March prior to a north west tour. Also at the Unity, Tick Tick Boom! by Jonathan Larson, the late writer of hit Broadway show Rent, will be performed by Dynamic Theatre Productions on 9 and 10 March. In Lotty's War by Guiliano Crispini at Stockport's Plaza Theatre on 8 and 9 March, Lotty strives to be loyal to her friends and family but finds herself having to succumb to the requirements of an occupying force, particularly those of the General billeted with her. Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution comes to Blackpool's Grand Theatre from 8 to 13 March starring Honeysuckle Weeks, Denis Lill, Ben Nealon, Robert Duncan, Peter Byrne, Jennifer Wilson and 60s teen idol Mark Wynter. Also at the Grand, Beating Berlusconi by John Graham Davies will be performed on 14 March. Bob Golding will perform his acclaimed role as comedian Eric Morecambe in Morecambe by Tim Whitnall at Liverpool Playhouse from 8 to 13 March. 60s jukebox musical Dreamboats and Petticoats with a book by sitcom writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran will be at Liverpool Empire from 8 to 13 March. In Forever In Your Debt from Foursight at Brewery Arts Centre on 9 March, a band is teetering on the edge of fiscal failure, but even as the bailiff repossesses their instruments they’ll play to the last note. Also at Brewery, Inspector Sands performs If That's All There Is about a successful but average couple teetering on the brink of marriage on 10 March. Lov&Madness will perform Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey at Rose Theatre in Ormskirk on 11 March. Monkeywood Theatre's Maine Road will be performed at The Lowry on 12 March as an extra date, followed by the main run of the show from 18 to 20 March. Lucky Numbers by Mike Yeaman about Nana stuck living with her daughter and her feckless family until her Lotto numbers come up will be at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre from 12 March to 10 April. Theatre Hullabaloo and Action Transport Theatre have teamed up for My Mother Told Me Not To Stare by Finegan Kruckemeyer and Martyn Harry, which will be at Whitby Hall, Ellesmere Port on 12 and 13 March. Moby Duck will perform Don't Mess! for ages 8 and over at Waterside Arts Centre in Sale on 13 March. Blunderbus Theatre Company will perform its Rainbow Fish for ages 4 and over at The Met in Bury on 13 March. Reporter: David Chadderton Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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