Nadine Shah shares epic view

From Kevin Keegan to political fallouts to family mayhem, Live Theatre’s 50th birthday year offers an epic view of a changing North East.

Standouts from one of the country’s premier new writing theatres includes the political play Love It If We Beat Them, the music-inspired To Be A Young Man, the epic family saga The Cold Buffet and the three-playwright theatrical feast Three Acts of Love.

Kicking off this milestone season is Love It If We Beat Them by Rob Ward, a new play that sees politics and the beautiful game come together March 2–25. It’s spring 1996, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United are riding high in the Premier League and Tony Blair’s New Labour are gathering pace.

Nadine Shah and Jackie Thompson have a long standing friendship that will inform To Be A Young Man, full of music and gallows humour, at Live Theatre May 4–20 before heading to the Brighton Festival May 23.

In the autumn, The Cold Buffet by up-and-coming playwright Elijah Young is set in a function room and following the same North East family through a wedding, a wake and a birthday party. It will run October 5–28.

To round off the year Three Acts Of Love by three radical female playwrights Laura Lindow, Naomi Obeng and Vici Wreford-Sinnott sees narratives on politics and passion explore what love means today—November 30–December 16.