Carmel ThomasonBefore the curtain rises on this new production of The Marriage of Figaro at Lowry, we’re told the show has already been seen by more than 3,500 first time opera goers since premiering at Leeds in January. The Company is actively making its work...
Catherine JonesThe fight that took place in the long hot summer of 1995 wasn’t on the beaches, in the fields or in the streets, but rather on the airwaves, in record shops and across the front pages. Now arguably the biggest showdown in pop history has opened a...
Dave PorterFor people of a certain vintage (your reviewer, for one), Brookside holds a special place in their heart. So it’s apt that the new production of Two at Shakespeare North should feature two of the show’s stars, Michael Starke (Sinbad) and Sarah White...
Leslie James KerwinBorn in Salford and having lived elsewhere, Emily Simpson is used to the city’s reputation as Manchester’s indignant shadow. “Salford is always the other city,” she says. “It has a confusing, complex identity that is often squashed...
Alex PriceEurovision winner and national treasure Cheryl Baker is celebrating her 50+ years in showbiz by invitng audiences to ask her anything they want to know in an evening of music and chat at Lowry, Salford. Alex Price meets her to find out more. “I’ve...
The 2022 premiere of Carlos Acosta’s production of Don Quixote for Birmingham Royal Ballet, although acclaimed for its authentic reimagining, was impacted negatively by the covid times in which it opened. Four years on, and this revival is firing on...
Diane ParkesIt may be wet and windy outside but Birmingham Royal Ballet promises to bring a bit of sunshine with its stage spectacular Don Quixote. Choreographed by BRB director Carlos Acosta after the original 19th century production by Marius Petipa, the show...
There is much to admire in this semi-staged version of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte by English National Opera at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. Indeed, if we didn’t know the same performers had recently opened a much more lavish, circus-themed staging at...
Cathy CrabbGo and see the elegant brutality of Tina Fey’s Mean Girls at The Opera House, beloved musical of the beloved film. Cady Heron (Emily Lane) is the daughter of a zoologist and has lived an unsheltered life on a research station in Kenya. Cady’s...
The concept of ‘it’s not gay if’ has long been a foundational philosophy to humanity’s evolution. Homosexual accusations have been graffitied on toilet walls since Pompeii, and even by the New Labour nineties, being “straight until”...