Carmel ThomasonRecalling his first meeting with Sarah Frankcom, almost 20 years ago, playwright Simon Stephens reveals he felt the then literary manager for the Royal Exchange was setting him a challenge, daring him almost, to fall in love with the exposing, in...
Steve Timms‘I’ve never known anyone in my life who was so easily wounded’, wrote novelist Doris Lessing about Playwright and occasional actor John Osborne. Like a 1950’s version of Morrissey, Osborne was bitter, resentful and had a tendency to nurse grudges...
After waking up to the first day of frost the Miami heat of ‘On Your Feet’ is welcomed like a burst of sunshine. The musical, on its first UK tour, arrives at Manchester’s Palace Theatre with a top-notch, West End cast and terrific 7-piece band, led...
Abigoliah Schauman high kicks the air and jokes she should have brought her tap shoes. For a comic transitioning from comedy clubs to theatre spaces, the Lowry Studio is a big stage. Abigoliah is quick to claim it: ‘I’m so American I don’t need a...
Moses KabungaWith the festival of Hallowe’en fast approaching what better way to spend the weekend before the 31 October than in the grisly comfort of not one but two supernatural horror stories. The Nunkie Theatre Company’s ‘M R James Project’ brings us ‘Dead...
This Halloween HOME and Film4 are teaming up again for the fourth annual FilmFear season – bringing six days of horror, extreme cinema, cult favourites and special guests to Manchester. The Lighthouse A special preview of The Lighthouse, director...
Less of a drama and more an exercise in pop culture storytelling, Rick Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is, in the words of writer/performer Javaad Alipoor, partly about ‘rich people acting like dicks.’ But these aren’t ordinary rich...
Nuclear Future is an austere call to arms. It takes as its base the insecurities of its lead (and only) actor Astrid, played adroitly by Leda Douglas. She stands solitary on stage flanked by two white panels exploding towards the audience, as if...
Martin ThomassonIn a 1994 article entitled, “Discussing the Undiscussable”, New Yorker critic, Arlene Croce, explained her refusal to review a piece by choreographer, Bill T. Jones by accusing him of presenting ‘victim art’. Jones’s show, Still/Here, employed...
If Pam Adams, author of best-selling children’s book ‘There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly’, was still alive, she would have been 100-years-old this year. Adams lived to be a real old lady, aged 91, and her stories have proved timeless. Based...