We talk to Coronation Street Story Editor, Lindsay Williams, who wrote the very first JB Shorts play and whose play, ‘The Outing’ is part of REloaded:

Where did the original idea come from?

The original idea for JB Shorts came from two writers, Trevor Suthers and John Chambers who wanted to put on a night of short plays to give TV writers a chance to do something fresh and original outside the confines they usually have to work with in television. They approached some other writer friends with the idea of putting a night on in a pub. It was only supposed to be a one-off event but it went so well that the writers decided to make it a bi-annual festival. Though we had no idea at the time that it would go on for ten years!     

How has it changed over that time?

We started off in the basement of Joshua Brooks pub with very little set and very basic lighting. Over the years we were at Joshua Brooks our audience numbers grew and so did our ambition to do more challenging plays. A few years ago we moved to the much larger venue of 53two and we were able to be much bolder and more technically challenging work. In the last few years we have produced everything from operas to a 15-minute version of War and Peace.                

Is it like a playground for soap talent?

It definitely is a playground for both writers and actors. In our day jobs many of us are writers and producers on shows such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale, which are dream jobs. But JB Shorts gives us the opportunity to create characters and worlds we would never normally visit.  On JB Shorts we can write about anything from festivals, to footballers, to Mexican ballad singers to Scrabble tournaments.        

There have been a lot of big names among the casts. Has JB Shorts helped launch careers too?

JB Shorts is a great showcase for actors, both those who have years of experience under their belt and those who are just starting out in their careers. We get a lot of casting directors from both theatre and TV who make sure they never miss JB Shorts. Plenty of actors who have starred in JB Shorts have gone on to getting parts in Coronations Street, Hollyoaks and plenty of other theatre shows.   

Why did you decide to do a best of this time?

Over the years we have written and produced 120 plays, and so we decided that on our 10-year anniversary that it would be fitting to see some of them again. We don’t think of this as a best of show, as there have been so many great plays over the 10 years that we couldn’t possibly ever choose the six best, so instead we decided to put on some of our favourite plays that we hadn’t seen for a while and we would hoped would be new to some of our growing audience.       

How did you choose just six plays for this run?

With great difficulty! It might be the hardest thing JB Shorts have ever had to do and took about three months of discussion. In the end we decided to go for plays that had never been performed at our new 53two venue before including one play form the very first JB Shorts.

How many plays have you written for JB Shorts and how did you pick just one for this event?

I have written 12 plays for JB shorts over the years, including a musical, a play about corruption in the aftermath of an earthquake and a wedding day farce that was the first ever play at the first ever JB shorts. It was incredibly tough to choose and I left the decision up to our wonderful Artistic Director, Roger Haines, who always comes up with the running order for our shows. I’m really excited to see The Outing again and thrilled to have the amazing cast of Jennie Howarth-Williams, Richard Hawley and Kerry Wilson Parry on board.       

What is the challenge of writing a 15 minute play?

I think the key to a good 15 minute play is that regardless of the subject or genre of the play you still need to take the audience on a journey. In many respects it is the same as any type of drama or comedy, you just need a good story.  

Would you consider taking JB Shorts to Edinburgh or elsewhere?

JB Shorts has always been a Manchester institution and we think that’s the best way to stay.       

JB Shorts runs at 53two from 19 – 30 March 2019. Tickets available from wegottickets.com See website for more details.

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From Cinderella’s lively opening song about the theatre, the scene is firmly set in the city. And being the home of the nation’s favourite soap, we get a trip down the Corrie cobbles, with a sinister twist on the theme tune at the entrance of this year’s pantomime villains.

In Connor McIntyre, as Ugly Sister, Phelina, the Opera House pantomime may have bagged the biggest villain of them all. Known best as Coronation Street’s murdering, Pat Phelan, McIntyre’s towering presence is enough to scare the mums and dads, never mind the little ones. However, when paired with veteran entertainer, Les Dennis, his menace is tempered to pitch perfect. As my six-year-old theatre buddy shouted at the dastardly double act: ‘Boo, double boo (and to McIntyre’s Phelina) triple boo to you!’

Les Dennis, who started his career as a comedian, has a wonderful warmth on stage. As the villainous Michaela, we sense in another life she might be one of life’s good guys and is being reluctantly dragged along by her evil twin. Together the sisters are both hideous and hilarious, channeling Corrie’s Bet Lynch with their big hair and outrageous costumes.

But while the sisters may be the comedy queens of the show, the king’s crown goes to Rochdale comedian, Ben Nickless as Buttons. His dynamism fuels the whole show with laughter for all ages, bringing a host of famous faces to the party with his quick changing impressions.

For little-ones, Cinderella is the true star and Shannon Flynn’s princess builds instant rapport with the youngsters who recognise her from CBBC’s Friday Download and Shout Out Saturday.

Gareth Gates makes a sweet and unassuming Prince Charming, showing unexpected comedy talent in some of the show’s best slapstick moments. A real treat at the ball is hearing him sing the Righteous Brothers, Unchained Melody, with which he had a hit following his runner-up success in Pop Idol 2002.

Soul singer, Hayley-Ria Christian is another fine voice as Fairy Godmother sprinkling her magical fairy dust with every firework entrance, so everyone enjoys the ball.

And what a ball it is – the first act closes with Cinderella’s carriage, pulled by flying white horses, hovering high above the stalls. After that there’s still an hour of spectacle to go and I won’t spoil the surprise in Button’s parcel – enough to say it’s another treasure in this gift of a pantomime.

Cinderella is at The Opera House, Manchester from 8-30 December 2018.

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For many of us Brian Capron will always be ‘Norman Bates with a briefcase.’ Famously one of Coronation Street’s most murderous villains, as Richard Hillman he definitely came under the heading of mad, bad and dangerous to know. But his latest project is a million miles away from such dastardly deeds and Brian is thrilled to be joining the cast of the 50th anniversary revival of the family-favourite musical Doctor Dolittle.

“It is charming, uplifting and relevant to today because, without hitting people over the head with it, the message about animal welfare and protecting the environment will really resonate with people,” Brian, enthuses during a break in rehearsals.

“The whole show has been streamlined and has even got three brand new songs that Leslie Bricusse has written especially,” he says, telling me that Hollywood royalty Bricusse has been frequenting the rehearsal room to keep an eye on things. As well he might. After all, he has been involved in Doctor Dolittle since 1967.

Based on the books by Hugh Lofting, who wrote the first of several Dolittle stories one-hundred years ago, the first story was penned in the trenches during WW1. The 1960s movie starred Rex Harrison as the eponymous Doctor and was nominated for nine Oscars, winning two, including Best Original Song for Bricusse’s Talk to the Animals. A UK stage adaptation starring Phillip Schofield premiered in 1998, followed by a US production in 2005. A story that has endured and continues to reach new audiences, in this new production double Academy Award-winner Leslie Bricusse has written the book, music and lyrics. Directed by Christopher Renshaw, Brian is almost as in awe of the scale of the mammoth production as he is of the show’s tip-top creative team.

“It is a big show! We have got a Broadway chorographer and in the number I front called, ‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like it in My Life’ there are 20dancers – it’s massive,” says Brian, looking impressed and terrified in equal measure.

“We’ve a great creative team and amazing musicians,” he adds, “and then there are the puppets! Think War Horse. The pushmi-pullyu is a double-headed llama that is eight feet high!

“In the first half I play Albert Blossom, a larger-than-life character who is the owner of a circus. He is a bit rough and blousy and I think he probably drinks a lot,” he chuckles, adding that, while in the film Richard Attenborough played Blossom as a Northerner, he is making him a cockney.

“When Doctor Dolittle approaches him, Blossom tells him where to go with his animal, until he sees the pushmi-pullyu! Then in the second half I play, Straight Arrow, who is Chief of an island and is so named because his dad wanted him to go ‘straight to Harrow’! It is a nice contrasting character so I won’t get bored,” he jokes.

Joined by a cast that includes Mark Williams (‘Mr Weasley’ of Harry Potter fame) in the title role and fellow ex-Corrie actress, Vicky Entwistle as the parrot, Polynesia, it is undoubtedly a tale of our times for all the family – and with no stinting on spectacle.

Telling of eccentric Doctor Dolittle and his quest to find the Giant Pink Sea Snail that holds the secret of life and makes the world a happier place, Doctor Dolittle teaches us not only to talk to the animals but to listen to them as well.

Brian is delighted to report that all aboard the good ship Dolittle are indeed a happy and friendly crew. Brian says: “It is such a lovely company. You don’t always get that, but it makes touring life so much easier.”

And what a tour it is! Running for a year, Brian and Mark have signed up for six months, committing to being ‘on the road’ until early May.

“I live in Hove on the South coast and I don’t really like working in the West End because you just get the train there and back every day and it’s like having a regular job. I like touring, but I’m fed up with staying in hotels, so sometimes I take my big six-berth motor home and find somewhere with electric hook-up.”

“And of course we have Christmas at the Lowry, which will be brilliant as we have a lot of friends from Coronation Street up there. My wife will come up as she made lots of friends on Corrie too, and I also did panto last year in Stockport and filmed, ‘Where the Heart Is’ in the North. Being anywhere up this way always feels familiar.”

No stranger to talking to the animals, keen rider Brian recalls growing up on a council estate near Heathrow Airport.

“A friend told me that if you offered to help out at the local stables you could get free rides. I used to muck out 21 horses on my own!”

But it was while presenting for This Morning that he got what he now describes as “the best job I ever had.” Dispatched to Borneo to track and report on the jungle’s orangutans, he quickly found himself falling in love with these beautiful apes.

“I learnt so much. They are amazing creatures; fascinating. Before then I would have said that I was very much a people person rather than an animal person, but that experience changed me. It made me realise what we are doing to these poor animals with palm oil and the destruction of their habitats. As I say, the production doesn’t bash you with the environmental message, but it is there.”

Time to return to rehearsals for his big song and dance number, Brian bids me farewell, but not before he tells me how chuffed he is to be involved in Doctor Dolittle.

“It is a very special show. I think people will be gobsmacked and I am honoured and proud to be part of it.”

Doctor Dolittle is at The Lowry, Salford Quays from 11 December 2018 – 5 January 2019. Visit website for full tour details.

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Here we see both the innocence and harshness of the early 1960s side by side. Young girls, some still unsure how babies come into the world, find themselves heavily pregnant.

In what we now see as inconceivable cruelty the girls are locked away from society until their children are born; the babies taken away to be adopted at birth.

All this pain is borne with a stiff upper lip and the escape of popular love songs.

It is hard-hitting stuff, brought to the stage with the lightest of touches and plenty of laughs that captures the essence of an age and makes for poignant viewing.

The play, first staged 20 years ago, is now a GCSE study text. The script has kept its freshness and life. Although broad-brushed the characters have an authenticity about them that captures the complexities often brushed over in favour of demonising all involved.

A lot of this is thanks to the strong all-female cast, headed up by Brooke Vincent (Sophie Webster in Coronation Street) and Ruth Madoc (Hi de Hi and Little Britain).

Making a stage debut is a big deal for an actor and when you are already a household name it must be doubly nerve-wracking.

Brooke first stepped on the famous cobbles at 10-years-old and has grown-up on our screens. Now aged 24, she has been given a couple of months away from the soap to take on this new acting challenge as the bolshie Queenie.

Cheered on by her Corrie cast mates it is one she takes in her stride – confidently delivering the lines with the right impact and pace to get the laughs and showing just enough vulnerability in her character’s stroppy teenager exterior to sense the pain that’s caused her to isolate herself emotionally from all but the cheery pop single.

In many ways she is the other side of the coin to Ruth Madoc’s Matron, whose iciness comes from a matter-of-fact practicality. Naturally it takes a while to warm to such a character, but Madoc gives her a roundedness in an understated performance that leaves the audience feeling for her as much as for the girls.

The only let-down is the pace of the production, that hopefully will pick-up as the run continues. On press night at The Lowry, some of the scene changes feel a bit clumsy – some scenes ending abruptly with uncomfortably long pauses before the next. At one point in the second act people behind me were whispering, ‘has it finished?’ and even began a tentative applause before it set away again.

That aside, there is plenty in this play to applaud. And at the curtain call the vulnerability of these teenagers hits home again watching Brooke Vincent drop her character to become the excitable young woman inside, looking out from the stage to spot and wave to her friends and family in the audience. It felt like she was saying, ‘Look at me – I did it.’ And you did good, girl.

Be My Baby is at The Lowry from 4-8 October 2016.

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