Looking back to the 1970s you can be forgiven for thinking it was all flares and fancy footwork. But don’t be fooled by the happy disco grooves that define the decade. These were tough years, and Saturday Night Fever gives us the best and worst of...
After 17 months on the road The Band Musical, winds its way back to the north west where it premiered with all the pizzazz of showbiz royalty at Manchester Opera House. At the curtain call, Take That’s Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen, the...
A year on tour has done nothing to diminish the enthusiasm of The Band’s younger female cast. If anything, the excitement of being in the show that has, at its heart, the music of Take That, has been ratcheted up, aided by stellar reviews and...
On tour for almost a year and such a hit that more dates – including a West End run – have been added, Vicky Edwards catches up with Yazdan Qafouri and Curtis T Johns to learn more about starring in Take That’s musical The Band Cast through the...
The Band, a stage musical with the songs of Take That, comes to The Lowry in January. Vicky Edwards talks to producers Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen to find out the secret behind its success. Gary, Mark and Howard (everyone is on first...
‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ exclaims Brian Capron’s Greatest Showman style circus owner, Albert Blossom on seeing the two-headed llama, Pushmi-Pullyu – and in years of reviewing, neither have I. The puppets, and there are lots of them, are...
Badly bleached beehives, tap-dancing zimmer-frames and pigeon puppets – Raz Shaw’s new production of The Producers, at The Royal Exchange, is a riot of absurdity. As if taking stage notes from one of the show’s more well-known numbers, Shaw keeps it...
After 15 years at the top of its game, Wicked can no longer simply be thought of as a quirky off-shoot of the Wizard of Oz. It’s fair to say that if you’re a fan of Frank Baum’s original tale, you’ll get much more from this re-imagining of the...
Six the Musical is a histore-mix of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives, with a 21st century kick – and what a kick it is. The Tudor King is out of the picture – in Facebook-style he’s ‘unfriended’ them all. And his six Queens have taken the...
From Weatherfield baddie to a singing circus ringmaster, Brian Capron tells Vicky Edwards about going animal crackers. For many of us Brian Capron will always be ‘Norman Bates with a briefcase.’ Famously one of Coronation Street’s most murderous...
Carmel Thomason