Preview: Land of Our Fathers at Newcastle Live Theatre

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Welsh mining drama Landof Our Fathers begins its English tour at Live Theatre in January 2016

Land of Our Fathers

Newcastle Live Theatre

Wednesday 27^th to Saturday 30^th January 2016

★★★★★Time Out ★★★★★ The Independent

★★★★The Times ★★★★ The Guardian

 

Critically-acclaimed  play Land of Our Fathers, which follows six Welsh miners trapped down a mine, starts its English tour at Live Theatre, Newcastle in January.

Photo: Flavia Fraser-Cannon

With five performances over four days between Wednesday 27^th and Saturday 30^th January, including a Saturday matinee, this funny and deeply moving Welsh mining drama is packed full of blistering comedy and echoes a generation of lost voices.

Photo: Polly Thomas

It’s May 1979 in South Wales. Thatcher is county her votes, Sid Vicious is spinning in his grave and six Welsh miners are trapped down a coal mine. As the men await their rescue, secrets emerge and accusations fly. Within two weeks, everything they believe in and everything they know will have changed.

Photo: Polly Thomas

Max Roberts, Artistic Director, Live Theatre said: “We are delighted to be the first venue on the English tour of Land of Our Fathers, after its success touring Welsh venues.  The story of miners in the play will have a strong resonance here in the North East with our shared mining heritage, and with Live Theatre’s audiences after our success with plays such as The Pitmen Painters and Close the Coalhouse Door. It is a very powerful drama to start the 2016 season here at Live Theatre.”

Land of Our Fathers has been described by The Guardian as ‘undeniably powerful’ and The Times as ‘a high voltage production’.

Photo: Polly Thomas

Paul Robinson, Artistic Director of Theatre503 and Director, Land of our Fathers said: “The response so far has been thrilling and we’re delighted to be bringing the production to some fantastic venues in England in the New Year. The story is so universal with characters that you can’t help but fall; in love with, and we hope the play will continue to bring laughs and tears as it continues its journey.”

Photo: Polly Thomas

Tara Finney, Co-producer, Land of our Fathers said: “I am delighted to be taking Land of Our Fathers on tour, enabling more people around the country to see this beautiful play. I have no doubt it will continue to enthral people as we move from the Welsh to English venues.”

Original cast members Joshua Price (Llwyth/Tribe) and Taylor Jay-Davies (Great Expectations – West End, The Passion) reprise their roles as Mostyn and Chewy. They are joined by John Cording (Pobol Y Cwm, Da Vinci’s Demons), Tomos Eames (Pride, Resistance), Cornelius Booth (Pride & Prejudice) and Robert Jezek (The Bodyguard – West End).

Two free events will accompany the shows at Live Theatre. Meet The Cast takes place after the show on Thursday 28 January, when the audience can discuss the making of the play with the creative team and cast.  A Post Show Discussionwill take place on Saturday 30 January after the 2pm matinee, when Ian Lavery MP for Wansbeck and former President of the National Union of Mineworkers joins Max Roberts Artistic Director of Live Theatre to discuss issues raised in the play. Both events are free, but booking is essential.

Tickets:

Land of Our Fathers tickets are available from Live Theatre’s box office on (0191) 232 1232 or from the website www.live.org.uk.

Event Details: 

Land of Our Fathers

PERFORMANCES: Wednesday 27th to Saturday 30th January, 7.30pm
MATINEE: Saturday 30th January , 2pm

LOCATION: Main Theatre
DURATION:  Approx. 2hr 20mins (including interval)
SUITABILITY: 14+, contains some swearing

TICKETS: £22-£12, over 60s conc. £22-£16 other concs. £15-£10
 

Meet the Cast

Thursday 28 January, after 7.30pm show
Meet the cast and creative team to discuss the making of the play.

DATE: Thurs 28 Jan,
LOCATION: Main Theatre
DURATION:  Approx. 40mins
SUITABILITY: 14+

TICKETS: Free, booking essential

Post Show Discussion

Saturday 30 January, after 2pm show

Ian Lavery MP for Wansbeck and former President of the National Union of Mineworkers joins Max Roberts, Live |Theatre’s Artistic Director to discuss the issues raised in the play.

DATE: Sat 30 Jan
LOCATION: Main Theatre
DURATION:  Approx. 40mins
SUITABILITY: 14+

TICKETS: Free, booking essential

Preview: Jamie Raven Live at Newcastle Tyne Theatre

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“I now finally believe in magic!”

Jamie Raven Live

Newcastle Tyne Theatre and Opera House

Saturday 2nd July 2016

 

The Tyne Theatre and Opera House are thrilled to announce that Jamie Raven will be bringing a touch of magic to Newcastle next summer!

Jamie Raven burst onto an unsuspecting world during the 2015 series of Britain’s Got Talent. His magic amazed audiences and even made Simon Cowell exclaim, “I now finally believe in magic!”

Jamie has been perfecting his craft over the past 11 years working as a magician around the world and his ambition was always to take it to a wider audience and BGT finally gave him that chance.  His online videos from Britain’s Got Talent have now been seen over 100 million times, making him one of the most viewed magicians in the world.

Since finishing BGT, Jamie is headlining in The Illusionists at The Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End and is excited to start on his own UK theatre tour in June and July 2016.

So, sit back, relax and let Jamie Raven show you some of the magic that he has astounded audiences with around the world.

Twitter: @JamieRavenMagic

Facebook: JamieRavenMagic

Tickets:

Tickets: Adults - £18.50, Children £16.50, Family - £65 (2&2 or 1&3) (plus booking fees when booking online and over the phone)

The Tyne Theatre & Opera House Box Office is open 10am-3:30pm Monday to Friday and event days.  Booking and Information Line: 0844 2491 000 (10am – 6pm Monday to Friday).

Tickets are now available from www.tynetheatreandoperahouse.uk

Special offer: £4 off all tickets before 31st January 2016.

Preview: Omid Djalili at Barnard Castle Witham Arts Centre

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OMID DJALILI COMES TO BARNARD CASTLE

Omid Djalili

Barnard Castle Witham Arts Centre

Tuesday 1^st March 2016

Comedian and actor Omid Djalili is to visit Teesdale as part of his new tour.

Djalili, whose career has seen him become a fixture on both the comedy circuit and the silver screen, will visit The Witham arts centre in Barnard Castle on Tuesday 1^st March 2016 as part of his worldwide tour.

Following a sold-out four week West End residency and a sold-out season at the Edinburgh Festival, Djalili is now taking his new showIranalamadingdong to venues across Australia, North America and the Middle East before returning to the UK.

With over twenty years under his belt as a stand-up comedian, Djalili is one of the most recognisable comics in the country, notching up countless television appearances including Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You, and The Royal Variety Performance.

Armed with cheery observations, uncanny mimicry and old-school showmanship, the award-winning comic has been delighting audiences and critics with his energetic shtick since 1995.

As prominent on screen as he is on stage, Djalili has racked up an acting career as impressive as his comedy CV, with roles in Hollywoodblockbusters such as Gladiator, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Infidel.

He has also enjoyed success as a writer, having penned two series of sketch programme The Omid Djalili Show for the BBC, an episode of popular Sky anthology series Little Crackers, and his autobiography Hopeful, which was released last year.

Peter Dixon, of promoters Funny Way To Be, said: "Omid has a huge array of film, West End theatre and TV credits to his name, as well as a cabinets full of awards.  "It is as stand-up though where he truly comes into his own. Anyone who saw his last tour of major theatres will tell you of his razor sharp wit, boundless energy and expertly crafted cultural observations. We are elated that he has agreed to perform at our relatively small venue in Barnard Castle as part of his brand new tour."

Tickets:

Tickets are £22 and go on sale on Monday 2nd November 2015 from funnywaytobe.com.

VENUE: The Witham, 3 Horsemarket, Barnard Castle, Durham, DL12 8LY

Preview: Rambert at Newcastle Theatre Royal

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RAMBERT TO BREW UP A PERFECT STORM OF ART, SCIENCE AND NATURE

Rambert

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Tuesday 2^nd – Thursday 4^th February 2016

The UK’s longest established contemporary dance powerhouse, Rambert are back in Newcastle next year with a brand new show celebrating the dual forces of nature and art.  Thought provoking, visually stunning, and featuring Tyneside-born dancer Adam Park, the new tour is set to blow audiences away at Newcastle Theatre Royal in February 2016.

The tour programme features two new pieces – the Picasso-inspired The 3 Dancers and Frames, which takes us into a choreographer’s world, and a third piece, which was one of the huge successes of 2014 - The Strange Charm of Mother Nature.

The 3 Dancers is inspired by the tragic love triangle behind Picasso’s masterpiece of the same name.  A new work from former Rambert dancer Didy Veldman, it will explore the eternal themes of the painter’s work: love, desire and death. An internationally-renowned choreographer, Veldman uses a total of six dancers, three dressed in white and three as their shadows or darker selves in order to delve into the social, psychological and human elements of Picasso’s work.

Veldman, well known for her theatrical style and earthy choreography, reveals how Cubism can be applied to movement to create the fragmented world which is so characteristic of Picasso’s work. The 3 Dancers features an original score by Australia’s leading composer Elena Kats-Chernin.

Frames is a new work from another Rambert alumni, Alexander Whitley, which lays bare the process of making a dance performance. Twelve performers assemble and dismantle the set, move lighting and change angles, constantly creating new spaces and playing with what’s revealed and what’s hidden in their sequences of highly technical dancing.

This thought-provoking work, which sees dancers create a stage within a stage, is a continuation of Whitley’s collaboration with award-winning visual artists Tuur Van Balen and Revital Cohen and is accompanied by a new score from Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason.

The Strange Charm of Mother Nature, which premiered in September 2014, is inspired by particle physics and the recent discovery of the Higgs boson ‘God Particle’. Continuing choreographer Mark Baldwin’s fascination with science which has seen previous pieces inspired by the theories of Einstein and Darwin, the show sees dancers fizz with the energy of the miniscule building blocks that created life, the universe and everything. The work is set to a musical score of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3, Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks and a new piece by Cheryl Frances-Hoad.

This season, the company once again features north-east born dancer Adam Park, aged 24, of Jesmond who trained at Dame Allan’s and Dance City and has been in the company for four years.  Adam last performed with Rambert at Newcastle Theatre Royal in 2012 as part of the Seven for a Secret tour.

Tickets:

Rambert appears at Newcastle Theatre Royal from Tuesday 2^nd – Thursday 4^th February 2016.

(Evenings: 7.30pm, Matinee: Thursday 2pm). Tickets are from £12.00 (pay less online) and can be purchased at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 08448 11 21 21 (calls cost 7ppm plus your phone company’s access charge).

News: If we went for a star rating in 2016…

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If we went for a star rating in 2016…

We had thought “shall we use star ratings in 2016 for our reviews”. We had avoided them up to now as the words should do the talking. We feel that if we have stars in the reviews then people will ignore the review and just go off the stars.

Our other problem is that, whilst performers would love to see 4/5 stars – we wouldn’t give them out willy nilly. 3 stars would be the norm, as in “a good night at the theatre, better than staying in and watching tv”.

5 stars = The elusive rating. Possibly the best thing we will see this year.

4.5 stars = Extremely good. Memorable. We were on our feet applauding at the end.

4 stars = What are you waiting for, go and get tickets. This is a show we will be telling people about over the water cooler tomorrow

3.5 stars = We enjoyed it. Entertaining, well scripted and well acted.

3 stars = A good night at the theatre, better than staying in and watching tv

2.5 stars = Not bad at all, better than a dodgy soap opera

2 stars = There were a few things we would have done differently.

1.5 stars = As entertaining as playing ET on the Atari 2600 (Kids: ask your Parents)

1 star = As entertaining as watching the job adverts on teletext after midnight (Kids: ask your Parents) or we fell asleep (as we did in front of teletext after midnight a few times etc)

0.5 star = That’s it. We quit. We give up on creative types for ever allowing this to leave the workshop.

News: Generous Geordies donate over 5000 children’s Christmas presents at Laffs4Kids charity comedy night!

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Generous Geordies donate over 5000 children’s Christmas presents at Laffs4Kids charity comedy night!

Newcastle’s Tyne Theatre & Opera House had great pleasure in announcing that the Saturday 19th December’s comedy bonanza Laffs4Kids was a huge success, with over 5000 children’s Christmas presents donated to Metro Radio’s Cash for Kids campaign.

Photo: Kevin Duffy

Thanks to the staggering generosity of everyone who attended the event at Tyne Theatre & Opera House, thousands of less fortunate children across the North East had a Christmas present to open on Christmas Day.

Organized by local comedian Jason Cook, the premise was simple: instead of paying for admission, bring an unwrapped Christmas present for a child. With just over 1000 tickets issued yet over 5000 presents collected, the people of the North East certainly delivered.

With Jason Cook himself introducing the acts, a whole host of local comedy heroes took to the stage to provide a sleigh-load of laughs, including Chris Ramsey, Steffen Peddie, Alfie Joey, Scott Tyrrell, Kai Humphries and Carl Hutchinson.

Bringing the brilliant evening to an end was Lindisfarne’s Billy Mitchell with a rousing rendition of the Lindisfarne classic Run For Home that had the whole auditorium singing along.

Theatre Director Joanne Johnson says: “We’re so proud here at Tyne Theatre & Opera House to have been able to support such a fantastic event for Cash for Kids. Jason’s idea was excellent and we’re thrilled he chose Tyne Theatre to host Laffs4Kids. The amount of presents donated is absolutely overwhelming and the night itself was incredible; the perfect way to celebrate the festive season and a successful year for us.”

Organiser and comedian Jason Cook says: “I'm so proud of everyone involved in Laffs4Kids, both performers and audience alike. The performers agreed within minutes of being asked and gave it their all on the night, and the audience sold the place out in a matter of days and although we set the price of admission at just one present, that was a rarity, with most people bringing carrier bags full of gifts to get us to over 5000 gifts. It was quite stressful for me on the night just making sure everyone was where they needed to be and we were running to time, but once I got home and thought about what all of us, both sides of the stage, had achieved I must admit I shed a tear or two at the innate kindness of the Geordie people.”

Weblink: www.metroradio.co.uk/charity/

The Tyne Theatre & Opera House Box Office is open 10am-3:30pmMonday to Friday and event days

Booking and Information Line: 0844 2491 000 (10am – 6pmMonday to Friday)

Website: www.tynetheatreandoperahouse.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tynetheatreandoperahouse

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TyneOperaHouse

Theatre Address: 109 – 119 Westgate Road, Newcastle, NE1 4AG