REVIEW: Looking Good Dead at Newcastle Theatre Royal

Looking Good Dead

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Monday 19th – Saturday 24th July 2021

Finally, the theatres reopened and we all got a chance to share the experience of a drama with other people in the same room. This is a tense crime thriller which holds off the plot twists for the final couple of scenes. Peter James is a successful author and it is clear to see why.

So what is a visit to the Theatre Royal like at the minute? There is a socially distanced queue to stop a crowd building up at the doors. We were quickly processed by showing the QR code on the e-ticket to the staff before being let in. Inside there are plenty of hand sanitiser stations and everyone was wearing masks as a condition of entry. The theatre is now cashless so everything is being paid for using your contactless card. The big change is that you are expected to take your drink or ice cream to your seats rather than congregate in the bar. 

Another big plus point was that the air conditioning in the circle was working well so it was cooler in the auditorium than it was outside. Unlike some venues, cinemas in particular, I didn’t feel a need to stick a coat on.

Onto the play: the bulk of the action takes place in the Brighton home of the Bryce family. Designer Michael Holt has put a second raised space behind the house and that is where the action begins as escort Janie (Natalie Boakye) awaits the arrival of her client Mick (Mylo McDonald). Quickly the action moves to the house. Gaynor Faye, who has appeared on television in Emmerdale, Coronation Street and The Syndicate appears as Kellie Bryce, and she is cleaning the place around her 17 year old son Max (Luke Ward-Wilkinson). Adam Woodyatt takes a break from Eastenders to appear as the husband Tom. He is struggling to keep his business going and it is quickly revealed that the family are spending more than they can earn. 

Tom has picked up a USB stick that was left behind on his commuter train and he plans to do a good thing by looking at it in order to work out who to return it to.  Unfortunately, this apparent good turn quickly turns into a police matter as he finds himself exposed to the work of a criminal gang.

The local CID is led by Roy Grace (Harry Long), who has wisecracking Glenn Branson (Leon Stewart) and Bella Moy (Gemma Stroyan) to bounce ideas off and to help with the investigation. They operate from a police station set that, at times on opening night, struggled to be wheeled on and off the stage.

The story tries to be up to date featuring mobile phones, laptops and internet security as part of the tale. However, in doing so, the adaptation starts to drown in exposition as the action stops as the actors explain to the audience the workings of tracking cookies and bitcoin transactions. Thus it was a challenge for IT savvy son Max to be both a stroppy teenager, who is reacting to his family in crisis, and to be the one explaining why he is able to break the encryption on the memory stick or hacking into his mother’s phone.

Light relief, fortunately, came from some of the bad jokes shared by the police. To be honest, it was wonderful seeing and hearing an audience react even if the jokes are on a bad “Dad joke” level.

Director Jonathan O’Boyle has managed to keep the show evenly paced. The action runs for just under two hours, plus the interval. The split stage helped to keep the action flowing and I did prefer to see the other location on stage rather than through a video screen. Adam Woodyatt and Gaynor Faye work well as the central on stage couple. Mylo McDonald gave a natural performance that made the most of his time on stage.

Perhaps I am getting better at guessing, but I had predicted some of the elements of the final Scooby-Doo reveal.  However the one thing I didn’t understand was why they kept the back door open when the house was clearly being targeted by the gang.

Whilst it was fantastic to be in a venue, sharing the experience of live theatre, I did find myself noticing the footsteps off stage and jangling of chains from time to time distracting. Judging by comments around me, I wasn’t the only one.

In reviews I aim to do nothing more than say if I enjoyed the show. Regular readers will know that I don’t aim to say any more than that. Looking Good Dead is an interesting idea that will please the fans of the genre but our group, who love a good mystery, gave a collective shrug of the shoulders as we left the theatre.

Review by Stephen Oliver

Photos by Alistair Muir

Tickets:

Looking Good Dead plays at Newcastle Theatre Royal from Monday 19 – Saturday 24 July 2021. North East Theatre Guide preview is here.

Tickets are priced from £15.00 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).

 

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Jon Courtenay

Newcastle Tyne Theatre & Opera House

Sunday 26^th September 2021 at 7.30pm

Tickets: https://tidd.ly/3ih7kp0

Photo: pHd Photography

“Wonderful…you are someone who has worked hard for years and needs a break and i’m sure you will get a huge reaction from this, I promise you.” Simon Cowell

Following his enormous success as the first Golden Buzzer act ever to win Britain’s Got Talent, Jon Courtenay is delighted to announce that he will be setting out on his debut tour of the UK in 2021.

“One of the best golden buzzers we’ve ever had on the show.”  Amanda Holden

Long before triumphing in the 2020 final, Jon was a powerhouse live performer with decades of experience touring the world. Become part of Jon’s journey of a lifetime where you will roar with laughter, maybe shed a few tears and definitely be inspired by his music and the hilarious tales of his family, relationships and life on tour. With a soundtrack including all his Britain’s Got Talent songs and music spanning the classics to rock n roll, Jon’s side-splitting show will leave you with a happy heart and a huge smile on your face.

This will definitely be a rip-roaring night of music and comedy that you’ll never forget!

“it’s funny, it’s touching, it’s unique to you…that was unbelievable.”  David Walliams

Jon Courtenay originally hails from Ipswich but now lives in Mossley, Greater Manchester with his wife Emmah and two sons Nathan and Alfie. He started his stage career as a comedy magician but gradually the magic made way for the piano. Even before he won Britain’s Got Talent, Jon was already a powerhouse live performer with decades of experience touring the world. He is also one of the rare British performers to be asked time and time again to perform in America. His originality and remarkable stage presence have led to hugely successful shows in the corporate market as well as on all the major luxury cruise lines.

Although Jon’s show is continually evolving, his sense of humour remains the same and he has now created a truly original experience for every audience.

 

“Magical…you nailed it my friend. You ticked every single box.”  Alesha Dixon

 

Tickets: Jon Courtenay appears at the Newcastle Tyne Theatre & Opera House on Sunday 26^th September 2021 at 7.30pm

Tickets are available from the box office and online from Eventim: https://tidd.ly/3ih7kp0

Preview: Treasure Island at Whitley Bay Playhouse

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Live Theatre is back!

A “green light” to Treasure Island

 

Treasure Island – The Summer Panto!

Whitley Bay Playhouse

Wednesday 18^th – Sunday 22^nd August 2021

Tickets: https://ticketmaster-uk.tm7559.net/Ea9WxW

 

This Summer, the Playhouse in Whitley Bay will reopen its doors to safely welcome audiences once again. With a variety of offering available, families are catered for by top North East Producers, Reece Sibbald Productions, with a tropical adventure pantomime, Treasure Island.

Starring “Tucker Jenkins” himself, Todd Carty appears as the villainous pirate Long John Silver. Whilst Britain’s Got Talent impressionist, Cal Halbert, and, from the Theatre Royal Panto, Reece Sibbald, return to the Playhouse for their third year to provide hilarious comedy antics for all of the family.

Completing the line-up is Whitley Bay’s own, Emma Deborah Ward, as the Magical Mermaid; the sensational Pippa Smith as Polly Perkins and international entertainer Jordan Michael Todd as the swashbuckling hero, Jim Hawkins.

Producer, Reece Sibbald explained: “At last! Family entertainment is back! We’ve worked meticulously to ensure our audiences remain safe upon the return to the theatre this summer. There’s sanitiser, track and trace, safety screens, face masks – and a whole host of additional safety measures.

Treasure Island will be a two-hour adventure to tropical shores, with mermaids, pirates and plenty of surprises along the way. This is the production audiences have been waiting for.

We hope audiences support their venues reopening, and we’re providing top-class family entertainment in the safest possible way, adhering to guidelines and at incredibly affordable prices. So, don’t delay and book your trip to Treasure Island today!”

Cast List

Todd Carty as Long John Silver

Reece Sibbald as Silly Billy

Cal Halbert as Capin Smollett

Pippa Smith as Polly Perkins

Emma Deborah Ward as The Magical Mermaid

Jordan Michael Todd as Jim Hawkins

 

Tickets:

Treasure Island will play for a limited run of 9 performances from 18^th – 22^nd August 2021 at the Playhouse Whitley Bay. Tickets are priced from £14.50 and available from the theatre box office and online from our affiliates Ticketmaster UK: https://ticketmaster-uk.tm7559.net/Ea9WxW  

 

Preview: Trailer Story at Newcastle Leazes Park

 

English Touring Theatre Announce Full Programme for Trailer Story – free pop up theatre venue in Leazes Park Newcastle

Trailer Story 

Newcastle Leazes Park

Friday 30^th  July - Sunday 1^st August 2021

 

ETT (English Touring Theatre), have announced the full programme for Trailer Story – a travelling outdoor performance space touring across the UK, a joyful, and safe, way of bringing communities together in their local public spaces to celebrate theatre.

Photo: Tina Torbey

Inspired by ETT’s origins as Century Theatre, who toured the UK in a pop-up space, Trailer Story performances will be housed in a truck, usually used to tour production sets around the country, but reimagined as a space for artists and audiences to meet. Designed by Jon Bausor with Tina Torbey, and Lighting Design by Natasha Chivers. Trailer Story opens in Newcastle, 30 July – 1 August, before visiting Keswick 5 – 8 August 2021, in partnership with Northern Stage and Theatre by the Lake.

 

The touring programme includes theatre with Nouveau Riche’s dance-theatre piece, Resonate, written and performed by Ntonga Mwanza; Lung Theatre’s Who Cares by Matt Woodhead which explores the experience of young carers; the bike-powered family comedy, How to Save a Rock, written by Conky Kampfner, Alex Rugman and Pigfoot; and Tim Crouch’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night from the point of view of its most notoriously abused steward in I, Malvolio. There is comedy with the country’s best comics performing for an audience of children and their families in Comedy Club 4 Kids. Figs in Wigs host cosmic game show, Astrology Bingo; and there is A Rain Walk, a self-guided tour accompanied recorded voices of children from across the UK and Ireland. With music and beatboxing from Grace Savage who performs her award-winning beatbox routines and distinguished back catalogue of songs; and Testament also brings his spoken word, rap and beatbox show.

 

Photo: Tina Torbey

In addition, the programme offers a platform for local artists in each area to take over the space, including The BonBons Cabaret, Mam Tackles The Climate Crisis, BRASH’s Raising Shame and A case in point by What’s That Dance in Newcastle. 

 

Richard Twyman, Artistic Director, and Sophie Scull, Executive Producer of ETT today said, “This programme curated by the team at ETT and our partners at Northern Stage and Theatre by the Lake offers audiences a rich selection of entertainment for all ages, from theatre and dance to comedy and spoken word. In this, its inaugural year, we hope that our touring truck will provide the opportunity for artists and audiences to reconnect and celebrate the communal act of theatre-making. We, and all the artists involved, are so excited to be back making work, touring and meeting audiences in their local community again.”

 

Trailer Story is made possible with support from the Cultural Recovery Fund, the Weston Culture Fund, Urban Green and the National Trust.

 

More details:

For more information including full programme listings and timings visit www.northernstage.co.uk/Event/trailer-story

 

Preview: Out of the Darkness, Into the Spotlight at Seaton Delaval Arts Centre

Curtain to rise again with musical concert celebration

Out of the Darkness, Into the Spotlight

Seaton Delaval Arts Centre

Sunday 8^th August 2021

After an incredibly challenging year for the entire theatre industry, south east Northumberland venue Seaton Delaval Arts Centre are delighted to announce a re-opening concert to mark the return of live entertainment. With the community venues doors firmly shut for the last 16 months, performers will be taking to the stage with a spectacular concert celebrating the wonderful world of musical theatre.

Named from the final song in the hit musical Everybody’s talking about Jamie, ‘Out of the Darkness, Into the Spotlight’ will bring an audience back into the venue for a night of live performance.  The show is packed with a mix of old and new songs from the shows including Matilda, Les Mis, Hamilton, Chicago, Grease, Mamma Mia and many many more. They’ll be sung by talented local performers and members of their youth theatre group who can’t wait to get back to rehearsing and performing. Plus they’ll be joined on stage by live musicians playing every note.

Stu Bennett, Theatre Director said “Like all performance venues, it’s been a really tough year for us. After our venue sitting empty for such a long time, we feel it’s only right to mark our re-opening and celebrate a new chapter properly with a concert performed by our members for the community to enjoy. We can’t wait to welcome patrons back into our auditorium for a night of live performance with all the musical songs they know and love, to sit back, relax and enjoy themselves. When the lights go down and the band strikes up, that feeling is going to be so magical.”

Tickets:

The show takes place on Sunday 8^th August 2021 at 7.00pm with tickets at £10.00 per person. The venue is operating a bring your own bottle scheme for the performance. Tickets are available online at www.seatondelavalartscentre.com or from the Box Office on 0191 237 5460.

 

Preview: Gosforth Civic Theatre is marking Pride this year with three stand out events.

Gosforth Civic Theatre is marking Pride this year with three stand out events and performances from LGBTQ+ artists, writers, performers and members of the region's queer community.

Gosforth Civic Theatre aree delighted to be bringing a strong programme of events to GCT this year to celebrate Pride in the North East, collaborating with Curious Arts and Equal Arts to platform great work and voices from the LGBTQ+ artistic community in Gosforth and Newcastle.

The programme begins on Sunday 18th July with Handing on our Histories, a retro pride event with music, photography, and short films. It's the culmination of six months work where Equal Arts have been creating a cross-generational project which has supported students to capture the oral history of those who made the first North East Pride events, fought against discriminatory laws like Section 28 and campaigned for LGBT rights during the 1970s and 80s. Tickets are free, but are almost gone so move quick!

On Tuesday 20 July, the first piece of theatre performance in the Theatre since March 2020 is Jenny by Tom Marshman. Part of Curious Arts #CuriousSummer, and followed by a Q&A feedback session with the artist, Jenny is a work-in-progress scratch performance which gathers together research from historians at Newcastle archives, and academics at the University of Bristol, to raise questions of how to create a fully formed picture of someone from the past. Particularly when LGBTQ+ and working class lives are largely documented through their often brutal encounters with the state.

It's all tied together through collaborations with Canadian composer, singer, and musician Jenny Moore, who composed original music as part of the piece; and a writing collaboration with writer and performer Enxi Chang.

It'll be fascinating and a must for those with an interest in LGBTQIA+ history, true crime or just new progressive writing and performance. Tickets are free to book and it's pay as you feel on the evening.

The weeks ends with a bang and Curious Arts Fundraiser on Friday 23 July. Curious Arts is a Newcastle Gateshead based not-for-profit organisation championing and developing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual + arts, artists and audiences across the North East of England.

The evening is packed with LGBTQ+ talent and will be a fun-packed night of live music, drag, roller-skating, hula-hooping and dance, raising vital funds to support LGBTQIA+ artists and young people across the North East with all ticket sales going to Curious Arts to support the work they do.

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Featuring performances by Martha Hill, Jesse Salaman & Toi Guy and Symoné, the event will be hosted by Drag royalty Choriza May with a guest appearance from Gladys Duffy. Tickets are on sale now and start from £15.

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GCT is a community arts venue, ran by a disability arts charity, and we strive to be a place for everyone. We want to give people a voice and be somewhere they can feel safe coming together and being themselves. Openness and inclusivity are important to us. They form the basis of who we are - 20% of our staff team identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community - and we want to represent that in what we programme now and in the future, so watch this space for more LGBTQ+ community activities and performances.

Tickets:

Sunday 18 July - Handing on our Histories

Tuesday 20 July - Jenny by Tom Marshman

Friday 23 July - Curious Arts Fundraiser

For more information on all the performances mentioned and the rest of their programme, head to their What's On Page.

Preview: Cinderella at Darlington Hippodrome

 

DARLINGTON PANTOMIME FANS SHALL
GO TO THE BALL!

Cinderella

Darlington Hippodrome

Friday 10 to Friday 31 December 2021

Steps star Faye Tozer leads the cast of this year’s Fairy Godmother of all pantomimes, Cinderella, at Darlington Hippodrome in December.

Darlington Hippodrome has announced that much-loved singer and television personality Faye Tozer will headline this year’s Hippodrome pantomime, Cinderella, from Friday 10 December.

As one fifth of the multi award-winning pop band Steps for the last two decades, Faye and her band-mates released over twenty hit singles, five chart-topping studio albums and toured the nation nine times with their inimitable style of pop and famous dance routines, amassing record sales of over 20 million worldwide. After a brief hiatus the group reformed to celebrate their 20th anniversary, releasing new critically acclaimed material delighting existing fans and winning them legions of new ones. Most recently the group combined forces with Michelle Visage, releasing their celebrated hit Heartbreak in this City.

Outside of the Steps-phere, Faye has also enjoyed an extensive theatre career, starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s one-woman musical Tell Me On A Sunday to great critical acclaim, the UK tour of Love Shack, Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens in London’s West End, Me and My Girl and Over The Rainbow where she played the late Eva Cassidy as well as appearing in numerous pantomimes. In 2018 Faye took part in the sixteenth series of BBC1’s primetime show, Strictly Come Dancing. Coupled with Giovanni Pernice, the pair sashayed into the final and wowed audiences with their incredible footwork, only narrowly missing out on winning the coveted glitter ball trophy. Before she line-dances her way into Darlington, Faye will star in the hit musical Singin’ in the Rain at London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre.

Cinderella will see pantomime make its long-awaited return to Darlington Hippodrome following the closure of the venue due to the Covid pandemic, brought to audiences by the critically-acclaimed production team behind the last twenty festive productions. The show will be packed full of the magical ingredients Darlington audiences have come to expect from their annual festive pantomime, including special effects, hilarious comedy and plenty of audience participation in a celebration of festive joy following such unprecedented times.

Chief Executive of Crossroads Pantomimes Michael Harrison said: “Faye is undoubtedly an absolute star, and a natural at pantomime, bringing all of her undeniable warmth, humour, fancy footwork and stunning vocals. We’re delighted to be able to team up with her once again and let her cast her spell over Darlington audiences and bring back the magic of pantomime now that we are able to do so.”

Heather Tarran-Jones, Programming and Development Director of Darlington Hippodrome said “We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Faye will be with us for Cinderella and I am sure she will be a great hit with audiences of all ages.”

Tickets:

Cinderella runs at Darlington Hippodrome from Friday 10 to Friday 31 December 2021. Tickets are on sale now, with early booking advised. For full details and to book visit www.darlingtonhippodrome.co.uk or call 01325 405405.