Preview: Oti Mabuse: I Am Here at Newcastle Theatre Royal

 

STRICTLY CHAMPION LIGHTS UP THE STAGE AT NEWCASTLE THEATRE ROYAL

Oti Mabuse: I Am Here

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Sunday 15 May 2022

Prepare for a night of electrifying choreography as the star of The Greatest Dancer and two time Strictly Come Dancing champion Oti Mabuse is joined by some of the world's greatest dancers and the West End's finest singers and musicians on her first ever UK tour.

Coming to Newcastle Theatre Royal for one mesmerising night on Sunday 15 May, Oti Mabuse: I Am Here (a direct translation of Oti’s name in the language Setswana, spoken in South Africa) is a whirlwind celebration of the influences and inspirations that took her on a journey from growing up in South Africa to following her dream.

 

From mesmerising Jives and pumping Sambas to South African traditional dances, Oti Mabuse: I Am Here is an explosive night of dance and music that will set your heart racing.

 

Oti will also be joined by some of the world’s greatest dancers and the West End’s finest singers and musicians, for what is promised to be a night of electrifying choreography and like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

 

Eight-time South African Latin American Champion, Oti is regarded as one of the most successful South African dancers in the world, regularly choreographing critically acclaimed musicals and is now a sought-after presenter and judge on UK television.

 

2022 has already been an incredible year for Oti who was crowned Strictly Come Dancing champion in 2019 and 2020. As well as being confirmed as the new judge on ITV’s Dancing on Ice, she has also been announced as the host for new primetime ITV dating show Romeo and Duet coming this year.

 

Tickets:

Oti Mabuse: I Am Here plays at Newcastle Theatre Royal Sunday 15 May 2022. Tickets are priced at £28.50 and can be purchased at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 0191 232 7010.

 

 

 

Preview: GIFT: Gateshead International Festival of Theatre

 GIFT: Gateshead International Festival of Theatre 

presents GIFT 2022 (in person and online)

Friday 29 April - Sunday 1 May 2022

GIFT announces GIFT 2022: three days of performances, walks, discussions and workshops designed for in-person audiences in the North East of England and for online audiences everywhere. 

Following the Journal Culture Award winning, online, GIFT 2020, and The GIFT Exchange online in 2021, GIFT is back for 2022 with a hybrid festival designed to bring artists and audiences together in ways that prioritise care, and that catalyse conversation.

GIFT 2022 will bring together the most exciting, internationally ambitious artists, for a festival designed to celebrate collaboration, creativity and connection. Throughout April, in the lead up to GIFT, participating artists will come together with communities, fellow artists and audiences via a series of conversations and artist residencies.

GIFT 2022 will take place online, and in sites and venues across Gateshead including Chopwell Woods, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Gateshead Central Library. The three day festival will see a wide range of events taking place both online and in-person across Gateshead, in venues, down by the river, and throughout the town centre. 

 

There will be chances over the three days to join events in person, or to watch events streamed to wherever you are joining us from in the world; to join in with conversations while out walking in the woods, or to join a conversation online. The festival is designed to welcome audiences back to in person events with care, and to continue to offer a festival experience for audiences who are farther afield, or unable to attend in person.

Festival Director Kate Craddock said:  “It is such a thrilling prospect to be bringing GIFT events back to the heart of Gateshead after two years of delivering the festival entirely online. Our online editions allowed us to reach new audiences from all over the world, and to attract increased recognition and acclaim for our work. We are now delighted to be re-connecting with audiences in person, while still offering the option for audiences to have an experience of GIFT online from their own homes. We are committed to ensuring care remains at the heart of our approach, for the artists and audiences who will come together to form our festival community - and we hope that by doing so, we can continue to build new conversations that will help inform GIFT for years to come.”

This year the festival will feature many artists who work predominantly as part of an artist pair, so we will be celebrating and exploring what it means to work collaboratively as part of a creative partnership - and there will be opportunities to hear how artists have sustained their creative practice through collaboration - particularly throughout the pandemic.

Planned events will invite audiences to share time and be in the moment together, in order to better understand our recent past, and to re-imagine our collective future. 

Featured GIFT 2022 events include: 

Woodland Walks

Hello Neighbours (Friday 29 April) a workshop which forms part of 3 Woods, an ongoing multi-year project led by Canadian artist duo Mia & Eric. Since August 2020, GIFT has worked with Calgary based Mia & Eric on a remote ‘off-site’ artist residency, connecting the artists from their home in Calgary with individuals and communities who live locally to Chopwell Wood. For GIFT 2022, Mia & Eric will be here, in-person, continuing their residency in Chopwell Woods - connecting with individuals and community groups throughout April and May - before returning next year to co-create a performance for GIFT 2023. Hello Neighbours will be a practical workshop, taking place in Chopwell Woods, in which Mia & Eric will give participants the chance to get to know their more-than-human neighbours who live in the woods. Without a shared verbal language, getting to know each other will require all of our senses, some unconventional ways of relating, skills of observation and patience. https://www.3-woods.com 

Will we ever get to Gateshead?

Some of the artists who will feature at GIFT 2022 were originally due to perform in Gateshead for GIFT in 2020, but then worked with GIFT to pivot their performances online in response to the global pandemic. GIFT has continued a dialogue with many of these artists over the last two years, and we are thrilled to finally be able to welcome them to Gateshead.

 

Bertrand Lesca & Nasi Voutsas will present their award winning performance piece The End created in collaboration with Laura Dannequin (Friday 29 April, BALTIC and Live Streamed) in which Bert & Nasi dance the end of their relationship, imagining what a future without each other might look like. Above the stage, and projected onto a screen, two parallel narratives run alongside each other: the end of the earth, and the end of their collaboration. Audiences can expect a poignant, sad and funny account of the ongoing ecological crisis. Their dance is a reminder and a celebration of our own mortality and everything around us. This performance will mark the culmination of a week-long residency at GIFT, where Bert and Nasi will be developing their new work, THE BEGINNING, which will form part of GIFT’s programme in 2023. 

 

Following the performance of The End, audiences will be invited to stay at BALTIC for A Really Small Disco, created by North East based artists Lizzie Klotz and Luca Rutherford in BALTIC’s ground floor Front Room. Taking material from their first collaborative work, A Really Small Dance, Lizzie and Luca, along with their DJ collaborator Charlotte Bickley will create a series of performance interventions, inviting audiences to join them with some really small dances while having post show drinks and chats.

 

Greg Wohead will be undertaking a residency in Gateshead Central Library during the week prior to GIFT working on the next phase of the performance In Floods, which was presented as a work in progress at GIFT 2020 online. Greg will be available at various points during the residency for conversations with library users that explore the themes behind the work - that centres on the act of crying, of choking back tears and of letting them flow. 

Out and About 

GIFT is thrilled to be welcoming Olivia Furber and Ramzi Maqdisi to Gateshead with their acclaimed guided audio tour The Lands’ Heart is Greater than its Map: an emotional, cartographic resistance piece which actively questions who has the right to claim the history of places and objects and how we can imaginatively salvage shrinking landscapes (Friday 29 April, Saturday 30 April, Sunday 1 May, in person). As part of their preparation and mapping the walking route for audiences in Gateshead, the artists will connect with local artists and community groups to create a bespoke version for Gateshead town centre.  Another event that will invite audiences to reflect on our understanding of the past, and which places audiences at the heart of the experience, is The Acquisitions Panel, an interactive performance by critically- acclaimed immersive experience makers Fast Familiar. The Acquisitions Panel explores the legacies of European colonialism and how we choose the stories we tell about the past (Shipley Art Gallery, Saturday 30 April). GIFT Festival Director Kate Craddock will lead a guided creative walk along Gateshead’s Riverside Park Sculpture Trail, in which participants will be invited to respond to a series of sites and artist interventions encountered along the trail - before being invited to reflect on their observations and contribute to a wider conversation about the future creative potential for the site (Sunday 1 May, in person)

The Lands’ Heart is Greater than its Map

Time to talk

In Neither Here Nor There (Saturday 30 April, Caedmon Hall) Eddie Ladd and Sonia Hughes host and ask and answer questions about how it’s all going, big unfathomable questions about the world, small questions about the state of your garden. Weather permitting Sonia and Jo take the audience on a short walk, there’s small talk, a bite to eat, tables, chairs, questions, talking and listening. Born out of a frustration with superficial connections, iPhones, twitter, instagram, the binary nature of public debate and the rest, Neither Here Nor There creates a space, some time and we slow down. Complexity takes time.

The Imagination to Change it all

On the final day of the festival, award winning duo Two Destination Language will be joined by guest artists from across the North of England to collectively ask What If? (BALTIC, Sunday 1 May, in person and live streamed).  In 2020, a group of 12 artists came together to imagine better futures. Embracing their commitment to optimism, they’ll spend three hours dreaming it all better for you. Bring hope. We think we can change it all. We think we have the imagination to change it all. We really do. So, to help with the changes, we are throwing an OPTIMISM PARTY! A party by and for desperate optimists. Welcome! Following an online residency at the beginning of the pandemic, when it felt that everything really might change, this durational performance is a reunion. Like all reunions, it’s uncertain, but the artists are determined to attempt to recapture their sense of optimism for better worlds, better working conditions, better friendships and a better future.

What if?

Online

For audiences who can’t join us in person in Gateshead, there will be opportunities to connect with live streamed performances from BALTIC (THE END and What If..) as well as online conversations taking place on Zoom. Online, digital performances will include I Melania by Paula Varjack and Chuck Blue Lowry (Saturday 30 April, Online, with Live Art interventions in person across Gateshead). Using Melania Trump as an avatar of an ‘acceptably’ foreign woman, they explore their relationship to being ‘foreign’ to ask: what are the ways a foreign woman can assimilate to make herself more welcome? And how is this open to some foreigners and not others?  Exploring the journey of Melania Trump from her home country and into the public sphere, Varjack-Lowry will compare her narrative to theirs, to learn how and if they can be acceptably foreign and female.

The End

 

Conversations

Throughout the three days of the festival (29 April - 1 May) there will be multiple opportunities to join in conversations in person and online. On Sunday 1 May, artists are invited to start the day with inspiring chats in person at The Breakfast Club, hosted by Newcastle’s very own The Six Twenty. The Breakfast Club is a relaxed meet up for artists, cultural freelancers and arts workers who can drop in at any time and stay for as long or as little as they like.

 

Access information 

Audiences are asked to please email the GIFT team on giftfestival.info@gmail.com if they have any specific access requirements or questions.

Tickets:

All events are either ticketed on a Pay What You Decide basis or free to attend - but places are limited and must be booked in advance.

For full listings and for bookings visit: www.giftfestival.co.uk

Keep up to date by following GIFT on Social Media @GIFTfest  

Funders and Supporters

Events at GIFT 2022 are funded and supported by: Arts Council England, Gateshead Council, Canada Council for the Arts, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Newcastle University

Preview: Chicago at Sunderland Empire

A D V E R T I S E M E N T 

Lee Mead to star as ‘Billy Flynn’ in the UK and Ireland tour of the international smash hit musical Chicago 

Chicago

Sunderland Empire

Tuesday 31 May – Saturday 4 June 2022

Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/ChicagoSundEmpire* 

Much-loved star of stage and screen Lee Mead will play the role of ‘Billy Flynn’ in the acclaimed UK and Ireland tour of the international smash hit musical Chicago. 

Lead Mead

Lee Mead joins the previously announced Gemma Collins as ‘Mama Morton’, Faye Brookes as ‘Roxie Hart’, Djalenga Scott as ‘Velma Kelly’, Jamie Baughan as ‘Amos Hart’ and B.E. Wong as ‘Mary Sunshine’, opening at the Sunderland Empire from Tuesday 31 May 2022.

The cast is completed by Ishmail Aaron, Michelle Andrews, Gabby Antrobus, Delycia Belgrave, Joel Benjamin, Tanisha-Mae Brown, Daniel Clift, Callum Fitzgerald, Emily Goodenough, Billie Hardy, Aaron Jenkins, Liam Marcellino, Theo Reece, Hollie Jane Stephens and Harrison Wilde. 

Lee Mead (Billy Flynn) won the nations hearts when they voted him their Joseph in BBC1’s Any Dream Will Do. Since then, Lee has gone on to star in the West End in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Adelphi Theatre, Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre and Wicked at the Victoria Apollo, as well as touring the UK as Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Lee has also appeared on screen establishing himself as a TV favourite on BBC1’s Casualty and Holby City in the role of Lofty.

Gemma Collins (Mama Morton) is best known as a media personality and businesswoman, having first featured in the reality series The Only Way Is Essex. She was awarded the 2021 winner of the Best Female Personality at the National Reality Television Awards. Since ‘Essex’ Gemma has appeared in numerous television shows including, I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, Celebrity Big Brother, Dancing on Ice and All Together Now in which she was a finalist. Most recently Gemma was seen on screens with her intimate Channel 4 documentary, Gemma Collins: Self-Harm & Me. Before finding fame on The Only Way Is Essex, Gemma was a keen performer having studied dance and winning a place at the renowned Sylvia Young Theatre School.

Faye Brookes (Roxie Hart) reached the final of last year’s series of ITV’s Dancing On Ice. She is best known for her role as Kate Connor in ITV’s Coronation Street, for which she won a National Television Award. Her theatre credits include Princess Fiona in Shrek and Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, both on national tour, Ann/Edna in That Day We Sang directed by Victoria Wood at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Liesl in The Sound of Music at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and Frenchy in Grease at the West End’s Piccadilly Theatre. Faye’s other TV credits include Agnes Franklin in Our Girl and Helena in Atlantis, both for the BBC.

Djalenga Scott’s (Velma Kelly) West End credits include Lily St Regis in Annie at the Piccadilly Theatre, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the New London and Chicago at the Adelphi, Cambridge and Garrick Theatres. Her other credits include Anita in the national tour of West Side Story, Rizzo in Grease at Curve Leicester, Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show and Carmen in Fame, both on European tours, the US tour of Batman Live and Bombalurina in Cats at Kilworth House. Djalenga’s screen credits include Scarlett/Esme in Trapped for the BBC and Alexandra in the film I Give It A Year.

Set amidst the razzle-dazzle decadence of the 1920s, Chicago is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to walk out on her. Desperate to avoid conviction, she dupes the public, the media and her rival cellmate, Velma Kelly, by hiring Chicago’s slickest criminal lawyer to transform her malicious crime into a barrage of sensational headlines, the likes of which might just as easily be ripped from today's tabloids.

Created by the musical theatre talents of John Kander, Fred Ebb and legendary choreographer Bob Fosse, Chicago’s sexy, sassy score includes the show-stopping songs “Razzle Dazzle”, “Cell Block Tango”, and “All That Jazz”.  Winner of six Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards and a Grammy, Chicago is the longest running American musical in Broadway and West End history.

Since it opened in New York in 1996, Chicago has played in 36 countries worldwide and has been performed in English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Danish, Japanese and Korean.  Worldwide it has been seen by an estimated 33 million people, grossed over $1.7 billion and played over 32,500 performances.

Chicago, which is based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, has a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.  The 1996 Broadway revival of Chicago was choreographed by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse, directed by Walter Bobbie, and produced by Barry and Fran Weissler.

Tickets:

Chicago, featuring Lee Mead – Billy Flynn, Gemma Collins – Mama Morton, Faye Brookes – Roxie Hart & Djalenga Scott – Velma Kelly, will hit Sunderland Empire’s stage from Tuesday 31 May – Saturday 4 June 2022. Tickets priced from just £13* are available from the Ticket Centre on 0844 871 7615* or online at https://tinyurl.com/ChicagoSundEmpire* 

*A £3.65 transaction fee applies to telephone and online bookings. Calls cost up to 7p per minute plus your standard network charge.

REVIEW: Beautiful – The Carole King Musical at Newcastle Theatre Royal

 

Beautiful – The Carole King Musical

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Until Saturday 23 April 2022

Beautiful is a bio-musical about a songwriter who had written or co-written 118 pop hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 of which 61 charted in the UK. Covering a creatively fertile period from 1958 to 1971, the musical, written by Douglas McGrath, is packed full of great songs. As one lady leaving the theatre behind us said “I never realised all of those songs were written by the same person”. A lot of happy people left the Theatre Royal tonight and that is thanks to a talented ensemble delivering a treasure trove of wonderful music.

The show begins in Carnegie Hall in 1971, with Molly-Grace Cutler, as Carole King, singing So Far Away and talking to the audience about her reaction to performing in such an iconic venue. Ben Cracknell’s lighting design literally fills the stage with big venue lighting, and a huge lit up “beautiful” sign, to help set the scene. 

Quickly the action shifts back to about 1958. Carole has skipped 2 grades at school and, despite being only 16, she is already at Queen’s College studying, by her Mothers’s recommendation, education. She is keen to see if anyone will buy her songs so she heads off with a friend to the offices of Donnie Kirshner (Garry Robson) who takes a punt on the young talent.

At this point the audience need to strap themselves in for a whirlwind experience as she meets lyricist Gerry Goffin (Tom Milner) in one moment and in a blink of eye they become both a working partnership that is married with a young child. All of this happening whilst wearing the same cardigan throughout!

There is little hanging around in this show as a few biographical details are presented before an opportunity for the next song. But, somehow, the fast pace from director Nikolai Foster works and the audience does get emotionally involved. Now, I’m not going for any plot spoilers…but the sharp intake of breath collectively (followed by laughter as they recognised what they’d done) at the end shows that the audience were committed to the characters in the story.

The show also features the lives of the successful songwriters in the next office - Barry Mann (Jos Slovick) and Cynthia Well (Seren Sandham-Davies). Their rivalry and attitudes to the changing times throughout the 60s acts as a nice counterpoint to the experience of King and her husband.

All of the performance takes place on the stage. For much of the show the set up is the recording studio on Broadway and the drummers are placed in a booth. The rest of the musicians are up on the stage - including musical director Dan-De-Cruz, who gets up and performs as both Neil Sedaka and one of the Righteous Brothers. The audience thus gets a full appreciation of what is often tucked away in the orchestra pit.

Having the musicians on the perimeter of the performance space at the start of songs may work in most venues. Unfortunately, and this is a minor quibble, the sight lines from the edges of the circle at the Theatre Royal may mean that you don’t see where some of the music is coming from until part  way through the song as the performers often move closer to the centre. As a result, the couple next to me moved, at the interval, to some central empty seats on the back row to change their view.

The musicians really do perform well - though the people involved include the “regular cast” as they are expected to pick up an instrument and support the piece. 

This leads me to the vocal performances which were universally wonderful. It is hard to pull out a single key moment. Molly-Grace Cutler does a superb job as Carole King. Her voice conveying the emotion and power that goes with It Might As Well Rain Until September, Will You Love Me Tomorrow? It’s Too Late and Beautiful. For me, two other great moments were the energy of Little Eva in the Locomotion and the club performance of Uptown.

Beautiful works as a fast paced musical. Sure, we could have had a bit more detail in the dialogue but it was fairly easy to work out what was happening. But ultimately, the songs have survived the test of time because they are so timeless. It gives you a real buzz leaving a theatre hearing positive comments from the audience. Indeed you find yourself wanting to play more of the music. The talent on stage fully deserved the enthusiastic applause at the end.

Review: Stephen Oliver

Photos: Ellie Kurttz

Tickets:

Tickets are priced from £15.00 and can be purchased at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 0191 232 7010.

Preview: Brassed Off at Durham Gala

 

Brassed Off to take centre stage at Gala Durham

 

Brassed Off

Durham Gala

Tuesday 6 - Saturday 24 September 2022

A story of love, tragedy and brass will take centre stage at Gala Durham later this year as the venue announces its next production.

Based on the screenplay from the popular 1996 film starring Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald, Brassed Off will run at the city-centre venue, operated by Durham County Council, from Tuesday 6 to Saturday 24 September.

The play, adapted by writer Paul Allen, is set in County Durham in 1992 and supports the county’s bid to be named UK City of Culture 2025. It focuses on the story of Danny’s lifelong ambition to lead his local colliery band to the National Brass Band Competition at the Royal Albert Hall.

As his dream looks set to become reality, the pit faces closure and the town, which now faces a bleak future, is thrown into conflict. The arrival of flugelhorn player Gloria then brings a renewed sense of hope and touch of romance to the story.

Brassed Off will feature local brass bands including current North of England Area (Championship Section) champions, NASUWT Riverside Band, and follows Gala Durham’s recent works including Teechers and Two.

Conrad Nelson at Gala Durham 

The funny and life-affirming tale of community spirit and triumph in the face of adversity will be brought to life by director Conrad Nelson, who has previously directed Brassed Off at the New Vic Theatre.

Conrad said: “The lives of the working classes have always inspired and in turn been inspired by great art, music and theatre. In this new production with the help of playwright, Paul Allen, we’re relocating Brassed Off to the coal fields of County Durham. It’s a poignant setting for the play, but in truth, the themes of this story are universal.

“The play is not only a salute to the passing of an industry, but a timely and uplifting reminder of the importance of culture, community and a bloomin’ good tune.”

Paul Allen, Brassed Off’s writer, said: “I came to Gala Durham as a journalist when it first opened, and I am so happy to be coming back as a writer. Adapting Mark Herman’s film for the stage has been a labour of enduring love as we move it from Yorkshire to Durham.”

Robin Byers, service manager of Gala Durham, said: “Creating theatre productions at Gala is a key part of our work. As well as telling stories with a strong sense of place, and relevance for Durham audiences, we’re able to give a platform for talented local actors, designers, musicians and creative professionals from our region.

“Brass music is woven into the DNA of Durham, so Brassed Off is the perfect play to produce for our audiences, and it reflects our commitment to culture as part of our bid to be named UK City of Culture 2025.”

Tickets:

Tickets for the production are now on sale. To book, please visit www.galadurham.co.uk/brassed-off