The play which gave it’s name to the U.K.’s most popular confectionary –Quality Street – is to be brought to the Playhouse by much-loved company Northern Broadsides from Tuesday 17th to Saturday 21st March.
Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie penned the play for Broadway in 1901 before he gave the world the boy who wouldn’t grow up.
Set in a quaint Northern town against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, Quality Street follows the trials and tribulations of Phoebe Throssel.
A hugely popular Everyman & Playhouse co-production flies home from the West End as the stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s international bestseller The Kite Runner (27th February – 3rd March) returns to the Playhouse.
Set in a divided Afghanistan, the story follows Amir and Hassan, two boys who head out to enjoy a kite flying tournament, but neither can foresee the terrible incident that will change their lives forever. Since its first incarnation at the Playhouse in 2014, The Kite Runner has enjoyed two successful and acclaimed West End seasons.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Conrad Nelson, Russell Richardson, Andy Cryer, Jack Lord, Hannah Barrie, Vanessa Schofield, Lauryn Redding, Andrew Whitehead, Jordan Kemp, Adam Barlow, Ruth Alexander Rubin, Mike Hugo, Jessica Dyas.
You can always trust Time to deliver a verdict that reconciles the world when it is damaged just as you can trust Time to play with the misfortunes of men when it suits to teach them a lesson for the insanity and jealous ravings.
Following the success of Rutherford & Son, Northern Broadsides join forces again with renowned opera and theatre director Jonathan Miller to stage Shakespeare’s King Lear. Broadsides’ Barrie Rutter takes the lead role at the Liverpool Playhouse from Tuesday 28th April to Saturday 2nd May.
King Lear is the story of a family at war with itself. Lear, an ageing and deeply flawed individual, wrecks his relationship with his three daughters and in doing so, loses all he has. What is there left? This question, which is Lear’s predicament and Shakespeare’s genius, invites us all to think upon what we might gain when nothing is all we have.
Northern Broadsides are set to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War with the world premiere of Deborah McAndrew’s moving new play An August Bank Holiday Lark, coming to the Liverpool Playhouse from Tuesday 29th April to Saturday 3rd May.
Taking its title from a line in Philip Larkin’s poem MCMXIV, An August Bank Holiday Lark explores the impact of the First World War on a rural community in East Lancashire. Set in the idyllic summer of 1914, the play charts the preparations and celebrations of the Rushbearing Festival, featuring – in true Broadsides’ style – music, song and dance, clogs and Morris Dancing.
Cast: Michael Hugo, Samantha Robinson, Angela Bain, Howard Chadwick, Claire Storey, Paul Barnhill, Alan McMahon, Robert Pickavance, Dyfig Morris, Sophie Hatfield, Hester Arden.
Whilst the overall central theme of The Grand Gesture may be worrying to some and have others wondering how you can have a comedy set around the premise of a man wanting to end his life, it shouldn’t though detract from the very superb way that Northern Broadsides, perhaps one of the keenly anticipated companies that makes its way on regular basis to the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, took on Nikolai Erdman’s brilliant work The Suicide.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Barrie Rutter, Nicholas Shaw, Andrew Grose, Sara Poyzer, Kate Anthony, Catherine Kinsella, Richard Standing, Gilly Tompkins.
Not for nothing was Githa Sowerby compared to Henrik Ibsen, the father of theatre realism. Her play Rutherford & Son was a powerful statement in a world where the writing of a female playwright was not expected to be as bold, so groundbreaking in its fury at a world that put male pride and arrogance before the thought of the family. The absolute realism she bought to her characters, especially that of the bombastic and near tyrannical father John Rutherford, the anguish and near heart breaking life of his daughter Janet and that of the stranger to the house, the woman who makes the Faustian-like pact with her father-in-law when all else around her goes awry, the woman whose head for business sees her keep a roof over her head, the young Mary.
Photograph by Nobby Clarke.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Howard Chadwick, Andrew Price, Clara Darcy, Andy Cresswell, Anthony Hunt, Susie Emmett, Jill Cardo, Kraig Thornber, Andy Cryer, Richard Colvin, Jon Trenchard, Tim Frances.
Whenever Northern Broadsides comes to the Liverpool Playhouse or its fantastic times up at the Everyman Theatre, the city’s audiences fall over themselves in their droves to make sure they are one of the fortunate ones to witness a night of exceptional theatre. In the latest classic that gets a welcome Northern representation, the brilliant ensemble; under the excellent tutelage of the director and composer Conrad Nelson, wrapped themselves in the cosy and biting satirical humour of Gogol’s inspired comedy A Government Inspector. This guidance extended to the actors doubling up and performing as a bass band during the performance. An exceptional feat to include into a show!