Cast: Ben Addis, Marti Pellow, Sarah Earnshaw, Sabrina Carter, Mark McGee, Amira Matthews, Michael Taibi, Martin Dickinson, Matt Stevens, Jacob Chapman, Jon De Ville, James Gant, Daniel Robinson.
L.S. Media Rating: *****
Jekyll and Hyde is a story that has endured and thrilled generations of readers, the idea of a split personality and the notion of dealing with a darker, more insidious side is one that has prevailed since the book was first written during the 1880’s.
Originally published by L.S. Media. April 1st 2011.
Cast: Nicholas Burns, David Cardy, Ryan Cage, Andy Nyman.
To some, the very name Roald Dahl invokes memories of hiding behind the sofa and watching through the gaps of tight, clamped hands and being mesmerized by the sight of lady dancing in flames, as the title music to The Tales of the Unexpected rang through living rooms up and down the country.
Now after last year’s smash hit Ghost Stories, The Liverpool Playhouse once more delves into the mysterious and peculiar as Jeremy Dyson adapts some of the most popular stories from Roald Dahl’s collection and brings them to life on the stage.
Originally published by L.S. Media. August 19th 2011.
Cast: Les Dennis, Michael Starke, Dina Tree, Liam Doyle, Gillian Kirkpatrick, Wayne Robinson, Danny Bayne, Emma Dukes, Clare Halse, Sandra Marvin, Yvonne O’ Grady, Seliza Sebastian, Kane Andrews.
Set against the start of the heightened racial tensions that plagued America socially and politically during the early 1960’s, Hairspray is one of those musicals that stretches the audience’s idea of fun to new limits and leaves them gasping for more!
Cast: Hugo Chandor, Andrew Sykes, Lewis Marsh, Andrew Roberts-Palmer.
The year 1911 could be seen as a corner stone in the life of Liverpool and yet the life of Tom Mann and The Liverpool Transport Strike of that year is not readily available for the youth and teenagers growing up in the city to learn about.
Thankfully with the run up to the 100th anniversary of this momentous occasion Breathe Out Theatre have adapted Trevor Griffiths Such Impossibilities and created a hard hitting play called Rid the World.
Originally published by L.S. Media. March 17th 2011.
Cast: Michelle Butterly, David Carlyle, Helen Carter, Stephen Fletcher, Con O’Neill, Samantha Robinson, Jess Schofield, Alan Stocks.
Dead Heavy Fantastic is the new exciting play by Robert Farquar, that deals with the subject of a world rarely seen by many who live in Liverpool but who will have heard gory tales of hedonism, the party culture, drugs and of out of place postmen.
Originally published by L.S. Media. March 16th 2011.
Cast: Sarah Leaver.
The mystery and beguilement that surrounds the treatment and life of an individual who was born Intersexed is gently and lovingly portrayed by Sarah Leaver in the Unity Theatre’s latest production Memoirs of a Hermaphrodite.
Drawing on the real life story of Herculin Barbin, Sarah Leaver takes the audience through sections of Herculin’s life, part voyeuristic, part shrouded in fine Greek mythology, the audience is taken through how the young Herculin’s life was changed from being a young girl at the nunnery in La Rochelle and falling in love to her own discovery, and that of everybody else that she was born an Hermaphrodite.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Gareth Gates, Maureen Nolan, Joshua Dowen, Grace Lancaster, Reuven Gershon, Emma Fraser, Lauren Storer, Gracie Lai, Laura Sillett, Luke Dowling, Dominic Gee Burch, Connor Going, Alex Marshall, Lawrence Libor, Lindsay Goodhead, Thomas Wolstenhome, Jamie Ross.
Dancing is a right, unalienable and not for removing, it is up there with singing, being able to stand on stage and deliver a poem, recite a monologue or doing anything that gives you pleasure and in which does not hurt another person. Even if you cannot do something well, even if you make yourself look a fool in the eyes of others, does it matter, does it mean a thing if you get an ounce of self worth from the very act.
Originally published by L.S. Media. February 23rd 2011.
Cast: Lou Dalgleish, Michael Weston King, Gladstone Wilson.
We are all familiar with the idea with obsession, so much so that in a way we can all claim to have one, but what happens when the fixation takes over your life and takes you to places that should be well left alone. In the Everyman Theatre’s new season of productions They Call Her Natasha looks at this obsession from the point of a fan gripped with Liverpool raised musician Elvis Costello.
Originally published by L.S. Media. February 23rd 2011.
Cast: Anthony Barclay, Sean Buckley, Ian Drysdale, Mark Frost, Christopher Hogben, Louise Jameson, Eoin McCarthy, Alex McSweeney, Simon Merrells, Vincenzo Nicoli, Anthony Ofoegbu.
If you’re going to start off a new season of plays then they don’t come much bigger in terms of minimalist style and historical significance than the first true great piece of tragedy performances, Sophocles’ Oedipus.
Originally published by L.S. Media. December 15th 2010.
Cast: Pamela Anderson, Les Dennis, Mark Moraghan, Pete Price, Dani Rayner, Marc Mulcahey, Sean Kearns, Djalenga Scott, Conleth Kane.
For the second year running the Empire Theatre pulled off a masterstroke of casting and persuaded one of the Hollywood glitterati to be the main draw at their Christmas spectacular pantomime. Last year, Liverpool was treated to the sight of Henry Winkler playing Captain Hook to great acclaim; this year treading the boards of the Empire was Baywatch star Pamela Anderson in the wonderful story of Aladdin.