Originally published by L.S. Media. October 23rd 2011.
Direction: Noreen Kershaw.
Cast: Sue Ryding, Maggie Fox.
LSMedia Rating: ****
The company’s name may be Lip Service but the two actors who make up this wonderful duo do more than pay the barest glimpse into the lives of two of the leading literary lights of the 19th Century, they bring Charlotte and Emily Bronte to life in a way not thought of but in a style that was highly original and warmly greeted by all those in attendance.
Originally published by L.S. Media. October 12th 2011.
Cast: Britt Jurgensen, Ben Philips, Mary Pearson.
One of the fascinating and tremendous things about spending the night in the theatre is that occasionally you get challenged to think outside of the metaphorical box and tackle something that will really get the imagination going and the fingers poised over the top of your head ready to scratch just in case you might not realise what’s going on.
Originally published by L.S. Media. September 14th 2011.
Cast: Oliver Reynolds, Mike Idris, Amy Stokes.
The Unity is one of those rare examples of a theatre that is prepared to take chances and offer a wide range of productions that can be fresh, exciting and mind blowing to sit through, the enjoyment is there regardless and even in a play that doesn’t quite hit the mark, the theatre should be congratulated for putting it on and letting audiences decide for themselves.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Micky Finn, Crissy Rock, Suzanne Collins, Lesley Butler, Lenny Wood, Lynne Fitzgerald, Roy Brandon, Lindzi Germain, Ruth Laird.
There may be a very wide river that runs between Liverpool and Birkenhead, perhaps at times it may seem like a gulf or a yawning chasm but the actual differences between the two sides of the Mersey are in truth very small. Birkenhead and Liverpool are communities, communities built upon tradition, hard work and friendship and in Brain McCann’s outstanding musical play, Down Our Street, the history of Birkenhead is explored to its fullest, from the founding stones of John Laird and the thoughts of a model town and the shipyard that still bares the family name.
Originally published by L.S. Media. July 7th 2011.
L.S. Media Rating * * * *
Cast: Tate Kearns, Philip Brookes, Jenny Tully, Amy Morris, Joesph Burns, Tom Martin, David Evans, Nicola Guy, Adam Titchmarsh, Josh Henfrey, Amy Lawson.
Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and ¾ was to 1980’s teenagers as the Harry Potter series has been to the current generation of children and young adults. In popular culture it was a book that was loved and adored by all who read it, it spawned a stage show in 1984 and then burst onto television the following year. The book follows the adventures of Adrian Mole, his dysfunctional family and his misinterpretation of the events that happen around him.
Originally published by L.S.Media. June 16th 2011.
Cast: Eddie Fortune, Rosie MacPherson, John James Tomlinson.
One of the final plays of the current season on offer by the Unity Theatre is the hard hitting and emotional drama, Elastic Bridge. Unusually for a play, as the audience took their seats to enjoy the show, one of the actors was already on stage pacing the small set in a scene of absolute desperation etched all over his face. This unique beginning drew the audience in straight from the start and provided a new take on how to stage a performance.
Originally published by L.S. Media. May 28th 2011.
Mikhail Bulgakov is not a name that runs easily off the lips and there will be many who will not have had the pleasure of reading anything by possibly one of the greats of Ukrainian literature which is a shame for his adaptation of Black Snow by Keith Dewhurst is one of the most perfect satirical take on the life within theatre and its allusions to nationhood.
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.