Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
I really do seem to have crossed to the dark side this past couple of weeks. After Peter Grimes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream I find myself watching a ballet about Snow White. This is not the Disneyfied version with singing dwarves, however, but the original fairy tale, collected, appropriately,by the Brothers Grimm, and retold…
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You wait years for stage productions to begin with a period of silence and then we get two in a week! Although adhering to the Mafia code of omertà, and the indication that what followed was going to be out of the ordinary, the opening scenes of Peter Grimes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream could…
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I still regard myself as being a newcomer to opera although, when I think back, I have now been to quite a few productions. This one is unlike any of the others in many ways. First of all there are no bonkers characters, making it an opera for grown-ups. There are touches of comedy but…
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Here’s another first, a visit to Riley Theatre in the Northern School of Contemporary Dance at the bottom of Chapeltown Road. I pass this place every time I go to Leeds but have never had occasion to visit before. I was invited to go see a production aimed at the younger end of the theatre-going…
Read MoreWhen I was a lad of about 11 or 12 I was addicted to the Sherlock Holmes books. I didn’t read them all, but enough to keep me out of mischief for a few months. Apart from that side effect, I really enjoyed them, so was looking forward to seeing what Blackeyed Theatre had done…
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After a couple of fairly frivolous productions since the turn of the year, I was made to connect with the ‘real world’ in this one-woman show concerning life in Gaza as seen through the eyes of the children who live, and die, there. Rather than being a diatribe against the conflict per se, it focussed…
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Hello again. Sorry for the gap in articles but there are a couple of reasons. The first is that January is traditionally a quiet month for new productions as the Christmas shows have lengthy runs; the second is that I was appearing in the theatre myself so obviously needed to prepare thoroughly. I was cast…
Read MoreIn 1975, Fawlty Towers was required television for those of us in our mid-twenties, as it provided what would now be called water cooler conversations at the office, the day after broadcast. There were only three channels so the odds were that the vast majority of colleagues would have seen it. Although not a great…
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At last, I get to see The Nutcracker from Northern Ballet, in fact it is the first time I have seen it performed by anyone. My appetite was whetted three years ago when I was fortunate enough to visit the home of the dance company to watch them rehearse for the 2022 version and write…
Read MoreI have said it before and I’ll say it again, a lot of opera is bonkers. Pass The Spoon is an exception, in that it is not sensible enough to be bonkers. I can’t remember having seen any performance as childishly unfunny as this in my life, in fact I have been to two Christmas…
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Tyke It To The Limit 