Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
2023 will probably go down in the annals of the wonderful Grand Theatre as the year of the adapted screen musicals. We have already had Sister Act and Dirty Dancing with The Commitments and Strictly Ballroom still to come. So far the ones I have seen remained true to the original but The Bodyguard seems…
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Never have I been to a piece of theatre where the storyline has been so irrelevant. I will provide a synopsis later, but the whole production revolved around the uber hunk which is Michael O’Reilly, who played Johnny Castle. You could have cut the pheromones with a knife. The largely female audience had come to…
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My musical education was advanced even further on Thursday evening with another visit to the splendid Howard Assembly Room. Tonight’s lesson was The Music and Instruments of Mali with the teacher being Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba. If all of my academic instructions had been presented like this, I would have left school…
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What a fabulous evening at Leeds Grand Theatre for this production of Mozart’s Requiem and After Tears: After A Requiem by Neo Muyanga. It wasn’t opera in its usual sense, more a concert piece by Opera North combined with the Phoenix Dance Theatre, Jazzart Dance Theatre and Cape Town Opera. You would have thought that…
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There can be few better places, or should that be plaices, to watch a show than in a world renown fish and chip restaurant. I thought that last year’s production at The Wetherby Whaler, formerly the original Harry Ramsden, by Mikron Theatre Company would be a one-off but to my surprise, and not a little…
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In my last review from Howard Assembly Room I ventured to suggest that the featured artist, Ron Sexsmith was a really decent kind of chap. I will not make the same speculation about tonight’s artist, Jasdeep Singh Degun, as I have had the privilege of meeting him on a few occasions and I can testify…
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For anyone wondering whether to see an opera I think that The Pearl Fishers, by that most accessible of composers, Bizet, illustrates why you should give it a go. I would wager that there were quite a few newbies in the audience on Press Night as, after each aria, there was a short smattering of…
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I really don’t understand how I have managed to get to this stage of my life without ever having heard the music of Ron Sexsmith. I am familiar with the name but his work has sold me a dummy. Thank goodness I was able to put this right at an entertaining soirée on Friday. He…
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Calling all parents! If you have a child who is interested in a musical career and wants to learn an instrument, might I suggest that you buy them a violin. This is the third concert I have been to this week where a string quartet has been featured, so the employment prospects can’t be all…
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Another day, another trip to Howard Assembly Room. I didn’t realise just how much I had missed my visits to this beautiful venue until last night’s concert by David Brewis. I found it very touching that this feeling seemed to be reciprocated by the amazing people who work there. Every one of them said how…
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Tyke It To The Limit 