Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Now here’s a novel idea. To celebrate 40 years of this iconic musical, Music Theatre International and Cameron Mackintosh Limited decided to allow amateur organisations to perform the show for the first time. Rather than just release the score, directions and other elements of the West End production to all and sundry, they chose eleven…
Read More
I think that the cushiest job on the stage must be the part of the Pharaoh in this musical. You can spend the first half in the Green Room with your feet up and then pop on to do your feature number, have another cup of tea slip on for a couple of cameos and…
Read More
As someone who describes himself as a lapsed atheist, it was strange to find myself listening to religious music on a Sunday. The reason for my attendance was to witness the first of the year’s events marking the 25th Anniversary Season of Leeds Baroque Choir and Orchestra. I do like Baroque music but associate it…
Read More
Jane Eyre was not a novel on the reading list of a slum kid from East Leeds in the 1950s even though it was written by a Yorkshirewoman about an orphan girl who grew up in hardship. My first encounter with Ms Eyre was a television adaptation in 1963 on a small black and white…
Read More
Somebody, somewhere, must be taking notice of the stuff I write because, after complaining about the inability to catch the names of a lot of the pieces played in concerts due to their being in a foreign language or the lack of a programme/set list – neither being the fault of Howard Assembly Room –…
Read More
Now here’s a trip down Memory Lane. I was taken by my mum and dad to see the film when it first came out and all I can remember was being bored! I have just looked it up and the release date is 1954, but it would have been a bit later than that by…
Read More
After my overdose of The Magic Flute, it is folk music which seems to have filled the void. I pointed out that the artists on last week’s gig were individual performers, being support and main act, here we had two artists who were a duo, but also appeared singly as their own warm-up. Kerching! Aidan…
Read More
Just to get things straight from the start, these are two separate acts rather than one ensemble. They are, however, both folk artists and their music of Celtic influence. Hannah Rarity is a Glaswegean who has had the good taste to make her first visit to Leeds, and I certainly hope it will not be…
Read More
As you may have gathered from the title, this show is based on the brilliant comedy series of the same name. It does, however, merit a Trigger Warning. If you get that, you will love the evening, if you don’t, you will still enjoy it, but there are an awful lot of ‘in’ jokes, both…
Read More
Well, that’s that then. I have completed the Grand Slam of The Magic Flute. I have seen the September 2024 production, the February 2025 one, which was the same but with a few cast changes, the free, 40-minute pop-up version performed in Holbeck Working Men’s Club in June, 2021, The 30-minute rendering in County Arcade,…
Read More
Tyke It To The Limit 