Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Another week, another show about a pioneering woman. After musicals about Jennie Lee and Shirley Chisholm, who were both politicians, here we have one written by Rosie MacPherson, based in an idea from Beth Knight, who directed the piece, about Betty Beecroft an 18th Century industrialist. As with the other two, the music style was…
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This might not be the best way to begin a review, but over the past eighteen months or so, I have had some health issues which, apart from the physical aspects, have had a psychological effect on me, sapping my enthusiasm to such an extent I was seriously thinking of retiring from writing altogether. Being…
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Well, this was a surprise. Normally the lunchtime concerts at this venue comprise small groups of musicians but today the Orchestra of Opera North pulled out all the stops and fielded a team of seventeen players. I was really pleased as this is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. In fact, it was…
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Typical, you wait years for a musical about a woman politician then two come along at once. After last week’s show about Shirley Chisholm, we now have this one about Jennie Lee, who served as a Labour Member of Parliament having two terms in office; first from 1929 until 1931 and then from 1945 until…
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Here I am, back at Leeds Grand Theatre for a second tv show transfer to the stage. Unlike Drop The Dead Donkey, this is not a case of getting the band back together, rather a play based on the original idea of a group of supermarket workmates winning the lottery. Having said that, it is…
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Slung Low Warehouse is a comparatively new performance space in Holbeck, having moved from Holbeck Working Men’s Club, where they used to put on shows on a Pay What You Decide basis. This philosophy is continued here and at their other new space, Slung Low at Temple. It is very basic being – surprise, surprise…
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For some reason I never quite got into the television series of Drop The Dead Donkey. It ran from 1990 to 1998 which meant that I was in my forties and possibly a bit above the age for the target audience. I did catch a couple of episodes but they didn’t register. When I knew…
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When I saw this play billed as being aimed at ‘Anyone who’s put on or lost weight.’ I thought that it would be rude not to go and see it. It is written and performed by Rachel Sockdale who hails from Middlesbrough and has gone from size 8 to 18 in the past few years.…
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I was going to begin this article by concocting something about me being in a future time-frame, but I changed my mind as I have just read all the other reviews which were published next month, and they all did that. When I received the stock images of the production, I must admit to being…
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Now here’a a first. After musicals based on films and tv shows, here is one based on a radio programme. It was a documentary by Charles Chilton which used people’s memories of the First World War, interspersed with facts, statistics and songs of the period. A lot of the numbers were either hymns or show…
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Tyke It To The Limit 