Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
This play os a musical based on the real story of Walter Tull, a man whose life was full of incident and tragedy. It was written by Dougie Blaxland, composed by Chris Anthony and directed by Amanda Horlock in conjunction with Show Racism The Red Card. Although a low-key, three-hander with minimal set and props,…
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What an amazing night. This is what a showbiz bio-musical should be. The ups and downs of a star’s career, done with respect, honesty, humour and plenty of banging tunes. Producers of Sunny Afternoon take note! If you were going to write a fictional account of a soul singer turned rock superstar, this would be…
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When trying to tell a story based on a complex set of circumstances, there is no better way than to extract the essence by personalising it. To say that there were 1,027 passengers on HMT Empire Windrush, with over 800 from the Caribbean, on its first sailing from Jamaica to to UK in June 1948,…
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Yet another first for me, not just in the play itself, but also the venue, which I had never even heard of before the visit, let alone been to. It is in the Leeds City College School of Creative Arts, Quarry Hill Campus next door to Leeds Playhouse and is a very intimate room which…
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Tuesday, March 10th saw the big reveal at Howard Assembly Room, no, not the most recent names in the Epstein Files, the latest celebrity to be banned from the BBC or Sir Keir Starmer telling us that his dad was a toolmaker, but the runners and riders in the 2026/27 Opera North Season. To continue…
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I always say, you can never have too many dance shows (actually I don’t, but I had to start somehow), which is just as well because last week I had three! This one was different in several ways, the main ones being that it was not concerned with sexual orientation and there doesn’t seem to…
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Typical, you wait 76 years for a dance production about lesbians and then two come along at once. Gentleman Jack is a true story based on the life and times of Anne Lister, who was from a coal mining family; for once not the pick and shovel end but the ownership side. She acted as…
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It’s not often I get to visit a lesbian cabaret club on a Wednesday night, or any night for that matter, so, when asked to this one I couldn’t refuse, and I am glad I didn’t. This wasn’t any old lesbian cabaret club, it was Le Monacle and not any old Wednesday, it was a…
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And so my second season of Baroque music begins – with a trip back to school. Not the one I went to, which has long since closed down, but a magnificent complex on the outskirts of the City in Alwoodley, complete with its own theatre, named after local legend, Barry Cryer. The theme of the…
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The hardest part of writing reviews as far as I am concerned, is staring at a blank screen and wondering how I can find a theme to make what I am about to key onto it interesting. One day I might actually get it right. From the moment, some time last year, I saw that…
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