Northeast Music Guide

Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair The story of the power hungry murderous Macbeth, driven mad with visions from ghosts and a trio meddlesome witches, is familiar to most theatre-goers. As a Shakespeare classic I would say this one is definitely a good one to start with. It is usually one of the shorter ones and moves along at a fair old lick as a story.  This production had an industrial style set with a military feel that fit well with the costumes of the cast. The lighting, a changing background sky and the use of sound gave this the feel of a professional production. That said, in between amplified sections, the speakers should probably be turned down to avoid the mildly distracting hiss. The cast were all completely immersed in their roles. The three witches were played in a suitably manic, yet controlled way by Sarah Harrison Dowd, Penny Lamport and Ann Cater. Their hair and makeup added nicely to their unhinged appearance. The whole cast did a fabulous job of bringing this...

Macbeth­­­­ by William Shakespeare Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 March @ 7.30pm   “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” In one of the most searing portrayals of evil ever written, Shakespeare examines the dangers of ambition and the potentially overwhelming power of the human conscience. Part supernatural horror, part bloodthirsty tragedy, this Jacobean masterpiece continues to enthral as a timeless warning against political tyranny. INFORMATION: MACBETH by William Shakespeare DATE:             Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 March 2014 TIME:              7.30pm VENUE:          The People’s Theatre, Stephenson Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 5QF TICKETS:       £12.50 (Concessions £10) 10% discount for parties of 10+ TELE:       ...

Found on Steve Oliver's  blog Dracula finds fresh blood. Beautiful girls with mysterious puncture wounds in their necks? Count Dracula must be in town! Dracula has been a part of modern culture for over a hundred years. It has been the subject of countless films and plays through its clear imagery. The Blackeyed Theatre Company aim to produce honest touring plays that will attract audiences around the mid-sized ven ues. In their interpretation we have a fast paced play in which the 5 extremely hard working actors succeed in covering a variety of roles in this highly efficient and entertaining production. Jonathan Harker (Will Bryant) has passed his law exams and has been sent to  Transylvania to sort out the personal affairs of Count Dracula (Paul Kevin-Taylor). His fiancé Mina (Rachel Winters) agrees to get married beforehand and decides to visit her romantic friend Lucy (Katrina Gibson) in Whitby. Meanwhile Doctor Seward (Gareth Cooper) studies his inmates, in...

Using Drama to Solve All Those Workplace.....Dramas! Your office, your shop, your lab, or call centre at times can be a little fraught. Maybe there's an atmosphere you just can't put your finger on. Whatever it is it is affecting your colleagues' performance. Some people may be unduly stressed, a bit fed up with their jobs, or even depressed. In-house training can help. Staff training can be dull, let's face it. Being told the obvious by people who don't know you or your workplace environment. There is another way. Act Positive works with you to find exactly to right kind of training. A bespoke package that deals with the issues in your particular workplace. Using fiction and drama with professional actors, behaviours that damage the working environment can be challenged without pointing the finger at real people. Watching a situation unfold helps people question their own behaviours and their reactions to other people's behaviours. At the same time sta...

Pam Royle steps out in support of the Theatre Royal ITV Tyne Tees anchorwoman, Pam Royle is to host a special fundraising event at Newcastle Theatre Royal next week. Pam has been a familiar face in the north for 30 years and is known for giving much of her personal time and support to a number of North East charities, and the Theatre Royal is set to join the list. Pam Royle will host the event at the Theatre Royal on Monday 13 January alongside local artist Alexander Millar, who has produced a brand new oil painting featuring his infamous ‘gadgie’ in support of the Theatre Royal, the auction of which will begin on the evening. Alexander Millar is one of the UK's most popular contemporary artists. His paintings, collected by art lovers and celebrities across the globe, are inspired by the working men and women of his childhood, affectionately termed ‘gadgie’. In this new piece,  My Way , the ‘gadgie’ takes centre stage and has been proudly produced in support of ...

JACK CLIMBS TO TOP OF SALES RECORDS Figures released today reveal that  Jack and the Beanstalk , the Theatre Royal’s 2013/14 pantomime, has broken all previous records to become the most successful pantomime in the Theatre’s 176 year history.  What’s more, over 36,000 tickets have already been sold for next year’s show  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which will mark Clive Webb and Danny Adams’ tenth anniversary at the theatre. Jack and the Beanstalk  went on sale in November 2012 to meet high demand, and got off to an auspicious start when it opened on 26   November 2013 with sales in excess of £1million. Now, over 90,000 tickets have been sold with three weeks of the run still to go until the final performance on Saturday 18 January. Last year’s show  Aladdin  was the Theatre’s most popular show EVER, and  Jack and the Beanstalk  has now beat it by some margin. The Theatre Royal pantomime starts earlier than any other in t...

Perfect Fools present A Dog’s Heart Arts Centre Washington Thursday 6 th February at 7.30pm Perfect Fools are about to be let off the leash as they embark on a tour of the North East with their latest production A Dog’s Heart . The show is an adaptation of the classic Russian novel by Mikhail Bulgakov and is a visually inventive retelling of the story of Sharik, a lone stray on the streets of Moscow . A Dog’s Heart visits Arts Centre Washington on Thursday 6 th February, the first date of a 5 venue tour across the North East taking in Hexham, Barnard Castle , Seaton Delaval and Alnwick along the way. Described by the Northern Echo as ‘Genius! Barking mad and doggedly funny’ , A Dog’s Heart tells the story of Professor Preobrazhensky, a world-famous cosmetic surgeon who makes his fortune rejuvenating Moscow’s aging elite. When he meets Sharik, a starving stray dog, he finds the raw material he needs for his greatest experiment yet. With shades of F...

Good Looking Boy at Arts Centre Washington Box Clever Theatre take their hit Edinburgh show ‘Time for the Good  Looking Boy’ to Arts Centre Washington on Thursday 28 November. This hard-hitting play for young adults tracks the challenges of youth in the face of adulthood. Following The Boy as he talks about his memories and emotions, this compelling, witty and intimate play explores the harsh realities of growing up, independence and the consequences of a night when your life changes forever. An urban ghost story, The Boy tells his tale of love and loss in rhyming couplets with an original and haunting soundtrack. This is an account of an extraordinary night in the life of an ordinary young man and a journey which will change his life forever. Wherever that journey takes him, we are asked to be part of it, to share it with the living and the dead.  Using the rhythms and gestures of rap, often backed by composer Jon Nicholls's score, he tells us...

An Experiment in Sound and Intrigue from Unlimited Theatre    The isolation of a small island community is not the only thing affecting the mentality of its members. A constant, changing noise has been there as long as the islanders remember, and it seems to be getting worse. The arrival of an imposing iceberg is followed by the discovery of a body washed up on the shore. There is something about the island that isn't quite right. Charlie Rachel Gay), a 17 year old girl and her curious scientist friend Harry (Jerry Killick) are about to investigate, when it all kicks off.     The performance, unbroken by an interval, kept us on the edge of our seats as the mystery unravelled along with the minds of some of the islanders. An alcohol fuelled threat from sheep farmer Paul (Scott Turnbull) puts him in the frame for the murder, although there are serious doubts as to his guilt. The cast build up the tension wonderfully and the "sci-conspiracy" plot develops to ...

Delve into Alphabetti Spaghetti and the Brolly Season This summer, Delve, an acoustic two-piece made up of the poignantly bearded Jack Cox and the intriguingly bespectacled Andy Vyse, is embarking on a tour of the British Isles, aiming to play 250 gigs in 250 days. They are just about 2/3 through this odyssey. The Food and Fuel Tour will see the boys, described as ‘ones to watch’ by Bestival, taking to the highways and byways of Britain, playing pubs, clubs, bars and pretty much any venue that will have them. The West Country boys aren’t asking for much, all they want is for each venue they play to give them a meal and enough money to buy the fuel that will get them to the next gig, hence the name of the tour.  Jack and Andy have played in various bands together and various bands apart, but it’s as Delve that they’ve found their musical home. Influenced by acts such as Bon Iver, City & Colour and Nick Drake, Delve’s music is wistful, progressive and ethereal and ...

The Crick Crack Club return to Northern Stage  with the story of Arthur's legendary big sister.     The stage was set with a giant chess board, a set of draughts, a harp and a number of other props and instruments when Nick Hennessey started a gentle lullaby.  Xanthe Gresham then walks on stage wearing an extremely long blonde wig. The show has begun.   Over the next hour and a quarter we a given a real storytelling treat. The playful interaction between the two storytellers adds to the irreverent nature of a tale of old. We are all aware of the tales of King Arthur but we now find the spotlight turns to Morgana Le Fey. Xanthe muses on her status in the legend. Was she a goddess or simply a fairy who deserved a better billing?   The talented Nick weaves lush music around the story that Xanthe lays down with crystal clarity. A greater understanding develops of the lead character through a poignant narrative. Rewriting the rules becomes nec...

The Noise 4 – 12 October at Northern Stage    A body washes up and a massive iceberg appears in the harbour of a remote island near Antarctica where a strange, ever present sound makes the small community of islanders somehow ‘different’...    This intriguing scene could be taken from the latest Danish hit crime thriller. Like The Bridge and The Killing, or BBC’s Top of the Lake, The Noise is unsettling; a combination of gripping storytelling with an unfamiliar edge and a mysterious undertone which draws you in and keeps you guessing.   Written by an award-winning creative team – Claire Duffy, Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe - this brand new Unlimited/Northern Stage co-production follows in the footsteps of successful shows like Mission to Mars, Tangle and The Ethics of Progress, using theatre to explore leading research into contemporary science. "Working with scientists has played a big part in making the stories we tell for a few years now. We'v...

An Alcohol-Fuelled Free-For-All The Live Theatre in Newcastle has provided gritty drama in the past. Not known for "safe" theatre it faces issues head on and presents them with realism. This play, written by Paddy Campbell, a product of the Live Theatre writing course in 2007, and a one-time worker in such an establishment, is no exception. The "Wet House" is a homeless hostel where alcoholics are allowed to drink, providing them with a "safe" place to exist and be sheltered and to keep them off the streets. Andy, fresh from failing at university, and ready to be a useful citizen, walks into this alternative reality where normal social rules no longer apply and it isn't only the residents who are dysfuctional and damaged. The writing is exceptional, in my view, and one liners are delivered by the cast, especially Chris Connel with the skill of a seasoned stand-up. However this play, despite having laugh out loud moments had me close to tears w...

    Our Day Out by Willy Russell Newcastle People's Theatre 17/9/2013     The Newcastle People’s Theatre open up their new season with a vibrant telling of the Willy Russell classic by their Youth Theatre.  Director Mark Buckley has moved the production away from Russell’s native North West and moved it closer to home for the cast, and indeed audience, and yet the narrative still works.  The working class kids from the school’s bottom group are not expected to pass any exams but their loyal teacher Mrs Kay, ably plaid by Anna Robinson, has not given up on them. She wants them to have a nice day out away from Newcastle. Thus she decides to organise a school trip. Moving the play to the East Coast results in the destination changing from North Wales to Whitby. The Head isn’t happy about the class going so he asks the stricter Mr Briggs (Lara Cowler) to go along too.   The play has also moved forward in time to 1983...

Knickerbocker Glory!     51 Shades of Maggie is a colourful mix of comedy and adult relationships. It started life when writer Leesa Harker started put about 500 words online. The positive feedback for 50 Shades of Red, White and Blue (check out the Facebook page ) encouraged her to carry on with her story about how Maggie Muff started a relationship with a man she met at the dole office.   Since her start as a Belfast girl, Maggie’s story has now relocated to the East End of London. She is now frequenting the Red Lion with her big best mate Sally Ann, with whom she enjoys cigarettes, White Lightning cider and men. Things change when Maggie agrees to step in to do the Back to Work interview at the dole office for Sally Ann. Her interview is with “Mr Big” and after a chance meeting in B & Q everything quickly starts to move. This is when the differences between the book 50 Shades of Grey and this play become obvious. Maggie is no shy and retiring vi...

TOM CONTI TO STAR IN GRIPPING COURTROOM DRAMA!     Tom Conti, one of the UKs most popular actors, will have North-East audiences in his grip as he takes to the stage in the courtroom thriller Rough Justice, showing at Newcastle Theatre Royal, Monday 30 September - Saturday 5 October 2013.   In Rough Justice, Tom Conti plays television journalist James Highwood, a man who has made his career out of challenging the British Justice system in his documentary programmes. Now, suddenly, he finds the system challenging him as he is brought to court on a charge of murder. Highwood admits the killing but perversely chooses to defend himself, pushing the tolerance of the court to its limits and framing his defence in terms calculated to incense the judge.   Alongside Dame Judi Dench, Tom Conti was recently voted Most Popular Actor in the West End in the last 25 years. His many memorable television roles include Lark Rise to Candleford and Miranda and his...