As part of the Week 53 Festival, 100% Salford (commissioned by Rimini Protokoll), dominated the Lyric Theatre at the Lowry tonight giving us a unique portrait or our extraordinary city. For 11 days the Lowry has hosted Week 53 promising to bring to Salford 200 international artists, 63 performances and exhibitions. Week 53 has been a festival of innovative, provocative national and international work in a series of spaces including areas of the building that are normally off limits to the public. It’s been about rewarding the compulsively curious (wearing my badge with pride) as they challenged convention and celebrated creativity.
Week 53 at the Lowry Theatre hosted the last resort by 2Magpies Theatre.
Week 53 is about innovative, provocative national and international work presented in a series of spaces including areas of the building normally off-limits to the public. It’s about rewarding the compulsively curious as they challenge convention and celebrate creativity.
The theatre was set at the back of the Lowry Theatre in the loading bay facing the docks, the audience was greeted by a beach hut scene of yellow and green a beach bar had been created with all the essentials of a tropical holiday.
Other than the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, I was unsure of what to expect from this show. I wondered how it would be presented and if it had the capacity to keep the audience entertained throughout. Quite simply, it did.
From the start we were treated to impeccable vocals, which only grew stronger as the show progressed. It was clear that everyone on stage had a voice to be reckoned with, from the lead man Stephen James who took on the role of Frankie Valli, to the backing vocals of the talented musicians who accompanied him. Talking of the lead man, James did an outstanding job as Frankie. Never missed a note and had such enticing stage presence. Having later researched the show, I discovered that he is actually a new front man which was surprising as I certainly couldn’t imagine anyone better.
The curiously, but cunningly excellently titled Oddity is a modern reworking of Homer's Odyssey, which is slightly odd. Odd in the sense of different, odd in the sense of strange, odd in the sense of unique, but most definitely odd in a good way!
It is a one act play, lasting just over 70 minutes without interval, and in that time we are taken on a swift journey through Homer's entire epic, brought right up to date and told through the eyes of a young girl.... or are we? Maybe the young girl isn't crazy; maybe she isn't suffering from a meltdown immersing herself in Greek literature after her father left when she was tiny, maybe she really is Telemachos?
Fresh from a stint at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Precious Cargo embark on a national tour with their show ‘Into Thin Air’. Upon entering the theatre it was disappointing to see such a low turnout in this lovely venue. However, this is often the case with fringe shows.
It took me a while to grasp the concept of ‘Into Thin Air’, however halfway through it became clear that the main character is trying to please everyone in life and eventually snaps under the pressure.
Riverdance leapt onto the Regent Theatre stage tonight and is having a short but sweet stay here, with only two more performances before they pack up their emerald green costumes and grace another adoring city. The show was a complete sell out which is exceptionally impressive as I frequently attend this theatre and haven’t seen this happen for years.
Co-written and co-directed by Hannah Barker and Lewis Hetherington, Stowaway explores the story of a man frozen to death under the wheel arch of a plane trying to escape to a better life. The news is, frighteningly, full of examples of such tragic stories, of those so desperate to find something more than poverty and degradation that they risk clinging to the underside of a moving vehicle thirty thousand feet in the air.
Feld Entertainment is presenting Disney on Ice Silver Anniversary Celebration at arenas across the country. This year’s production is extra special as the producers are celebrating 25 years of bringing Disney on Ice to European audiences. Highlights from four popular Disney classics, The Lion King, Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid and Frozen, are featured in the programme.
A packed audience waits in anticipation for the show to start with many children being dressed in their favourite Disney characters and from the waving of luminous coloured glow sticks. The first act introduces Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and their friends. A colourful glittering entourage skates in synchronisation to It’s a Small World which sets the tone for their round-the-world adventure.
London Classic Theatre are currently touring the country with their production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. Set in Meg and Petey’s boarding house in an unnamed English seaside town. The couple live a very routine existence housing their one and only guest Stanley. The play opens with the pair at the breakfast table going through their daily mundane motions. Meg asking Petey the typical questions such as “do you like your cornflakes?” and “Is it warm outside?” This continues on for some time until she decides to go and wake Stanley so he can join them for breakfast. This part of the play runs incredibly slow but the audience are captivated by the couples tedious existence and comic nature. When Stanley finally sits at the table it becomes very clear that not all is right and there is more going on than meets the eye. Stanley does not venture outside and appears confused by his own existence, either haunted by his past or troubled by incomplete memories.
John & Jen is an Off-Broadway musical which explores the relationship between siblings and a mother and her child. Written by Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwood in 1993, I had not heard of this show before and was pleasantly surprised by the great story and wonderful melodies.
It begins in the 1950s and focuses on Jen and here younger brother John, reflecting the bittersweet relationship of siblings in the America of the 50’s and 60’s. We then follow Jen’s story as she has her own son, also named John, taking us up to the beginning of the 1990s. It reflects the turmoil every child faces as they reach adolescence and the struggle that parents have in letting go, these are common themes throughout modern history and they resonated with the audience. There are moments of humour, pathos and intelligent insight.
They said they tried their best - it was more than good enough!
The background music of Cyndi Lauper descended to a hush, some gentle illumination was thrown onto a dark performance space highlighting some scattered bric-a-brac to the perimeter. And then nothing happened. We waited. More nothing. Fidgeting, wondering and some more nothing. A voice within the audience asked the obvious question: 'What is this?' Some giggling. 'Is it one of those new things?' More giggling. 'I bet they haven't turned up' was added before the owner of the voice decided enough was enough and he wanted to leave. And so began The Joke.
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