The audience at 41 Monkgate are excited for the show, and there’s a decent mix – parents with teenagers, couples on dates, and a few flying solo. They all give a hearty cheer as Richard Pulsworth and his crew of comedians take to the stage for this Great Yorkshire Fringe debut. Continue reading
On the final Saturday of the Great Yorkshire Fringe, a crowd begins to shuffle into the Grand Opera House. Their clothes might be damp from the torrential rain, but their spirits are decidedly not as they take their seats for the final of The New Comedian of the Year. Continue reading
You know it’s a good play when you almost forget that you’re meant to be taking notes. And Handbagged is a very good play. By imagining what might have happened in the weekly meetings between the Queen and the Iron Lady, Moira Buffini has created a play that is engaging, funny, and best of all, great fun to watch. Continue reading
“I’ve got two dads. One’s black, so that makes me black, so I’m told.” It is with these words that David Judge begins SparkPlug, his semi-autobiographical account of growing up as a mixed-race child in the eighties and nineties. For the most part, he plays his father (also called Dave), examining his own childhood through the eyes of a white man, married to a white woman, who is giving birth to a child fathered by a black man. Continue reading
An almost empty stage is the setting for the iconic revenge tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi. A couple of black boxes, a soundscape and some eerie coloured lights are all the aid the actors have in bringing this piece to life, and they do so well. Continue reading
From the moment that The Castaways opens, with the radio crackling to life to provide context, and Sam (Charlotte Wood) walks onstage, it is captivating. Set in a world in which rising sea levels have decimated riverside cities and displaced the people living there, The Castaways tells the story of Sam, a young mum, and her son, Alfie, through the new Britain this has created. The staging is deceptively simple; with nothing more than a radio, a stool, a tent and a teddy, the White Tree Theatre Company have created a performance that is utterly riveting and deeply moving. Continue reading