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Melanie Whitehead

Melanie Whitehead is the Creative Director of The Old Electric, Blackpool's newest theatre. She previously worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
85 Posts
Breathtaking DEPART for Blackpool
03 May

Breathtaking DEPART for Blackpool

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance
DEPART, a spectacular show from internationally acclaimed Australian circus artists, Circa, are making Stanley Park, Blackpool their final destination in their sell-out tour on Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 June 2017. Taking over the Park for four days, circus artists will dance above your head, surprising you with extraordinary feats of physicality and guide you through the space between life and death. DEPART will take you on a path through the vast spaces, iconic features and intimate wooded areas of Stanley Park, transforming one of Blackpool’s most beautiful public spaces into the underworld. This mix of circus and dance is…
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Back To The Old Pool At Tower Festival Headland
27 Apr

Back To The Old Pool At Tower Festival Headland

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsMusic & Gigs
Back To The Old Pool, the ultimate old skool and club classics festival, will return to a  new location in Blackpool on Saturday 8 July 2017; the Tower Festival Headland, making history as the first dance music event to take place on this site. Back To The Old Pool brings the originators of rave culture from eighties to noughties across five arenas. The lineup features DJ sets, PA’s and live performances from the likes of Chicane, Dave Pearce, Sonique, Seb Fontaine, Mauro Picotto, Lasgo Live, M.I.K.E. Push, Slipmatt, DJ SY, N-Trance, Baby D, Angie Brown, K-Klass, Shades Of Rhythm and many more. The festival is also taking over the LED controls of Blackpool Tower for a mesmerising lightshow. The…
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Still Wondering About Wonderland
11 Apr

Still Wondering About Wonderland

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance
altB's Melanie Whitehead went to check out multi Grammy and Drama Desk Award nominated Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland at the Blackpool Winter Gardens on Wednesday.  Starring Wendi Peters, much loved for her acclaimed portrayal of Cilla Battersby-Brown in Coronation Street, as Queen of Hearts alongside musical theatre favourite Dave Willetts, who has previously starred in tours of South Pacific, 42nd Street and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, as White Rabbit. Along with Wendi and Dave, Rachael Wooding stars as Alice in the 2017 UK tour of Wonderland. Read on to see what Melanie thought when she took a trip down the rabbit hole.…
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Grand’s Goldilocks is Just Right!
03 Apr

Grand’s Goldilocks is Just Right!

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance, , , , ,
The Northern Ballet Theatre returned to The Grand’s stage today with a brand-new retelling of the children's classic Goldilocks & the Three Bears and it offered great value on a wet Thursday afternoon. It was lovely to see the theatre packed with toddlers and school children captivated by this much-loved and beautifully told tale. A simple and brightly coloured set, live musicians in full view and a company of highly accomplished dancers all helped to bring a sense of spectacle to this piece and managed to retain this hard-to-hold audience’s attention for the full 40-minutes duration.  Well, as much as to be expected! Alongside Goldilocks and…
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Wordpool’s New Festival of Written Word 
23 Mar

Wordpool’s New Festival of Written Word 

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsLiterature & Spoken Word, , , , , ,
Blackpool’s popular literature festival Wordpool is welcoming a new addition to its programme: Festival of Written Word. Wordpool has traditionally run in July, but this new instalment will be running from Wednesday 29-Friday 31 March.  Part of three new mini-festivals,  the event has been organised to expand Wordpool’s events schedule. Following a £70,000 grant in 2016 from Arts Council England, organisers Blackpool Council’s Arts and Library Services have already had great success with last July’s Young Adult Fiction Festival and a Festival of Poetry & Performance in October. This month’s festival will see a range of internationally renowned and emerging writers sharing…
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Short Ballets for Small People in Blackpool
16 Mar

Short Ballets for Small People in Blackpool

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance
After great successes with The Elves and The Shoemaker and Madame Butterfly, Northern Ballet Theatre return to The Grand’s stage on Thursday 30 March 2017 with a brand-new retelling of the children’s classic Goldilocks & the Three Bears. Bringing this renowned children’s story to life, Goldilocks & the Three Bears is the perfect opportunity for your little ones to enjoy live ballet, music and theatre for the first time. Goldilocks is a mischievous little girl with hair as bright as gold. Always on the look-out for an adventure, one day her curiosity leads her to a house full of many…
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Babe in Blackpool
01 Feb

Babe in Blackpool

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance
The Grand Theatre’s new season launch took place last week and among the creatives of shows visiting the town was Puppetry Director Matthew Forbes. Matt was in town this time last year working on a new version of a Punch & Judy show for annual family-favourite Showzam Festival and he jumped at the chance to return to Blackpool to promote Polka Theatre’s new touring production of Babe The Sheep Pig which arrives here in July. I caught up with him to talk about how things were going... Babe was originally a children's novel, written by Dick King-Smith in 1983, it…
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Yoga Blackpool Opens New Studio
26 Oct

Yoga Blackpool Opens New Studio

Melanie Whitehead1 CommentLocal News, Sports & Wellbeing
Angela Ross is the driving force behind Yoga Blackpool and, last week, she opened a brand new yoga studio in Bispham (above the RBS on the corner of Red Bank Road/Promenade). Angela has been teaching in Blackpool for the last three years; she started offering sessions for friends but then has gradually built up her practice and out of that Yoga Blackpool was born, however, this is the first time she has had her own dedicated premises and she’s keen for it to become a home for authentic yoga practice in the area. Originally from London, she moved to Blackpool…
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DeLight in the Pool 2016
29 Sep

DeLight in the Pool 2016

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsLocal News
Artists are set to re-invigorate Blackpool Illuminations through a new festival of light; LightPool which runs Friday 28 October - Wednesday 2 November 2016. We met up with Festival Producer Mykey Young who told us about the exciting plans for this year’s illuminations. Blackpool are now part of Light up the North which is a network of outdoor light festivals across the North of England and this is of huge importance because it means the town can be more ambitious with creative commissions and attracting exciting artists from all over the world into the town. Mykey hopes that this year’s…
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Get Social At Bootleg
23 Sep

Get Social At Bootleg

Melanie Whitehead0 CommentsMusic & Gigs
Bootleg Social is still Blackpool’s newest alternative music bar and live venue and the three gents who own it have spent the last few years building a reputation for being thoroughly nice chaps. They are up for supporting local arts and social activities and have also been busy programming an exciting range of gigs, DJ sets and events themselves. If you haven’t yet found the bar, it’s located at 30 Topping Street and is open Monday-Wednesdays 7pm-1am, Thursdays 7pm-3am, Friday-Saturday 5pm-3am and is well worth popping in to enjoy an early doors drink in a leather wing-back chair, a casual…
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