Theatre, Dance & Performance Archives

16 Oct

Dame Harriet Walter leads RSC’s all-female Julius Caesar to Blackpool school

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsGuide, Theatre, Dance & Performance

Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production, set in a women’s prison, takes up a week’s residency at St Mary’s Catholic Academy, with two community performances and a post-show conversation on creative health and young people Dame Harriet Walter is to lead the Royal Shakespeare Company’s landmark all-female production of Julius Caesar at St Mary’s Catholic Academy in Blackpool, as part of a week-long school residency. The RSC is bringing Phyllida Lloyd’s celebrated staging to the school from Monday 19 to Friday 23 October. It is the fifth stop on a five-week tour of partner schools and communities across England. Walter, an Olivier…

15 Oct

First position: Blackpool school children get Royal Ballet lessons

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance

Pupils at five Blackpool primary schools get a free, first taste of ballet this week, with workshops inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland delivered by the Royal Ballet Around 250 pupils from five primary schools across the town are taking part in free creative ballet workshops led by professional dance artists from the Royal Ballet this week. The workshops are part of 100 Classes for 100 Years, a national project marking the Royal Ballet School’s centenary. Blackpool is one of six regions taking part, alongside East Anglia, Devon, Manchester, Newcastle and Westminster. Around 2,500 Year 3 and 4 pupils at…

12 Oct

HISTORY GETS HORRIBLE AT THE GRAND

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsGuide, Theatre, Dance & Performance

Horrible Histories Live on Stage rolls into Blackpool Grand Theatre this week, with double gruesome helping of Terrible Tudors and Awful Egyptians landing across four days of performances. Packed with outrageous facts, larger-than-life characters and the show's signature eye-popping 3D effects, it's history as you were never taught it at school. Writer and director Neal Foster tells us why, after more than 20 years on the road, it's still packing theatres out from the West End to the Sydney Opera House. Horrible Histories has now been delighting theatre audiences for more than 20 years. Did you ever imagine it would…

07 Oct

Rogues’ Gallery: Black Liver give voice to art history’s overlooked women

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsGuide, Theatre, Dance & Performance

Award-winning comedy duo Black Liver are heading out on tour with their feminist two-hander made in collaboration with the community. Ask people to name an artist and you might get a few obvious answers – Monet? Van Gogh? Picasso? Then ask them to name a female artist. It is that silence that comedy and performance duo Black Liver have set out to fill with Rogues' Gallery, a show about the women history has written out. Ruth Cockburn, from Blackpool, and Keith Carter, from Liverpool, say the project, which they began touring this week, started with a simple idea. "There's so…

28 Sep

Roots in the House: a celebration of Black excellence

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsGuide, Heritage, Theatre, Dance & Performance

Workshops, performance, fashion and food build towards a family-friendly catwalk competition where the audience crowns the winner – Roots in the House, a celebration of Black excellence in Blackpool lands at House of Wingz this Black History Month. House of Wingz is gearing up for its annual celebration of Black culture, creativity, queer joy and community on 10 October. Running from 5pm to 8.30pm, Roots in the House brings together an exciting programme of workshops, performance and participation, building towards a spectacular family-friendly catwalk competition, where the audience gets to decide who takes the crown. Expect the richness and creativity…

19 Aug

Theatre Review: Mean Girls The Musical

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsGuide, Theatre, Dance & Performance

Fetch happened in Blackpool last night, as Mean Girls The Musical arrived at the Winter Gardens Opera House for the opening leg of five performances. Antonia Charlesworth's teenage daughters took her along for a night of inter-generational female empowerment. If you've somehow avoided Mean Girls until now, then, well, you probably are one. But if you don't know the story, the shape of it is this: home-schooled Cady Heron (Emily Lane) arrives at North Shore High and, within her first day, falls in with Janis and Damian – two self-declared art-room outsiders who take her under their wing. Janis has…

22 Jul

Theatre Review: 9 to 5 The Musical

David Simper0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance9to5, blackpool arts scene, dolly parton, musical theatre

A lifelong Dolly Parton fan and admirer of the 1980 film, David Simper heads to Blackpool Grand Theatre for 9 to 5: The Musical — and finds a witty, big-hearted stage adaptation that has the audience on their feet by the finale. As a keen Dolly Parton fan, and having been impressed by the 1980 film version of 9 to 5, I was delighted to be asked to review this show, which did not disappoint in any way. After dashing through the family meal after work, I caught the service 61 bus to Corporation Street and then on to Blackpool…

21 Jul

“Working with my mum and dad, that’s really where I learned how to make music.” John Carter Cash on The Ballad of Johnny & June

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance

The Ballad of Johnny & June, the new stage musical charting the 35-year marriage of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, opens at the Winter Gardens tonight. John Carter Cash talks about turning his parents' story – and his own memories – into a musical that trades the all-American fairytale for the truth. “Everybody always asks me what’s the most important thing my parents ever taught me,” says John Carter Cash. And his answer is… “Persistence! In the face of struggle and hardship you continue on. My dad stuck with it, he kept making music. My mother June did too.”…

17 Jul

“We Want You To Feel Like You’ve LIVed”: Inside Blackpool’s new immersive nightlife experience

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance

Studio 54 glamour meets contemporary Blackpool in LIV, a new immersive nightlife experience from Midnight Cabaret Club. Ahead of opening night last Saturday, co-artistic directors Aysh and Sam De Belle and Mykey Young sat down with Blackpool Social Club to talk about building a queer-led production, why audiences want more than a night out, and how seed funding from Creative Blackpool's support helped bring the show to life. Interview: Amber Archer. Photos: Martin Farrington. Blackpool has never been short of nightlife. But while the town has built its reputation on clubs, cabaret and late-night entertainment, a new generation of creatives…

15 Jul

Behind the Scenes: Work Experience with Sideshows, Seagulls and Shanties

Blackpool Social Club0 CommentsTheatre, Dance & Performance

From welcoming rehearsals to inventive staging and memorable performances, going behind the scenes of The Old Electric offered year 10 student Safina Stack a fresh appreciation of the people, creativity and community that bring local theatre to life. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work as a backstage helper for Sideshows, Seagulls and Shanties, created by The Old Electric, for my work experience week at school. The show, which is currently visiting community venues, is a whirlwind tour through the stranger corners of Blackpool and Fylde folklore. From seagull goddesses to a morris-dancing inspired rave, devastating shipwrecks and the dark…