Theatre, Dance & Performance

Jill Reidy shares her shots from last week's Showzam! press launch. More Showzam! goodness to come later this week.

Technical issues did not dampen the enthusiasm of the appreciative audience at the opening of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat on Tuesday evening. Joe McElderry returned to the Opera House stage shortly after his performance as Tommy in the rock opera last September . McElderry’s rather smug Joseph is sold into slavery by his not surprisingly disgruntled brothers when they grow tired of his boasting about his dreams and his new coat. Coupled with blatant favouritism from their father towards Joseph, it’s hard not to root for the bad guys in Bill Kenwright’s production of the musical. McElderry simply…

Every February Blackpool Tower wears its rainbow lights to mark LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans) History Month.  A few streets away from Blackpool’s most famous landmark, History Month is in full swing at the Grand Theatre as it welcomes Miss Nightingale, an original musical by Matthew Bugg. Miss Nightingale follows the fortunes of nightclub singer Maggie Brown (Clara Darcy) and her friend, composer and a Jewish refugee George Nowodny (Conor O’Kane) as they beginning their careers on the London club circuit. Things start to look up when the pair catch the eye of upper class patron Sir Frank Worthington-Blythe…

The Grand Theatre is set to be shaken in February by a modern take of the classic production - Flare Path. Written in 1941 and first staged in 1942, this wartime love story promises to both thrill and intrigue enthusiasts of history, romance and drama as they witness such a prized play. The plot itself is one which has been enjoyed by several generations and will never cease to relate to audiences of many ages, the story following a group of RAF bomber pilots caught up in a love triangle. Heartache and emotion will drive the plot with Flare Path…

Blackpool’s annual festival of circus and performance returns from Saturday 13 February from 12noon at The Winter Gardens, Blackpool Tower Circus and surrounding areas for eight days and organisers LeftCoast have announced the stunning full line-up - most of which is free! French circus stars AKOREACRO will make their UK premier in Blackpool Tower Circus with a seven-day run of high octane circus skills and music. Funny, wacky and spectacular, their company is made up of five musicians and six circus performers who will delight and excite you in the ring. Don’t miss your chance to see this show which…

A brand new puppet show has been developed, with support from LeftCoast, especially for this year’s Showzam Festival which puts a new spin on traditional Punch and Judy and offers long-term performance opportunities for local actors. The Diabolical Mr Punch is the invention of Melanie Whitehead, who is the driving force behind The Electric Sunshine Project, a new theatre company set-up specifically to trial creative ideas, artistic projects and theatre-making initiatives in the Blackpool area, but the puppet show has been a long-time in the making... In April 2013, after leaving a full-time position in a national arts organisation, Melanie…

Blackpool Grand Theatre’s Young Company came together for the first time in October 2015, the group is a member of the NT Connections 500 partnership. We asked what it was like to be part of this Young Company, and Helena Ascough who is studying for her BTEC Level 3 Performing Arts at Blackpool & Fylde College told us: “My first experience of NT Connections was a small taster session ran by Jo Cassidy at Blackpool & Fylde College. Automatically, I knew that I wanted to take part in such a brilliant opportunity! Jo commented that those who would be selected from the workshops…

In these days of touchscreen smartphones and voice controlled Siri the idea of dialling anything these days seems a little bit last century. Despite this giant leap of technology one thing remains as exciting in any decade and that is a good old fashioned thriller. The classic Dial M For Murder that The Grand Theatre is showing next month promises to be a just as tense and delightfully tangled a thriller as it was when Hitchcock took us for the ride with Grace Kelly back in the 1950's. You can expect great things from Talking Scarlet Theatre Company's adaptation of…

Do the names Cathy and Claire mean anything to you? If you're a woman of a certain age then the answer will be a definite yes! Once upon a time there were no mobile phones, no apps, no texting, no e-mails and no Twitter.  Angst ridden teenage girls waited with bated breath by the letterbox for their weekly issue of Jackie Magazine... unless their big sister got there first!  Jackie accompanied millions of girls through their teenage years in the 1970s and 80s, years of boy trouble, pop pin-ups and problem solving from resident agony aunts (the aforementioned Cathy and Claire). The magazine…