Northampton Theatre Preview

Northampton Theatre Preview - September 2016

With the Summer downtime coming to an end for the theatres of Northampton, the curtain is ready to rise again on a new season of shows in the town.

Top pick at Royal & Derngate has to be the return of the hit adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. Adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by the R&D artistic directer James Dacre, this version first seen in 2014 plays for seven nights in the Royal before setting off on a national tour.
Dates in Northampton are Saturday 10th to Saturday 17th with matinees on Wednesday, Thursday and the second Saturday.

For those wanting to revisit the turbulant times of the 1989 political world, there is a chance to see Jonathan Maitland's touring Dead Sheep. Telling the story of the ramifications of Geoffrey Howe's sacking at the hands of PM Margaret Thatcher and her eventual downfall at the hands of this "dead sheep".
It stars Steve Nallon, Paul Bradley and Graham Seed and runs at the Royal & Derngate between Monday 19th and Saturday 24th with matinees on 22nd and 24th).

Those instead wanting to relive memories of their childhood or with offspring of their own to introduce to the world of a classic, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang lands at Royal & Derngate.
Starring Jason Manford, Phill Jupitus, Claire Sweeney and Carrie Hope Fletcher, Chitty is grounded at Derngate between Wednesday 21st and Sunday 2nd October (matinees on 22nd, 24th, 25th, 29th, 1st and 2nd).

On the amatuer dramatics front The Playhouse Theatre starts its 2016/2017 season with Ron Hutchinson's Moonlight And Magnolias running between Tuesday 20th and Saturday 24th. This tells in a farcical way the true story of the troublesome development of the classic movie Gone With The Wind.

If you are after some stand-up in September, Royal & Derngate have several opportunities. Visiting on their tours are Sean Lock, Sue Perkins and Miles Jupp, while the regular mainstay Screaming Blue Murder has two nights in September in the deepest Underground at R&D.

Monthly improv group The Same Faces has their evening of made up shananigans on Saturday 24th at The Black Prince. While if some lighthearted storytelling is for you, the monthly Feast Of Fools meets on Wednesday 7th with an Open Mic evening, venue NN Cafe.

Music nights in the month include Squeeze and Leo Green's Sounds Of The '50s, both at Royal & Derngate.

Finally this month's beyond Northampton pick goes to And Then There Were None at Leicester's The Little Theatre. Featuring Northampton Am-Dram regular Robin Armstrong, this version of the Agatha Christie classic from Leicester Drama Society runs between Monday 12th and Saturday 17th.

Full diary of events:

Wednesday 7th - Feast Of Fools Storytelling at NN Cafe, Guildhall Road
Wednesday 7th - Squeeze at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Thursday 8th - The Simon And Garfunkel Story at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Friday 9th - Joan Collins at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Saturday 10th-Saturday 17th - A Tale Of Two Cities at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Saturday 10th - Sounds Of Philadelphia & Motown at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Sunday 11th - Northampton Musical Theatre Company - Family Fun Day at Great Houghton Cricket Club
Sunday 11th - Chas & Dave at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Tuesday 13th - Sean Lock at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Thursday 15th - John Lodge
Friday 16th - Leo Green's Sounds Of The '50s Live at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Friday 16th - Screaming Blue Murder at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Saturday 17th - Sue Perkins Live! at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Monday 19th-Saturday 24th - Dead Sheep at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Tuesday 20th-Saturday 24th - The Playhouse Theatre: Moonlight And Magnolias at Playhouse Theatre, Clare Street
Wednesday 21st-Sunday 2nd (October) - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Saturday 24th - The Same Faces at The Black Prince, Abington Square
Wednesday 28th - Miles Jupp at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Friday 30th - Lennon Through A Glass Onion at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road
Friday 30th - Screaming Blue Murder at Royal & Derngate, Guildhall Road

Review of Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

It is a truth universally acknowledged... No Stop! That is too obvious an opening line to a review of any Pride & Prejudice . Let us begin anew... Of all the classic regency novels from the 19th century, perhaps, one of the most famous is that of P ride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. The novel of manners telling the story of the Elizabeth Bennet her development and her family is maybe more famous now for the many adaptations the novel itself has had, including a certain wet-shirted Colin Firth edition from the nineties. Due to this, it is ripe for many a reworking and with a guaranteed audience waiting for it. Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) is one of the more bold of those adaptations. However, for all its boldness, does this new version work, or in truth, is it one step too far? The answer is a clear yes, as this dynamic and brilliant reworking by writer and director Isobel McArthur has proven since first taking to the stage back in 2018 and now into this second UK tour, reachin...

Review of A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story at Birmingham Rep

Charles Dickens's novella A Christmas Carol is a perennial favourite and over the years has been adapted countless times for television, film and here, with this adaptation by Mark Gatiss, subtitled A Ghost Story , a further stage version. Originally performed at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2022 before moving to London at the Alexandra Palace, and the same venues repeated the following year, its past success serves well for a further revival. Therefore for 2024, The Birmingham Rep has taken to staging their own production, with a mostly new cast including Matthew Cottle and Rufus Hound leading an excellent cast. Cottle as Ebenezer Scrooge is excellent, often exhibiting a much more sprightly Scrooge that we would remember, and also, much funnier at times. Despite Gatiss remaining remarkably faithful to the original, the show, directed with excellent pace by Adam Penford mines more comedy than you might expect. Cottle's Scrooge remains without question evil, but in his delivery ...

Review of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

This tour of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical has become sadly a double-tribute as it tours throughout the UK into 2023 and the love of its creator Jim Steinman, and the man who made his work world-famous, Meat Loaf, both lost in the last year, runs through the cast in this impressive version of the show. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell takes the Peter Pan idea and warps it into a dystopian world of a group of youth known as The Lost trapped forever at 18 years of age. The centre of this group is Strat, who, after a chance encounter, becomes under the spell of Raven. Of course, into this mix must come a megalomaniac, as all dystopian worlds really need. This is the father of Raven, Falco, who, with his wife Sloane, battle The Lost, Raven’s relationship with Strat, and indeed their own very bizarre relationship, to the backdrop of Steinman’s music. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t start particularly well, be it the performance or a show issue, for the first twenty minutes there is a lack of clarit...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

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