They’re putting on a performance for Ray Spencer at The Customs House. Two, actually. No, wait… they’ve added a third. Correction: they’re putting on three performances of Celeb-RAY-tion at The Customs House this weekend, celebrating Ray’s 25 years at the helm of the riverside arts centre he has steered through often choppy waters. Naturally, they’re …
Sunday afternoon found me on a heathery knoll above a seething pond. “Frogs,” hissed the only other human occupant under her breath (we’d been told to be quiet, an order clearly unheeded in the water). “Mating.” Amorously alive, the turbulent pond groaned and quacked above the birdsong. First rule of theatrical presentations in the open …
Bloke pops his head round the door of the gents’ during the interval. “Goodness,” he chortles. “There’s as many in here as on the stage.” A lot can be drawn from that observation. The opera-going demographic does lean towards the generation for whom the loo is half time ‘must’ (although there were young heads in …
It’s not every day you peer at a painting and find yourself in it (and I don’t mean your reflection in the glass). That’s exactly what happened to me during a recce of Emma Holliday’s studio at 36 Lime Street, although I can’t guarantee it’ll be the same for others attending Ouseburn Open Studios this …
Dress appropriately for the weather and rough terrain, it states on the flyer. This, you’ll gather, is no ordinary theatrical offering from Hexham-based Théâtre sans Frontières (TsF). Not that this adventurous company, initiator of more than 50 productions since its inception, has ever dealt in the ordinary. Movement-based theatre shows performed in French, Spanish, German …
As an audience member, says Janet Plater, you can come out of a theatre sometimes feeling a bit concerned or even depressed. That’s true. Given theatre’s role of reflecting society, there’s no shortage of material that would have that effect. “But I make no criticism of anyone,” adds Janet quickly. “Theatre’s hard whatever it is …
With longer days in prospect and clement weather surely on its way, National Trust properties in the North East are opening for the season like the crocuses and daffodils (although at Wallington this year, the former were reportedly three weeks early). Cherryburn, birthplace of wood engraver Thomas Bewick, is the next to open, on March …
Los Angeles-based author Kathryn Scanlan is the winner of the £10,000 Gordon Burn Prize for Kick the Latch, her novel set in the world of American racehorse training. The announcement was made at Northern Stage, in Newcastle, by journalist, author and screenwriter Terri White, chair of the judges. Kick the Latch, published in January 2023 …
In the week of International Women’s Day (it’s Friday, March 8) comes a salutary – and, I have to say, enjoyable – reminder of the oceans of gloopy nonsense women have had to wade through over the years. Enjoyable because it comes in the form of a sparkling People’s Theatre production of Jessica Swale’s first …
Hercules reborn as a self-obsessed Peterlee strongman seems a dead cert to be one of the highlights of ClassicsFest, a new festival blowing the dust off ancient Greek and Roman literature. A key part of the new festival was a challenge to North East writers to produce a modern version of one of the monologues …
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