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A celebration of Merseyside’s theatres
CENTRE STAGE
2 THEATRES
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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WELCOME
Contents Page 3: Liverpool's theatrical past and future Pages4-5: The Empire, theatrical empress of Lime Street Pages 6: The pioneering Unity theatre
It’s showtime
Pages 7: Neptune rises once again from the deep Pages 8-9: Our dramatis personae Pages 10-11: The Playhouse plays an historic role Pages 12-13: All the world’s a stage Pages 14-15: An Everyman for all seasons Pages 16-17: Liverpool playwrights and plays Pages 18-19: Royal Court –- Liverpool’s newest repertory Pages 20-21: Merseyside's theatrical strength revealed Pages 22: Theatres of yesteryear Pages 23: Liverpool’s fringe theatre scene Pages 23: Curtain call Words: Catherine Jones Design: Richard Irvine
Welcome to our look at theatres on Merseyside and the famous faces that have appeared in them over the years
A
S A rather well-known pensmith once wrote – all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. History suggests Shakespeare may only have got as close to the Mersey as Rufford Hall. But his words have a particular resonance for Liverpool, a city where every other taxi driver is a closet playwright, where every schoolchild a budding performer, and where every available space – from waterfronts to disused warehouses to cathedrals – is a possible stage. Actors, writers, comedians, directors, musicians – Liverpool produces them all in abundance, and over more than two centuries a huge number of venues have sprung up to sate the population’s appetite for live theatre.
Many of those venues no longer exist, but Liverpool can still boast one of the largest concentrations of theatres for a city its size in the UK. From the 2,400-seat Empire to the 80-seat Actors’ Studio, from the Playhouse to the Paul McCartney Auditorium, they offer something for everyman. And every woman of course. Added to that, the wider Merseyside region as a whole boasts a wide collection of theatres from the Theatre Royal in St Helens to the newly-renovated Floral Pavilion at New Brighton, the Rose at Ormskirk to the historic Gladstone Theatre at Port Sunlight. It’s that rich mix that makes Liverpool and Merseyside one of the most vibrant theatrical hubs outside London, and which the ECHO celebrates in this special supplement.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
THEATRES
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The Urla Players presents
Isle of Shadows A new play written and directed by
Stephanie Miller
The Actors Studio
36 Seel Street, Liverpool February 25th, 26th & 27th at 7.30pm Box Office 0151-709-9034 Tickets £10/£8 Concessions
Stage is set for Mersey theatres The redesign of both the Royal Court and Everyman bodes well for the future
When three brothers meet to attend their father’s funeral, a quiet rural backwater is torn apart. An unforgiving, proud and manipulative mother and a scheming self-serving son provide the catalyst for inevitable fracture and horrific disclosure. The drama is concerned with the bonds and traditions that hold family and community together and the inevitable breakdown of those traditions when violated by opportunism, greed and ultimately by failure of filial obligations. Yet there is humour in this play. Some of it may be considered ‘black’ humour whilst the potential for tragedy lurks ever-present beneath the drama’s rural setting.
CLASSIC: The old Everyman theatre is a very different place now
Home to
DANCE DYNAMIX as seen on
W
HILE the first purpose-built theatres started to spring up in the mid-18th century, Liverpool’s theatrical history actually stretches back hundreds of years. Many performers would have been travelling players, and they weren’t always welcomed to towns with open arms – some were even considered rogues and vagabonds. Until Tudor times and even beyond, entertainment would have been presented in private (the Earls of Derby for example were known to be patrons of drama), or more public revelry in markets and fairs. It is believed Cockpit Yard near Drury Lane became the first city centre building used for plays and dramatic entertainment, while in the 1740s there was another playhouse, near Dale Street, where Shakespeare’s The Tempest was performed for a whole month. It was the Drury Lane theatre, opened in 1750, which opened the floodgates for theatrical venues in the fast-growing port with entrepreneurial promoters attracting investment from the prosperous merchants. The music hall boom in the second half of the 19th century created a huge number of often short-lived venues. In fact, in
Isle of Shadows Set in 1960s West of Ireland, Isle of Shadows is a three act play about a (literally) buried family secret.
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NEW WAVE: Gillian Miller looks at the model of the revamped Royal Court Theatre the 1890’s there were almost 30 theatres, music halls and other entertainment establishments for the population’s delight. A century on, both the population and the number of theatres has halved. But Liverpool still has one of the most extensive and thriving theatrical scenes in the UK – from the cavernous Empire to the homely Actors’ Studio and the pioneering Unity. Things continue to change with both the Everyman and the Royal Court planning for major, multi-million pound building work to take them well into the 21st century. So does the future look bright for Liverpool theatre? “I think it’s very positive,” says Gillian Miller, chief executive of the Royal Court Trust.
ON THE MOVE: Deborah Aydon and Gemma Bodinetz at the Everyman
“The fact the Royal Court is the only continually producing theatre outside the West End and is non-funded by public money, has to be a huge benefit to the city – not only in terms of the quality of productions themselves but also on an economic level. “The buildings are what’s letting us down at the moment.” All that could change with the £10.6m planned refurbishment including a new rooftop extension, entrance and better facilities. The bill for a new Everyman in Hope Street is more than twice that, and £12m has already been pledged by the Arts Council towards the new £28m venue which it is hoped will be open in 2013. “Theatre in Liverpool feels very buoyant at the moment,”
says Everyman and Playhouse artistic director Gemma Bodinetz. “Despite a recession, as you look around the city people still seem to want a good night out. It’s pleasing too to note the variety and quality of the theatre offer in the city. “Here at the Everyman and Playhouse after an extremely successful Christmas we’re heading into brave territory with a new experiment in truly terrifying theatre Ghost Stories. “We believe at these theatres that artistic excellence and entertainment shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. “Courage and dare aren’t the preserve of a ‘difficult’ evening. We celebrate new writing, superlative performance and cutting edge design but at the centre of our vision is always the audience experience.”
LIVERPOOL WELSH CHORAL
HAYDN’S THE CREATION
Saturday 27th February 7.30pm Philharmonic Hall
Tickets from £12 0151 652 6374 or 709 3789 www.lwcu.co.uk
4 THEATRES
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
EMPIRE
Empire COOLING DOWN: The Beatles at the Empire in 1964
PITY THE FOOL: Mr T with the cast of Aladdin back in 1991
One of the country’s largest theatres is enjoying a return to popularity after avoiding closure in the 1970s
I
T’S one of the largest two tier theatres in the country, but the Empire is not the first theatre to stand on Liverpool’s Lime Street gateway. Twenty years after St George’s Hall was built and 30 years after Lime Street Station was opened, the New Prince of Wales Theatre and Opera was erected on the site. The theatre, which was two thirds the size of the current Empire, boasted the heads – carved in stone – of Shakespeare, Molière, Schiller, Beethoven and Rossini, and opened in 1866 with Faust presented by the Italian Opera Company. A year later the venue was renamed the Royal Alexandra Theatre after the Princess of Wales, and gas lighting was installed. The theatre’s programme included opera, plays and Christmas pantomimes and famous Victorian actors who appeared on stage included Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, while musicals star Vesta Tilley appeared as principal boy in The Forty Thieves. In 1896, and after several changes in ownership, it was renamed the Empire and completely remoulded by famous theatre architect Frank Matcham, reopening with the pantomime Cinderella and also producing a number of variety shows for which it became renowned.
YOUNG AT HEART: Jimmy Tarbuck
In the early 1900s electricity was installed, and the venue attracted new stars such as Ivor Novello and Dame Sybil Thorndike, but by the 1920s owner Moss Empires decided the building was not big or grand enough and it was demolished. The grade II listed Empire Theatre we know today was opened in March 1925, entirely rebuilt and enlarged to an American design to become the most up-to-date theatre in the provinces. It had the widest auditorium in Europe, and a seating capacity of 2,381. And it was said to have the first showers for actors ever seen in a British theatre! It became known early on for big
ROYAL PRESENCE: Prince Charles talks to Nerys Hughes and choreographer Samantha Stevens after a show in 1978
musical productions - Fred and Adele Astaire starred in Lady Be Good, and that’s something which continues to this day. Stars who graced the stage in the 20th century included Tallulah Bankhead, Gracie Fields, Arthur Askey, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, while Roy Rogers brought his horse Trigger. Tommy Trinder appeared on stage, while his brother Fred Dexter was the chief electrician. In the 60s and 70s the theatre played host to big names in the music industry, not least the Beatles, while it has also hosted a number of Royal Command and
Royal Variety performances – the last in 2007. In 1979 the Empire was under threat of being torn down to make way for a multi-storey car park. It was saved by Merseyside county council and the Arts Council, and benefited from the new popularity of touring musicals. In 1998 the theatre underwent the start of an £11m refurbishment, and the atrium annex was completed in 2002. It is currently a home for touring and home-grown musicals, comedy shows and similar entertainment, and was taken over by the Ambassador Theatre Group last November.
LEFT A BIT: The switchboard for the stage lights at the Empire back in 1960
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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EMPIRE
strikes back EVEN THE AMERICANS ENJOYED A TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS PANTO
HAPPY Days star Henry Winkler relished his time as Captain Hook in Peter Pan last Christmas, but he’s not the first American to enjoy a traditional British pantomime at the Empire as this Liverpool newspaper article from February 1944 shows. “One of the many wonders of the pantomime season only recently ended has been the hundreds of Americans who have braved the unknown, say bewildered and bored, and finally caught the magic of our Christmas traditions. “Mr Harry Benson, of the Empire, tells me that large number of United States servicemen and women have informed him they were “tickled to death” after seeing Wilfred Pickles in Sleeping Beauty - which was seen by about 136,000 people.”
Henry Winkler as Captain Hook and Wilfred Pickles, below
STAR TURN: Syd Little and Eddie Large appear in Aladdin in 1978
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I LOVED EVERY MOMENT’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
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Swan Lake 22 – 27 February
Stop Messing About 4 – 6 March
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Oklahoma 30 March – 3 April
Laughter in the Rain 5 – 10 April
Blood Brothers 12 – 24 April
The Rat Pack 3 – 8 May
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
UNITY
One for all and all for one
T
HE Unity theatre is celebrating its 30th anniversary at its Hope Street base this year. But the history of the Unity stretches much further back in time than 1980 – back in fact to the Spanish Civil War. It was founded as the Merseyside Left Theatre in 1937. And unity united as its founders were in the struggle against fascism and for Spanish democracy – was its watchword. In fact, it was part of a national theatre movement which aimed to make theatre accessible to “the great mass of the people”. The first performances were short sketches put on in between speeches at political meetings, these pieces of theatre dubbed “weapons in political struggle”. Over the years the theatre
ALL TOGETHER: Graeme Philips at the Unity
STREETS AHEAD: Tina Malone in Arabian Nights back in 1985
STORMY WEATHER: The Tempest by Raw Material
FOLLOW ME: The Pied Piper in 1994
STAGE SHOW: Told By an Idiot with You Haven't Embraced Me Yet
NO JOKE: Wisecrack Theatre and Noreen Kershaw in 1985
NICE HAT: Chris Curran as Condor in The Frog Prince
NEW LOOK: The Unity being refurbished
The Unity was founded to make theatre accessible for everyone and that tradition continues right to this day company, which became the Unity Theatre Society Ltd in 1944, performed the works of Shakespeare, Jonson, Sophocles, Ibsen, Molière and Brecht as well as pieces penned by Liverpool writers. The Unity had a small theatre in Mount Pleasant, but with he abolition of the licensing of plays by the Lord Chamberlain in the 1960s, mainstream theatres could become more radical in their output and the purpose of the MUT began to falter. One of its final acts before it was wound up in the 1980s was to
create the Unity we know today, converting the former Hope Place Synagogue into a performance space under the management of the non-political Hope Place Community Association. It opened to the public on June 7, 1980. Artistic director Graeme Phillips recalls his first visit to the theatre. “I’m not sure I believe in symbolic moments but on the very night I arrived in Liverpool I was directed to the Unity to meet up with one of the two people I knew in the city at that time,” he says. “Although I arrived too late to
see it, the show was performed by Impact Theatre, at that time one of the leading experimental companies of the day. “It was the juxtaposition of an exciting new company and the building itself with
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: The Unity as it looks now
all its potential, even if at that time it did look like a squat from the outside.” The original Unity had no box office, lean-to dressing rooms in the corner of the stage and, as chief executive Sue Williams says, ‘a dozen buckets catching drops when it rained.’ In 1994 funding was received to refurbish the theatre, whose patrons include actors Ian Hart, David Morrissey and Andrew Lancel, and it was relaunched in 1998. One of the best-loved theatres in Liverpool, it has a reputation for staging innovative, high-quality work, encouraging new writing and supporting new companies.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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THEATRES
NEPTUNE
Will stars shine on Neptune over the next year? JOE BROWN
“The Neptune is a lovely little theatre. It has a back wall that’s quite close to the stage, and solid, so you get all the reaction from the audience reverberating back off it and the atmosphere is like a giant party.”
ALWAYS SMILING: Sonia with teenager Nazene Langfield as Tommy The Cat in Dick Whittington
Historic theatre should be back in the limelight this year
KEN DODD
I
T STARTED life almost a century ago, a performance space built high above Hanover Street on the fifth floor of the Crane brothers’ music shop and offices. Crane Hall, as it was known then, was designed as a showcase for recitals and used mostly as a concert hall. But it soon also became clear that the space lent itself to theatrical productions, and the firm bought a next door building to expand and build a proper stage. The venue became known as the Crane Theatre shortly before the outbreak of World War II and its size, seating around 400, and location made it ideal for amateur theatre – although professional companies also used the building. During the early 1960s a bar was opened in the theatre’s box office area. However, despite its popularity with the region’s am dram companies, and visiting theatrical stars, by the middle of the decade the future of the Crane was seriously in doubt. In 1967 it was bought from the company by the then Liverpool Corporation and, reflecting the city’s maritime history and coat of arms, it was renamed the
GOT TO PICK A POCKET OR TWO: A scene from Oliver
CLASSIC TALE: James Beattie plays Pinocchio in the back in 1990
HAUTE COUTURE: A dress maker prepares the costumes at the Neptune
LISTED BUILDING: The Neptune back in the 1960s as The Crane Neptune Theatre. Around £7,000 was spent on refurbishments including recovering all the seats, redecorating, new lighting and a lift was added from the street level to the foyer. The grade II listed theatre was reopened in 1968 with Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. The Neptune also became the first theatre in Liverpool to have a fully electronic lighting switchboard.
It became well-known for its popular children’s shows, Gilbert & Sullivan and bands. In 1975, Judi Dench, who had made her professional debut 20 years earlier up the road at the Royal Court, appeared at the Neptune with her Liverpudlian husband Michael Williams. When the site was threatened with closure in 1993, the acting couple backed a campaign to save it. By the late 1990s, the theatre
“It’s a lovely theatre – ideal for solo performers because of its intimacy.” had been dedicated to the memory of the late Brian Epstein. Then in 2005 it closed for refurbishment with an estimated re-opening date of 2007, but complications and disagreements over rent delayed work. Most problems now appear to have been ironed out and it is hoped the building will be restored and working again at some point during 2010.
EYES WIDE OPEN: What the Butler saw at the Neptune, from left to right, Madge Cline, Danny McCarthy, Brian Cain, David Gulliver, John Williams and on the couch Patricia Woods
7
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FAMOUS FACES
BENJAMIN WHITROW
Benjamin Whitrow made his professional debut at the Liverpool Playhouse. “I started my career there in 1959. That was when Williamson Square was a lovely little place where you could even park your car. I came up from RADA as a juvenile and every year there was a RADA contract – the year after me came John Thaw. In my first year I was playing all the juvenile parts and I was silly enough to stay on for the next season. John Thaw came up and got all the parts, one after another!”
CON O’NEILL
Con O’Neill will remember his first day at the Everyman. While sitting on the stairs waiting for staff to arrive Winnie, the cleaner, said to him: “Here, make yourself useful while you’re waiting. Just give those windows a going over. And sure enough, he did.
ELIZABETH SLADEN
Elizabeth Sladen who stated her career as an ASM at the Playhouse: “I can remember when I was really young telling my parents I wouldn’t mind washing the stage and I bloody did. Absolutely, literally.”
Stars of past and present love to tread the boards in Liverpool Thousands have graced the stages of Merseyside over the years
F
ROM ballet legend Margot Fonteyn to theatrical ‘grande dames’ Sybil Thorndike and Peggy Ashcroft, from John Gielgud to John Lennon, Robert Donat to Robert Powell – literally thousands of performers have graced Merseyside’s stages. Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence met as child actors at the Playhouse – also the venue for romance between Sir Michael Redgrave and future wife Rachel Kempson. Richard Burton, Ivor Novello, Tommy Steele and Judi Dench have all trodden the boards at the Royal Court, the latter two making their professional acting debuts on the Roe Street theatre’s stage. The Beatles shook
the rafters of the Empire, Steve Coogan filmed inside the Neptune, and Geoffrey Hughes began his stage career with the Unity. Before he went into deep space, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (alias Sir Patrick Stewart) plied his trade at the Playhouse. “He was only in his teens and quite bald, then,” remembers veteran Liverpool stage designer Billy Meall. “They bought him a Beatle wig which he wore for the party.” And Inspector Morse – John Thaw – could also be found at the Williamson Square theatre where he started his career as a 16-year-old, in one case dressed as a Brer Fox in a production of Brer Rabbit which also starred a young Benjamin Whitrow.
PETE POSTLETWAITE
LEGEND: Pete Postlethwaite, left, and Keith Washington in the Liverpool Everyman production of Coriolanus “I first came here as a 16-year-old from West Park grammar school in St Helens. It all blew my mind, seeing plays like Waiting for Godot and Look Back in Anger. As an actor what mattered most about the Everyman was the soul and spirit of the place, which gave you the ability to be right - or wrong. I would not be as brave an actor if it were not for being here.”
★★★★
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
THEATRES
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FAMOUS FACES BUILDING A CAREER: Brer Rabbit at the Liverpool Playhouse. On the ladder is Brer Fox, John Thaw, kneeling by the windon is Brer Bear, Allan Barnes, Brer wolf, Benjamin Whitrow, holds a hammer and Brer Terrapin, Michael Murray, looks on
EARLY DAYS: Patrick Stewart and Peter Needham in Dr Angelus at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1964
PETE POSTLETHWAITE
EARLY DAYS: Tommy Steele
WHILE MY GUITAR: George Harrison and John Lennon tune up backstage at the Liverpool Empire
STAR TURN: Margot Fonteyn in 1939
STAR OF STAGE AND SCREEN: Anthony Hopkins
MATTHEW KELLY
FINE ROMANCE: Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson
SOMETHING SPECIAL: Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence met as child actors at the Playhouse
IDEALISTIC: Matthew Kelly was a regular on stage in Liverpool, here with George Costigan and in Of Mice and Men “We were all very young and idealistic. A lot of us were from the north or if we weren’t from the north, we’d gone to Manchester Polytechnic, so we were very anti-RADA and anti-establishment theatre. The Everyman was one of those exciting places that peopel wanted to be.”
BIG DAY: Michael Williams and Judi Dench on their wedding day in 1971
news
★★★★
PLAYHOUSE
MAUD CARPENTER
THE Playhouse’s longest-serving member of staff was the redoubtable Maud Carpenter - described as “the most famous woman manager in England” - who spent 51 years there, many of them as general manager and licensee. Carpenter ruled with a benevolent rod of iron, and was recalled as a mixture of headmistress and surrogate mother by actors. At each performance she would stand in the foyer, greeting regulars and asking: “And on which night are you planning to come to the next play?” She insisted even the humblest employee wear matching hat and gloves, or a suit, and arrive at the theatre by taxi. She famously told off Anthony Hopkins for attending rehearsals in jeans and an open neck shirt, saying: “Oh, Anthony dear. I would very much appreciate it if you would not turn up to rehearsals without a sports jacket and tie.” When she finally left in 1962, the retiring collections from friends was a massive £550.
Birthplace of a thousand stars FAMOUS ALUMNI: from left, Danny Hiller, Andrew Schofield, Annette Ekblom, Angela Walsh and Michael Starke in 1985
ANYONE FOR TENNIS: Chloe Salaman, Teddy Kempner, Sam Dale, Neil Pearson, Paul Mooney in Not Quite Jerusalem
NO STICK: Ken Dodd as Malvolio in the Playhouse production of Twelfth Night
JOHN MASEFIELD FUTURE Poet Laureate John Masefield was prevailed upon to write a special prologue for the opening night November 11 1911: Here, in this house, tonight, our city makes Something which must not fail for all our sakes, For we begin what men have been too blind To build elsewhere - a temple for the mind, and it ended.... Tonight our city leads. All you who care For her fair fame in England keep it fair. Make this foundation firm, work till it be Part of her praise on men’s lips oversea. That when they name her they will say of her, “Famous for ships, and this her theatre.”
O
N November 11 1911, and after a “six week trial season” at Kelly’s Theatre in Paradise Street, the newly-formed Liverpool Repertory Theatre presented its first proper play at its new base in Williamson Square. It was the Admirable Crichton by JM Barrie, and the cast included Norman Trevor, Arthur Chesney and Estelle Winwood.
The Liverpool Repertory Theatre, funded by more than 1,100 shareholders – making it a unique “citizen’s theatre”, was not a new building however. It had previously been the Star Theatre, a former music hall built in 1866. And within six years of the Admirable Crichton, it would be re-named again - as the Playhouse. The theatre became the oldest
The Playhouse has long nurtured the talents of surviving repertory company in the country, helping to launch the careers of a starry cast of names from Robert Donat, Diana Wynyard and Rex Harrison to Patrick Stewart, John Thaw, Anthony Hopkins and Jean Boht. William Armstrong, the theatre’s director from 1922-44, told a reporter
in 1929: “Young artistes come here, they get incomparable opportunities in repertory work and training, they develop rare talents, and London lures them away just as our public have taken them right to their hearts.” Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence worked together as young
news
★★★★
PLAYHOUSE
SIR PETER HALL
TOP TEAM: Paul Webster and Steven Berkoff in a scene from the Long and Short and the Tall at the Playhouse in 1965
MEMORIES: Sir Peter Hall (right) with actor Martin Shaw and actress Francesca Annis, outside the LIverpool Playhouse Sir Peter Hall: “I did my National Service basic training at West Kirby, and it was hell. The only thing that kept me going was the Liverpool Playhouse “I remember going to see the Cherry Orchard and Pinero’s The Magistrate, which were done by the resident company.”
REGULARS: The Playhouse team (far left) Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell, designer Voytek, Chris Bond and Bill Morrison
OOOH MATRON: Having a Ball at the Playhouse with Sylvester McCoy, Eamonn Clarke (left) Susan Twist and Doug Smith
LESLIE LAWTON
“Jean Boht and I were the ASMs. We swept the stage, made the tea, went out and begged, borrow and stole the props, and played small parts and I got lucky because I got given the lead after about six months in a musical and in the meantime I was allowed to go and do bits and pieces, I did Billy Liar and stuff.”
HEIDI THOMAS
the very best actors and writers in the country teenagers in a 1913 production of Hannele, while the Redgrave theatrical dynasty was founded when actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson met and fell in love during a 1935 production of Flowers in the Forest. Meanwhile Ken Dodd made his “straight” acting debut as Malvolio in
a diamond anniversary production of Twelfth Night. And the Old Vic made the theatre its home during World War II. In the 1960s £235,000 was spent on improvements and a new modern wing. Despite its theatrical attractions under artistic directors who over the
years included Basil Dean, Leslie Lawton, William Gaunt, Ian Kellgren, Bill Kenwright, and the “gang of four” Willy Russell, Alan Bleasdale, Chris Bond and Bill Morrison, the Playhouse was dogged by financial difficulties with it suffering losses almost from the outset. William Armstrong helped save the theatre following a financial crisis in 1922, while in the mid 1980s it was making losses of almost £90,000.
Things came to a head in 1998 when the venue closed after mounting losses. A successful campaign, backed by big names including Ken Dodd, Prunella Scales and Richard Briers, was launched to save it for 21st century audiences. In 1999, the Playhouse and Everyman were joined together under a single management to take the city’s producing theatre forward.
“Very early on, when I was 22, I was a keen theatregoer. My first play was done at Liverpool Playhouse and it was a really interesting experience, very interesting in that I met my husband who was in it. We’re still together 22 years later.”
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
STARRY NIGHTS
★★★★
All the worl
These are just some of the classic sho
BLOOMERS: Brendan O’Carroll as Mrs Brown
THAT’LL BE THE DAY: Glen Joseph as Buddy Holly at the Empire
CLASSIC: Pete Postlethwaite in the Everyman production of King Lear
BIG HIT: A scene from Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, at The Royal Court, from left are; Roy Brandon, as Dennis Twacky, Eithne Browne, as Ann Twacky, and Andrew Schofield, as Dickie Lewis
ALAS: Stephen Fletcher as Hamlet and Grace Menary-Winefield as Ophelia in rehearsals at LIPA for Hamlet
STOP RIGHT THERE: A scene from The 39 Steps at the Playhouse
WINNING NIGHT: The premiere of One Night in Istanbul at the Empire Theatre with Jamie Carragher on the right
GAME ON: The Beautiful Game football ballet at the Playhouse
MANY COLOURS: Darren Day as Joseph at the Empire
COOL: Henry Winkler as Captain Hook with Natasha Hamilton
★★★★
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
ld’s a stage
THEATRES
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STARRY NIGHTS
ows that have graced our theatres
SEROUS STUFF: A scene from the LIPA production of Arcadia staged at the Unity theatre, left to rightl are Ina Maria Brekke and David Rankine
TALKS TO THE ANIMALS: Tommy Steele starring in Doctor Dolittle with Bill Kenwright at The Empire
WOMAN OF MANY TALENTS: Minnie Driver at the Empire theatre
DON’T CRY FOR ME: Louise Dearman as Eva in Evita at the Empire
CARRY ON DOCTOR: Graham Bickley as Joe in Eric’s The Musical
THUMBS UP: Les Dennis as Buttons in Cinderella at the Empire
FANCY A BITE: Rosie McLaughlin as the Snow Queen and Lucy Fiori from the Unity
FAMILY BUSINESS: Barbara Dickson, centre, as Mrs Johnstone with Stephen Palfreman, left as Micky and Mark Hutchinson as Eddie in Blood Brothers at the Empire
STAND AND DELIVER: Jonathan Ansell in in Whistle Down the Wind at the Empire
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
EVERYMAN
Everyman “
HOLD STILL: Jonathan Pyrce in The Sea Anchor
★★★★
The early 1970s were legendary as a golden age of acting talent
WE were young, arrogant, naive, totally mad,” said Terry Hands, one of the founders of Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre. Maybe. But that arrogance, naivety and madness has stood the test of time and more than four decades after the Everyman was launched it theatrical work from interesting writers, visionary remains one of the UK’s driving theatrical forces. directors, and of course some of the biggest acting Liverpool’s new experimental theatre was names in British theatre. opened in 1964 under the artistic triumvirate of The early 1970s in particular have become Hands, Martin Jenkins and Peter James whose legendary as a golden age of acting talent at the stated intention was to “promote, maintain and Everyman, a place where Jonathan Pryce, Pete advance education; to promote understanding and Postlethwaite, Julie Walters, Bill Nighy, Anthony appreciation of the Arts - of drama, music, mime, Sher and Trevor Eve – among many others – first poetry, film”. forged their acting careers. But it occupied a site that had already been used Take a production of Taming of the Shrew in for entertainment for nigh on a October 1974. Directed by Jonathan century. Pryce, its cast included Matthew The Hope Street building had Kelly, Julie Walters, Kate Fahy, started life as Hope Hall, first built as Nicholas le Provost and Bill Nighy. a chapel in 1837 and then from the Earlier that same year, the mid-19th century used as a concert Everyman had premiered Willy hall. “I was signed on for one Russell’s Beatles-inspired musical In 1912 it was turned into one of play only, a sequel to John, Paul, George, Ringo...and Bert, Liverpool’s early cinemas, a role it The Warp called which later went on to acclaim in continued to play for almost 50 years, Chameleon Blue, in the West End and launched the stage lastly under independent cinema which I had to play the career of a young Scottish singer owner Leslie Blond. leader of a tribe of called Barbara Dickson. In the book Liverpool’s Third tepee people. As well as The Everyman has continued to Cathedral (a term coined by performing this very premiere controversial, inspired and musician Pete Wylie) compiled to strange play, which funny new work, nurturing young mark the Everyman’s 40th birthday included a scene where playwrights such as Lizzie Nunnery, in 2004, Martin Jenkins recalled how a goat came flying in Michael McLean and Chris Fittock. the owner agreed to lease the venue through the window, I And it has also nurtured new to them for a peppercorn rent. also had to do a generations of young actors through And the evident passion of the trio one-man show every the Everyman Youth Theatre, whose for the project led to the backing of night.” alumni include Stephen Graham, theatrical luminaries such as Sir Ian Hart, Gillian Kearney, David Michael Redgrave and Dame Peggy Morrissey and three McGann Ashcroft, and a £3,000 grant from the brothers. city council which paid for the The building itself was substantially rebuilt in complete renovation of the building. 1977, and now it is set to be regenerated again with The theatre opened on September 28 1964 with a a £28m plan to raze the site and create a new production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I. Everyman with much-improved facilities for both Martin Jenkins played Falstaff, Peter James, Sir audiences and performers. Michael, and both directed. Shortly before curtain “Liberated from cramped conditions and ancient up, Peter James remembers there was a row over technical facilities, the work on stage can flex its who would wear the one frilly shirt the wardrobe muscles and grow in a building which harnesses department owned. the spirit of its beloved predecessor but is fit and The Everyman was heralded by the ECHO as inspiring for future generations of artists and “the bravest theatrical venture in Liverpool for audiences,” enthuses current artistic director some years.” Gemma Bodinetz. The rest, as they say, is history. A theatre for every man. And woman. And it’s a history littered with groundbreaking
JOHN SESSIONS
SERIOUS START: A young Jonathan Pryce at the Everyman in the 1970s
ALL STAR CAST: The Everyman theatre production of the Country Wife which starred top row, Elizabeth Estensen, middle row, Nick Stringer, Cenghis Saner, Helen Brammer. Front row, Robin Hooper, Chris Bond, Trevor Eve and holding the pistol is Pete Postlewaithe in 1974
THE END: Nick Stringer and Nicolas Le Provost appear in Sherlock's Last Case
SHIP AHOY: The Everyman thespians on a day out at the Pier Head, they are, from left: Roger Solman, Jean Hastings, Barry Woolgar, Alison Steadman, Richard Ireson, Angela Phillips, Bob Putt, Martin Fiske and David Goodland in 1971
STELLAR CAST: The Everyman gang in
★★★★
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
THEATRES
15
EVERYMAN
for all seasons JULIE WALTERS
“It was exciting, irreverent, massively and unselfconsciously creative and it was totally relevant to the community of which it was a vibrant part.”
in the 1970s including the late Kevin Lloyd, Julie Walters, Matthew Kelly, Bill Nighy and Roger Phillips
OINK OINK: Bill Nighy in Hooley's Hope Street Wake at the Everyman theatre in 1975
THE HISTORY BOYS: Terry Hands, Alan Dossor, and Jonathan Pryce in 1974
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
PLAYWRIGHTS AND PLAYS
Alan Bleasdale
★★★★
Meet the Willy Russell
SCREEN SUCCESS: Alan Bleasdale outside The Royal Court Theatre ALAN Bleasdale is best known these days for screen success with the Boys From the Black Stuff, Monocled Mutineer, Scully and GBH. But from 1975 to 1986 he also worked as a playwright at the Playhouse, becoming one of the “gang of four” associate directors in the early 80s
alongside Willy Russell, Chris Bond and Bill Morrison. His plays include Down the Dock Road, No More Sitting on the Old School Bench, The Party’s Over, and On The Ledge which played at the Royal Court. He also wrote the 1985 Elvis musical Are You Lonesome Tonight?
THE former ladies hairdresser from Whiston is one of Britain’s most successful playwrights with Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine among his international successes. Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine were premiered in Liverpool - the first at the Playhouse, with Barbara Dickson as Mrs Johnstone, and the latter at the Everyman starring Noreen Kershaw. But the playwright had to step in himself for several shows when Kershaw was taken ill. Other plays by 62-year-old Russell include Breezeblock Park, Stags and Hens, One for the Road and the exuberant children’s musical Our Day Out - re-worked for the Royal Court in 2009 and returning in 2010. The original Everyman cast of his hit 1974 musical John, Paul, George, Ringo.....and Bert included Anthony Sher, Trevor Eve and Bernard Hill as three of the “fabs” and George Costigan as Bert. Russell said: “Bert was me and another 430,000 people in Liverpool that claim they once played with the Beatles.”
Dame Beryl Bainbridge
MEMORIES OF PLAYHOUSE: Rudi Davies plays Stella in an Awfully Big adventure DAME Beryl Bainbridge worked as a young actress with the Liverpool Rep, and years later she used memories of her experience at the Playhouse to write her novel An Awfully Big Adventure. The novel became a play, and subsequently a 1995 film starring Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Prunella Scales, and Georgina Cates as Stella - a young theatrical apprentice in a post-war theatre in Liverpool where what goes on behind the scenes is more dramatic and traumatic than the production they are trying to stage. “I got into the theatre through Maude Carpenter, who was the manager of the Playhouse,” recalled Dame
Beryl some years ago. Court or the Liverpool “She started out at the Empire. Star Theatre, as a barmaid, “You had to read the plays, and eventually go off and choose took it over and furniture. was there for “The actors were so years and years. different in those days, “My father they all aspired to be knew Maud gentleman, in tweeds Carpenter’s with silver-topped husband and canes. through him “What I didn’t asked if I could realise was that most have a job. I was of them were gay. 15-and-a-half “They were very and in those friendly and nice. AUTHOR: days you didn't Theatrical gays were need an Equity so some how allowed Dame Beryl card. more leeway than in Bainbridge “You didn't other walks of life.” get paid but it was a ● An Awfully Big Adventure staged at the Playhouse magnificent education. Our under Ian Kellgren and matinee was on a Saturday, starring Beryl Bainbridge’s so on a Wednesday we went daughter Rudi Davies to a matinee at the Royal
Esther Wilson ESTHER Wilson started her career as an actress who turned to teaching drama and writing pieces for her students to perform. She first caught the eye of the Everyman in 2002 having entered and won the Six Writers For Liverpool Competition. Her work includes Bubblegum and Bling, Whirlwind and Rollercoaster (Hope Street), Trapped! and Wounded (Unity) and most recently - the acclaimed double of Unprotected and Ten Tiny Toes, both for the Everyman.
FORMER TEACHER: Jonathan Harvey
The new generation OVER the past decade a new generation of young playwrights has been nurtured by Liverpool’s theatres, in particular by the Everyman and Playhouse’s Young Writers programme. Maghull-born Lizzie Nunnery (right) got her first taste of playwriting while studying at Oxford, with her first play, the satirical The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces, winning a new writing competition. And she’s penned at least one new play a year ever since, becoming a graduate of the
Everyman and Playhouse Young Writers programme. She was one of the writers on acclaimed sex workers’ drama Unprotected, and her follow-up Intemperance was premiered at the Everyman. Other works include Blood and Soil while her new play, The Swallowing Dark, has been chosen as one of the 10 finalists for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Chris Fittock’s (right) latest play The Dreadful Hours has just enjoyed its premiere at the
Everyman. The 28-year-old has been penning stories since he was a small child, and at 17 won the Everyman’s Write Now prize for young writers with his play Fine Wine and Pringles at the Belgrade Cafe. His output since then has been prolific and varied, with works including everything from a continuation of Blood Brothers, entitled Blood Mothers, and a
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
THEATRES
17
PLAYWRIGHTS AND PLAYS
wordsmiths LEGEND: Willy Russell in 1974 outside the Everyman
ROYAL TRIO
Frank Cotterell Boyce
DING DONG: Fred Lawless
WRITER: Frank Cottrell Boyce sitting by St Nicholas church FRANK Cottrell Boyce is the Rainhill-born father-of-seven best known as a novelist and screenwriter of works such
as Millions, Welcome to Sarajevo and 24 Hour Party People. The 50-year-old wrote and staged his first play,
Jonathan Sir Peter Harvey Shaffer and Anthony Shaffer
THE 41-year-old Halewood-born former English teacher’s first serious attempt as a playwright was in 1987 when his play The Cherry Blossom Tree, performed at the Playhouse studio, won him the National Girobank Young Writer of the Year Award. Harvey has since penned stage plays including Babies, Guiding Star and the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven, as well as Boom Bang-a-Bang at the Bush Theatre directed by Kathy Burke who went on to appear in his TV comedy Gimme Gimme Gimme. His new play, Canary, will be premiered at the Playhouse this spring.
musical parody though to an absurdist piece. Laurence Wilson (right) came to the public’s attention with a trilogy of short plays at the Unity in 2002. His first full-length play, Urban Legend, was produced at the Everyman and he subsequently became Pearson Writer in Residence at theatre, where in 2009 he also premiered his work Lost Monsters. Other plays includes Blackberry Trout Face for 20 Stories High. Another graduate of the Everyman and Playhouse Young Writers Programme, Jonathan
THE world-famous playwriting twins were born in Liverpool in 1926. Sir Peter’s work includes Five-Fingered Exercise, which won him awards from the Evening Standard and New York Drama Critics Circle, but he’s most famous for a pair of plays – Equus, the tale of a horse-mutilating stableboy, and Amadeus. Brother Anthony, who died in 2001, wrote the screen play for the Wicker Man, but his most enduring stage work is the 1970 play Sleuth.
Larkin, saw his comedy Paradise Bound, set in pre-Capital of Culture Dingle, staged as the 2006 season’s main premiere at the theatre. Fellow Everyman alumnus, Litherland’s Michael McLean, 29, has also seen success at the theatre with his 2007 offbeat comedy drama The Electric Hills. Other output includes Christmas-set Joy Above, and a new play Milky Night. Evertonian Nick Leather brought his theatre of dreams footballing tale Billy Wonderful to
Proper Clever, a teenage school drama, at the Playhouse during Capital of Culture year.
Tim Firth
POPULAR: Tim Firth is best known for his TV and film scripts
both the Hope Street theatre and local communities in 2009. The 31-year-old’s back catalogue features All the Ordinary Angels and How Sweet the Water Was among others. Meanwhile Chloe Moss (right), whose plays This Wide Night, A Model Girl and How Love is Spelt have all been staged in London, came ‘home’ to Liverpool with her 2006 work The Way Home. Robert Farquhar has a long association with the Unity theatre and with the inventive Big Wow
company which has presented his plays Dark Grumblings and Insomnobabble. His other work includes Dust to Dust, Bad Jazz and Kissing Sid James. Pauline Daniels’ Actors’ Studio has given a home to work by Whiston’s Tommy Kearney – much of it first premiered in London – including Lake District-set Windermere, and coming-of-age drama Madonna and Me. Kearney’s latest play is Little Boy, given its northern premiere at the
THE Wirral-born writer may be best known for his TV and film scripts, but he has also penned a host of popular stage shows including WI nudie comedy Calendar Girls, Sign of the Times (also known as A Man of Letters or Absolutely Frank), musical Our House, and Neville’s Island. His comedy Flint Street Nativity was a hit Christmas show for the Liverpool Playhouse for two consecutive years.
Homotopia Festival last November. Former Everyman young writer Scott Murphy (below) has had two plays – Keeping Up With the Jones’s and Closing Time (the latter premiering only last week) at the Seel Street theatre. And Andrew Quayle’s hairdresser-set comedy The Salon enjoyed success at St Helens Theatre Royal before transferring for a run at the Royal Court in Liverpool.
IT’S possibly the most successful writing partnership in Liverpool’s theatrical history. Nicky Allt and Dave Kirby’s comedy Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels has played to sell-out houses at the Royal Court every season since it first opened in 2006. The musical play, where battle lines are drawn between the ordinary working folk of Liverpool and the “hoity toity” occupants of the Wirral peninsula, culminating in the eponymous bricking up of the Mersey crossing, is simply a theatrical phenomenon. Allt has gone on to pen the LFC comedy One Night in Istanbul which packed the Empire last summer and is returning in May, while Kirby has popular hits on his hands with Royal Court favourites Council Depot Blues and Lost Soul. The third Royal Court regular is Fred Lawless who penned
TUNNEL VISION: Brick Up The Mersey writers Nicky Allt and Dave Kirby last Christmas’s festive offering Merry Ding Dong. The Dingle-born writer, a former hotel manager and market trader, also co-wrote Slappers and Slapheads (with Len Pentin), and the Royal Court’s 2010 offering A Fistful of Collars. His previous work includes BEST!, a musical about the sacked Beatles drummer Pete, and Educating Peter and Beyond Benidorm for the Playhouse studio.
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★★★★
ROYAL COURT
TERRY WITHOUT JUNE: Terry Scott performs at the Royal Court
HAIR-RAISING: Ken Dodd promoting his new show on the roof of the Royal Court in 1965
COSTUME DRAMA: Glynis Johns, Richard Todd and Barrie Sinclair, in the Marquis at the Royal Court theatre in 1972
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL STAR: Liam Gallagher from Oasis performs in the Royal Court
Two fires can’t knock majestic spirit of Royal Court
T
HE Art Deco Royal Court has been open for business since 1938, but one theatre or another has stood in Roe Street since the start of the 19th century. The first theatrical emporium built on the site was Cooke’s New Circus, opened in 1826 by entrepreneur John Cooke to capitalise on the success he’d had with a previous circus venue. It was a three-storey building with its main entrance being in neighbouring Great Charlotte Street. The theatre, which at its height could seat up to 4,000 people, was renamed Cooke’s Amphitheatre of Arts in 1831 and made a name for itself presenting a programme of opera, music, theatre and ballet. Johann Strauss spent a successful week at the venue bringing his waltzes to the Liverpool public, while in 1849 Swedish nightingale Jenny Lind appeared there. In 1881, as ownership of the theatre changed, it was rebuilt and renamed The Royal Court, becoming the number one touring venue in Liverpool for popular theatre until the 1970s when it was taken over by
Despite being rebuilt 3 times this theatre has stood the test of time
Merseyside County Council. It also became renowned for its pantomimes. The first Royal Court pantomime, or “annual” as it was known, was Babes in the Wood in 1881. The biggest music hall stars of the day would appear in the “annual”. George Robey, Harry Lauder, Little Hetty King as Aladdin Tich, the Three Sisters Levey and the Poluski Brothers all helped to make the Royal Court’s pantomime among the most famous in Britain. In 1897 a fire seriously damaged the theatre, and in September 1933 a second blaze left the interior of the building a wreck. The Royal Court we know today was rebuilt in Art Deco style and opened on October 17 1938. Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Lawrence Olivier,
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
ROYAL COURT
THEATRES
19
2010 WHAT’S ON
UNTIL 27 FEBRUARY
by RAY COONEY
12 MARCH TO 10 APRIL
DEVASTATED: The fire ravaged Royal Court in 1933
RELAX: Holly Johnson arriving at the Royal Court in 1984
TOMMY STEELE
by MIKE YEAMAN
16 APRIL TO 15 MAY
by FRED LAWLESS
28 MAY TO 26 JUNE
LADIES NIGHT
by McCARTEN & SINCLAIR
BACKSTAGE: Paul McCartney at the Royal Court in 1979 Richard Burton, Yul Brynner, Margot Fonteyn, Charles Hawtrey, Ken Dodd and Ralph Richardson are just some of the names that appeared on stage during the 20th century. Dame Judi Dench made her acting debut at the Royal Court in 1957 as Ophelia in an Old Vic production of Hamlet. In 1980 the ailing theatre was taken over by two former Liverpool taxi drivers and it became a venue for rock and pop performances from the likes of REM, David Bowie, Wings and Oasis. Five years ago the Rawhide comedy club took over the venue, which was granted grade II listed status in 1990, and it has once again become a home for theatrical productions - this time often home-grown comedy plays performed by an informal “repertory” company of actors. There are currently plans to regenerate the Royal Court for the 21st century, updating facilities for audiences and performers inside, and creating a new entrance and rooftop extension.
“It was also my road to Damascus. The experience which really changed my life for ever. The director of the panto was a bloke called Freddy Carpenter. “I’d originally been hired as a rock singer, but on the first day of rehearsals, Freddy said he didn't want any of that. “He said that as I was going to play a part, he wanted show tunes, which is what I did. And after that, I swore it was the direction my career would take – and it did.”
WE WANT MORE: Kenneth More making his speech from the stage of the Royal Court with the cast of The Wilmslow Boy
16 JULY TO 7 AUGUST
COUNCIL DEPOT BLUES by DAVE KIRBY
27 AUGUST TO 9 OCTOBER
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
MERSEYSIDE’S OTHER THEATRES
Don’t forget about theatres outside Liverpool
W
HILE Liverpool may have the region’s greatest concentration of theatres, there are popular venues spread across Merseyside. Some have been entertaining audiences for many generations while others are rather newer to the arts scene.
Here’s some venues that have made a name for themselves throughout the region
Floral Pavilion
WHEN the St Helens Theatre Royal first opened in Milk Street in the early-19th century it was simply a barn with wooden pews. Like Liverpool’s Royal Colosseum is suffered tragedy when, in 1850, snow caused the roof to cave in during a show, killing several theatregoers. In the late 1880s, the theatre moved to a much larger site on Corporation Street where it still stands today, offering a mixture of touring attractions, amateur shows and theatre produced professional productions under theatre director Jane Joseph. The former Milk Street venue, much altered over the years including a £1m refurbishment a decade ago, is now home to the Citadel Arts Centre offering a wide range of performances and events throughout the year.
THE Floral Pavilion is the last remaining theatre on a seaside promenade that once boasted no fewer than seven entertainment venues. From the late 19th century to the 1950s, major stars made a beeline for the New Brighton sea front to perform at places such as the Winter Gardens, Palace Theatre and Pier Pavilion. One by one the venues closed until only the Floral Pavilion, which first opened in 1913, remained. Its fate too hung in the balance until it was redeveloped into a bright new 800-seat venue two years ago as part of a multi-million pound regeneration of the waterfront.
St Helens Theatre Royal and Citadel Arts Centre
Southport Arts Centre, Theatre and Floral Hall
ANOTHER regional venue currently undergoing refurbishment is the Southport Arts Centre which is being revamped in a multi-million pound plan to create a “cultural centre” at its site in the town’s Lord Street. The work will create a state-of-the-art theatre, museum and popular music venue. The resort also boasts the Southport Theatre Convention Centre, which is described as the largest venue in Merseyside. It consists of a large traditional theatre and a domed ballroom, as well as a new 4 star hotel and state of the art conference and exhibition centre. The Floral Hall was built in the 1930s and the theatre added in 1973; although the entire venue was refurbished three years ago.
Pacific Road Arts Centre
The Citadel Arts Centre
DURING the Victorian era, the riverfront arts centre was a warehouse serving the busy docks nearby.
★★★★
THEATRES
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21
MERSEYSIDE’S OTHER THEATRES ALL CHANGE: The Floral Pavilion, New Brighton in 1962
BOOKING NOW
Thurs 11th - Sat 13th March at 7.30pm & Saturday Matinee at 2.30pm Wirral’s Musical Premiere of
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN Tickets: £8/£7 + Family Discounts
Weds 17th - Sat 20th March at 7.30pm & Saturday Matinee at 2.30pm Lionel Bart’s Musical Masterpiece
OLIVER!
Tickets: £12/£10 + Family Discounts Sunday 11th April at 7.00pm
DRINK UP: Frank Carson serves panto pony Spangles after a show at the New Brighton Floral Pavilion in 1984
BILLY & WALLY’S BIG ABBA NITE OUT!
Billy Butler & Wally Scott’s Brilliant Variety Show Tickets: £14 Weds 9th - Sat 12th June at 7.30pm The Hilarious Legal Farce
ON YOUR HONOUR Tickets: £6
Weds 16th - 19th June at 7.30pm
FAME - THE MUSICAL Tickets: £10/£8
Saturday 3rd July at 7.30pm The Original Line-Up
BROTHERHOOD OF MAN Tickets: £15/£13.50
Saturday 17th July at 7.30pm
MODERN: The all new Floral Pavilion
TENORISSIMO!
The Three Tenors in Concert Tickets: £13/£12
Box Office Ticket Hotline 0151 643 8757
Office Hours 9am-4pm Monday-Friday (Closed 12-1pm for lunch) Tickets also available from Port Sunlight Village Museum Gift Shop (nr. Lady Lever Art Gallery), Linghams Booksellers in Heswall or book online
www.gladstonetheatre.org.uk 0151 643 8757
COMMUNITY FOCUS: The Gladstone Theatre in port Sunlight. GRAND DESIGN: A view of Southport’s arts centre from the top of the Scarisbrick hotel, main image
LIVERPOOL THEATRE SCHOOL 19 Aigburth Road Liverpool L17 4JR Tel: 0151 728 7800 3 Year Diploma Professional Musical Theatre 1 Year Foundation Musical Theatre Course Dada & Scholarships available CDET Accredited/Ofsted Grade 1 AUDITION DATES:
Nowadays the large ex-storage and transit shed has been transformed into Birkenhead’s largest multi-purpose arts and exhibition centre. It hosts a regular programme of events with an emphasis on music and one-man shows and a standing capacity of 600.
Gladstone Theatre
WHEN William Hesketh Lever was creating Port Sunlight village for his workers, alongside the individual homes he created a renowned art gallery and the Gladstone Theatre. For the past 25 years the venue has been run by the Gladstone Theatre Trust – a voluntary organisation – presenting both amateur and professional shows. It has two resident societies, the Port Sunlight Players and Bebington Dramatic Society, who perform comedy, drama, musicals and pantomimes, and is also used by other local operatic societies, musical groups, youth organisations, and dancing schools. Each year the Gladstone organises a renowned drama festival showcasing both adult and youth theatrical work.
It says its aim is to “provide a community theatre with a warm and friendly atmosphere for the residents of Wirral.”
Rose Theatre Ormskirk
and community productions alongside its main programme.
The Brindley
RUNCORN’S The Brindley opened as a theatre EDGE Hill University’s Rose Theatre was built in and arts centre in 2004, and is sited on the banks the 1960s, originally as a venue for the college’s of the Bridgewater Canal. drama students, and it still aims to support student The venue, which is owned by Halton borough and graduate council, includes a productions in their 420-seat main auditorium first year of playing host to touring performance. productions, a pantomime However it threw its each January, local amateur doors open to the shows and in-house public in 1993 and in productions. the last 17 years the It also has a 108-seat 200-seater theatre has NEW BOY: The Brindley opened in 2004 studio which can also be gone from used as a single screen strength-to-strength, developing into a well-known cinema, while other facilities include an exhibition professional theatre that plays host to high-profile and gallery space, education room, a dark room, a touring companies. digital imaging room, and a bar and a café It hosts around 75 productions a year over two overlooking the canal. seasons running from January to June and The Brindley scooped the title of Best Arts September to December. Project in the UK at the National Lottery Awards And it also provides facilities for independent in 2007 for its community activities.
March 28th, April 10th, 11th, 18th, May 9th Audit information and applications available ON LINE NOW
www.liverpooltheatreshool.co.uk
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
‘LOST’ THEATRES
GOOD OLD DAYS: A watercolour of Williamson Square showing the Theatre Royal in 1859
The show must go on
W
HILE Liverpool still boasts one of the largest concentrations of theatres for a city its size in the country, it has is nowhere near the number of even a century ago. By the late 19th century the city could lay claim to more than 25 theatres and many more music halls. Most of these palaces of entertainment no longer exist. Some were transformed for other uses, some were destroyed in the war or in the name of “progress”, and some lie derelict and forgotten. The earliest recorded theatre proper was the Drury Lane Theatre which was built in around 1750 on the street of the same name just off Water Street. It was a plain brick building with a pit and gallery, and lit by candles.
Picture is courtesy of Liverpool Record Office
DESTROYED: Pete Price surveys the damage outside the Shakespeare Theatre in 1976
The Shakespeare Theatre
CLASSIC VENUE: Rotunda Theatre
OLDEN DAYS: Theatre programmes for the Rotunda
in a spirit of the show must go on, it A look at the theatres lost through the passage of time wasButrebuilt and reopened within 12 months, It was, however, superseded by the arrival of the “large and handsome” Theatre Royal in Williamson Square in 1772 which cost £6,000 to build, money raised by private subscription by just 30 people. Notable actors who performed at the venue included Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean and most of the famous Kemble acting family while Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth’s father, Julius Brutus Booth, was a local favourite. The building was knocked down in 1803 and a New Theatre Royal - designed by architect John Foster - was built in just six months. It lasted until 1890 when it was turned into a cold store, finally being demolished in 1970. Other major Liverpool theatres included
the Olympic Circus in Christian Street; the Liver Theatre in Church Street - today the site of Dorothy Perkins - where Paganini once appeared; and Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre of Arts - later the site of the Royal Court. Outside the city centre, audiences were equally well catered for with the Park Palace of Varieties in Dingle, the Theatre Royal Palace of Varieties in Anfield, Lyric Theatre in Everton, and the famous Scottie Road Rotunda which was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in World War II. The Royal Colosseum in Paradise Street, opened in 1850, was the scene of a disaster in 1878 when part of the ceiling collapsed on the audience, killing dozens of people and injuring many more.
later becoming the Grand Theatre and Opera House, Queen’s Theatre, and finally Kelly’s. And one of the most famous theatres no longer with us is the Shakespeare, which opened in Fraser Street in 1888. The venue had the words “comedy tragedy - music” carved in stone and was richly decorated. It was also the first Liverpool theatre lit by electric light. It’s many guises over the years included as a home for drama - American Sam Wanamaker was artistic director in the late 1950s, a venue for variety, and later a cabaret club where many of Liverpool’s top comedians plied their trade. The Shakespeare’s history came to an end on March 21 1976 when it was destroyed by fire.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
SMALL FRINGE AND NEW THEATRES Despite the bigger theatres Liverpool also has many burgeoning smaller venues
A
LTHOUGH Liverpool’s theatre scene is dominated by six main locations, the city boasts many more smaller venues which create a burgeoning theatrical “fringe”. Four years ago actress and comedienne Pauline Daniels took over a former gallery in Seel Street and transformed it into the 80-seat Actors’ Studio. Pauline and husband Paul run the venue, whose seats came from the Floral Pavilion when the New Brighton theatre was refurbished, with the actress often also directing, starring and even answering the box office phone. “It’s going really, really well,” she says. “It’s doing exactly what we wanted it to do which is provide a stage for new writers, actors and technicians. “We’re also really pleased the people of Liverpool support us.” The Actors’ Studio will be the venue for next month’s inaugural Write Now one act play festival where audiences will get the chance to see eight new plays and two rehearsed readings over the course of a week. Two new theatres have also opened up in the city in the last 12 months. The Contemporary Urban Centre boasts a massive 750-capacity auditorium at its base in Greenland Street. The venue played host to Lodestar Theatre’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead last summer and community panto, Dick Whittington starring former Corrie actor Bruce Jones and David Heath, over Christmas. Meanwhile the Lantern Theatre in Blundell Street is billed as “Liverpool’s most intimate fringe venue”. It aims to support local artists and produce exciting new plays and special events for the people of Liverpool, with shows put on by its own Lantern Theatre Company throughout the year. Stars of the future can be seen performing a two college-based theatre spaces. The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (Lipa) presents a regular season of plays, revues, dance and music evenings in its Paul McCartney Auditorium. The shows are open to the public and graduates of the college include chart-topper Sandi Thom, The Wombats, and actors Leon Lopez, Liz White (Life on Mars) and Stephen Fletcher, who played Hamlet at St George’s Hall last summer. And the Joe H Makin Theatre in Pilgrim Street is the Liverpool John Moores’ drama centre. It was created from a former Hebrew School building of 1856, with the support of city solicitor and ECHO columnist Prof Rex Makin and named after his father.. Outside the city centre you can find the Valley Community Theatre. It was established in Netherley in 1994 with the aim of support the regeneration of the area through the use of arts and culture. The theatre was reopened in June 2000 as part of the regeneration of the area, and has become an arts focal point for the local community and specifically young people.
THEATRES
Beyond the fringe SUCCESS STORY: Pauline Daniels at the Actors’ Studio in Seel Street
BOOMING SCENE: Dick Whittington and the Bells of London, at the Contemporary Urban Centre in Greenland Street with Bruce Jones as King Rat (centre right) and fron Eton Road, David Heath as Dick, centre left
ROCK STARS: The Wombats performed at the Paul McCartney Auditorium while at Lipa
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SPACIOUS: The interior of the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, Erwina Aghafar, left and Patrick Mussard
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23
24 THEATRES
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
★★★★
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT: Gary Wilmot appeared in Half a Sixpence at the Empire