5 minute read
St Helens Theatre Royal goes virtual
The show will go on
By NEVE WILKINSON
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St Helens Theatre Royal aren’t letting lockdown prevent them from offering their traditional Easter pantomime this year - it will be available on Zoom! So at least he’s not behind you...
Producers Regal Entertainments had announced that Goldilocks would be staged during the Easter holiday. However, that will not yet be permitted by Government guidelines.
So instead, from Friday April 2 to Sunday April 11, Jack and the Beanstalk will be streamed online with a cast full of Theatre Royal favourites, for families to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes.
Jack and the Beanstalk is a rags to riches story. A little boy sells his family’s cow for a handful of beans. This gets him into a lot of trouble with his poor mother, but the story then takes the magical twist when the beans sprout into an astonishing beanstalk. The magic beanstalk reaches high into a mystical land in the sky.
Online audiences will join Jack on his journey up the gigantic beanstalk as he discovers a magic harp, geese with golden eggs and a very hungry giant. However, young Jack needs to be careful as fairy-tale villain, Mrs Fleshcreep is keen to stop him.
The lead role of Jack will be played by Timothy Lucas, with Olivia Sloyan as Princess Jill. The cast is then complete with Abigail Middleton as Mrs Fleshcreep, Reece Sibbald (the show’s writer) as Simple Simon, Jamie Greer as Dame Trott and Jenna Sian O’Hara as Fairy Mary.
Directed by Chantelle Nolan, the behind the scenes team also includes musical supervisor Callum Clarke and choreographer Nazene Langfield.
There are 17 performances across ten days, with tickets being £20 per device. To book online visit www. sthelenstheatreroyal.com.
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NATHAN SARTAIN talks to Tom Calverley, Night Editor of the Guardian, about the challenges of producing one of the world’s most famous newspapers in a pandemic
Tom Calverley, right
Like many others during the pandemic, the Guardian’s night editor Thomas Calverley has found himself adapting.
Describing the “surreal” change that happened in his office, he spoke to Journalism students at Liverpool John Moores University and described how within a week, almost his entire newsroom was working from home – a change that still currently stands – and how at times, he finds himself alone in the workplace.
Considering it’s a job Tom details as “eat-at-your-desk intense,” it’s a shift in practice which initially came as a surprise.
But it’s not a shock which has come without its positives.
For one, he noted that the workplace has now become more inclusive as a result of the pandemic, and the new flexibility of doing the job means that those with other needs, or long commutes, can often be better accommodated.
On a professional and personal level too, it has allowed for himself to become privy to the ongoings before his shift and means that he can see any feedback on last night’s paper, or discussions on the day’s news agenda before he begins himself.
For Tom himself, though, his job hasn’t changed too much.
Since taking the role of the night editor in 2018, the Crosby-raised journalist begins his shift at 4pm, and is responsible for both the online and print content throughout his hours. He said he and his team need to “hit the ground running” with news, and that he mostly deals with the website during the first portion of a typical day.
After 8pm, the focus heads towards the newspaper, before an edition is printed within an hour – two if there is a sport story – and then once more around midnight.
Instead, the change has come in the difference between demand in online content, and traditional print newspapers.
“The ratio of importance between print and web has changed,” he said, before explaining that whereas the paper may sell 100,000 copies in a day, a web article on a story potentially achieves one million unique views
He then gave an example; the Guardian’s website piece on Piers Morgan leaving ITV’s Good Morning Britain hit over two million views in a short period of time. Similarly, the top-ten most read section was full of royal coverage, despite the fact the average Guardian reader is deemed to “hate” royal reporting.
Before starting work as a sub-editor for the Guardian, Tom began his career on the PA sub-editor training scheme for the Daily Mail, an outlet he spent three years working with.
But despite the Mail’s vastly different outlook to the Guardian, and personally to himself, he does still stand by the fact that he learnt a lot, and that the stereotype people may have about those who work there, he did not find to be true in his own experience.
They were very impressive journalists, (with) high standards, and high expectations,” he said.
Whilst on the training scheme, one early experience he fondly recalled was at the Manchester Evening News for an important taste of local journalism.
“I think it (local reporting) is a really great grounding in all the journalistic principles, because you have that close connection (with people),” he explained. Noting it as an “important part of the national news ecosystem,” it does worry Tom that local news is, in some regards, fizzling out.
“There is a big problem at the moment with the death of the local paper, and the reduction in circulation of the local paper. I don’t feel like local web news has the same audience and same earnings that local papers used to have and I think that’s a real problem for local democracy,” he added.
Despite concerns though, as well as the growing backlash against the brash journalists akin to the opinion-splitting Piers Morgan, Tom does still encourage those with an interest in the practice to pursue it.
As for advice, that’s simple. At first, he jokingly said to “throw as much as you can at a wall in as many areas and see what sticks,” but when elaborating, added: “The more multi-skilled you can be, the more opportunities you can get and the more people you can meet who can give you opportunities.”
