UK Theatre Network

Following her sell-out run at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End, producers Michael Harrison and David Ian are delighted to announce that three-time Brit nominee and X-Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, will star in the leading role of ‘Rachel Marron’ in the forthcoming UK and Ireland tour of Thea Sharrock’s hit musical THE BODYGUARD www.thebodyguardmusical.com. The tour opens at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton on 12 February 2015 and makes its Scottish premiere at the King’s Theatre Glasgow on 4 March 2015.

Alexandra Burke said "I couldn't be happier to be joining the tour and I'm excited to get started. Being on the theatre stage has brought me great happiness. It is an honour to have been asked to join the team and I look forward to creating new and long lasting memories with the cast." 

Alexandra Burke rose to fame after winning the fifth series of The X Factor. Her debut number one single Hallelujah sold over one million copies in the UK, a first for a British female soloist. Burke’s first album, Overcome saw the release of her subsequent number one singles Bad Boys and Start Without You. In 2011 she embarked on her first solo tour and was invited by Beyoncé to support her I Am... Tour. Her second album, Heartbreak on Hold, was released in June 2012 and later this year sees the release of her third studio album.

Alexandra Burke will perform the role of ‘Rachel Marron’ at all evening performances. At the matinee performances, the role of ‘Rachel Marron’ will be played by Zoe Birkett.

Zoe Birkett is probably best known as the highest placing female contestant in ITV’s Pop Idol, 2002. Since then she has appeared in the West End productions of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and originated the female lead in Thriller Live. Her other theatre credits include the Acid Queen in Tommy and Maureen in Rent.

Based on Lawrence Kasdan’s 1992 Oscar nominated Warner Bros. film, THE BODYGUARD, which starred Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, was nominated for four Laurence Olivier Awards including Best New Musical and Best Set Design and won Best New Musical at the Whatsonstage Awards.

Former Secret Service agent turned bodyguard, Frank Farmer, is hired to protect superstar Rachel Marron from an unknown stalker. Each expects to be in charge; what they don’t expect is to fall in love. A romantic thriller, THE BODYGUARD features a host of irresistible classics including Queen of the Night, So Emotional, One Moment in Time, Saving All My Love, I’m Your Baby Tonight, Run to You, I Have Nothing, I Wanna Dance with Somebody and one of the biggest selling songs of all time – I Will Always Love You.

Photo by Uli  Webber,  courtesy of Ambassadors Theatre Group 

THE BODYGUARD – UK AND IRELAND TOUR 2015

 

THURSDAY 12 – SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY

MAYFLOWER THEATRE, SOUTHAMPTON -http://www.mayflower.org.uk

ON SALE NOW

WEDNESDAY 4 – SATURDAY 14 MARCH

KING’S THEATRE GLASOW -http://www.atgtickets.com/venues/kings-theatre/

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 17 – SATURDAY 28 MARCH

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE ABERDEEN -www.aberdeenperformingarts.com

ON SALE NOW

 

WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL – SATURDAY 18 APRIL

THEATRE ROYAL NEWCASTLE - www.theatreroyal.co.uk

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 21 APRIL – SATURDAY 2 MAY

WOLVERHAMPTON GRAND THEATRE -www.grandtheatre.co.uk

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 16 JUNE –SATURDAY 27 JUNE

WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE, CARDIFF -www.wmc.org.uk

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 7 – SATURDAY 18 JULY

THEATRE ROYAL PLYMOUTH - www.theatreroyal.com

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 21 JULY – SATURDAY 1 AUGUST

BORD GÁIS ENERGY THEATRE -www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie   

ON SALE 17 OCTOBER

 

TUESDAY 4 – SATURDAY 29 AUGUST

BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME -www.birminghamhippodrome.com

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER – SATURDAY 10 OCTOBER

EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE -www.atgtickets.com/venues/edinburgh-playhouse/

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER – SATURDAY 24 OCTOBER

NOTTINGHAM CONCERT HALL - www.trch.co.uk/

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 27 OCTOBER – SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER

LYCEUM THEATRE, SHEFFIELD -www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

ON SALE 8 NOVEMBER

 

TUESDAY 10 – SATURDAY 21 NOVEMBER

NEW THEATRE OXFORD -www.atgtickets.com/venues/new-theatre-oxford/

ON SALE NOW

 

TUESDAY 8 DECEMBER 2015 – SATURDAY 2 JANUARY 2016

MANCHESTER PALACE THEATRE –www.atgtickets.com/venues/palace-theatre-manchester

ON SALE SOON

Review by Suzanne Lowe

Whingeing Women is made up of a series of monologues portraying the life experiences of ordinary women.  Every topic imaginable is covered from their thoughts on men, love, life, death and sex.  Their stories had the audiences crying with laughter and also, at times, with sadness.

 

Tasked with sharing these life experiences with the audience were Gail Porter, Joyce Falconer, Janette Foggo and Angela D’arcy. 

Standout performances came from Joyce Falconer (of River City fame) who had the audience roaring with laughter even before she opened her mouth to speak.  Her portrayal of a pushy mother trying to secure the lead role in “Annie” for her daughter was a highlight of the show as was her final scene which saw her trying to involve the audience in a sex therapy class!!  Very interesting.

Janette Foggo (known  for  Doctor Finlay, Rab C. Nesbitt, The Bill and Taggart  to name but a few) also shined with her very moving performances of a mother who was trying to come to terms with the fact that her son had just ‘Come out’ and the sadness at the loss of a daughter.  Perhaps her biggest triumph of the night was one which involved a mask, long coat and a change of name which highlighted the very colourful pastimes of some couples.  I couldn’t quite believe that this accomplished actress was portraying this character; but portray it she did and she had the audiences rolling around with laughter.

Angela D’Arcy (RSAMD graduate, Director, Singer) gave the audience the views of a somewhat younger woman.  Her relationship with men and her incredibly heartfelt performance of a young woman raped by her uncle resulting in a baby created a silence around the auditorium.

Gail Porter (TV Personality/Presenter) gave a well rounded performance but perhaps my only criticism would be that during the first half of the show her stories were incredibly self indulgent.  The need to include her own real life experiences into this production were, in my opinion, unnecessary.

Whingeing Women, although at times cringe worthy, is definitely a play worth seeing.  A typical “Girls Night Out” evening (although I did count at least 4 men in the audience and yes they were laughing) which should be accompanied by a glass of wine.  It will have you laughing and crying for all the right reasons and taps into what we all know and think but don’t say out loud.

Whingeing Women

King’s Theatre, Glasgow

9-11 October 2014

Tickets £16.90 - £38.90 (plus booking fee)

http://www.atgtickets.com/shows/whingeing-women/kings-theatre/

By Lucy Komisar in New York 

Can a director and a set designer destroy a play? The production of Samuel Beckett’s “Embers” at BAM provides a strong argument.

A huge skull sits in the center stage. Inside are two actors (Andrew Bennett and Áine Ní Mhuiri) who read the lines of the various male and female characters of Beckett’s play. I thought the production was dreadful. And I thought that maybe the play was also dreadful.

But then I read the script. I realized the play is much better than this production would have you believe. Beckett’s play is about a man, an unsuccessful writer, who is thinking over his life and relation with his father, who may have committed suicide by walking into the sea. His father had told him that he was a “washout,” a failure.

The man does not have happy memories about his late wife, who is presented as a nonetheless affectionate lady. He also hates his daughter, whose only fault appears to be playing Chopin badly.

As lights flicker over the skull, illuminating one part and then another, taking your attention from the text, I realized that director Gavin Quinn of the Pan Pan Theatre decided that he was the star, not Beckett. So, he overwhelmed the script and the characters with a kitchy “avant garde” set (the skull by Andrew Clancy) and direction.

If the play had been done with the characters, and different actors for the various characters in the script, in a relatively normal setting where everyone was seen (normal meaning not naturalistic, but that you can see the characters interacting), it might have been interesting. The way director Trevor Nunn did superbly last year in “All That Fall,” another Beckett radio play. Pan Pan did the same play a year earlier and used no live actors: the audience sat in darkness listening to recorded voices. Not too sorry I missed it.

Quinn destroyed Beckett’s “Embers,” entombing the actors in a giant skull, so you never see them. Sitting on stage left, I sometimes saw the female character though the ghastly eye of the skull, but never the male. That was for the audience at stage right. And the loud miked voices provided no difference or subtlety in delivery.

The skull in fact was a perfect commentary on this production. Deadly.

“Embers.” By Samuel Beckett. Directed by Gavin Quinn. BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Opened Sept 17; closes Sept. 20 2014. 9/19/14

Lucy Komisar is a New York journalist and theatre critic. Her web site is The Komisar Scoop (www.thekomisarscoop.com).  

- See more at: http://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2014/09/embers-is-deadly-vision-of-beckett-play/#sthash.kCuLrtT0.dpuf

by Lucy Komisar in New York 

Take a trip back to Berlin circa 1930. Inside a cabaret, red lamps light round black tables, a waiter brings wine and food for you, and scantily clad musicians play jazzy music. It’s a charming evening for a sophisticated audience – or is it?

The decadence is represented by the master of ceremonies (Alan Cumming), who is in-your-face crude, sexual, raunchy, almost elegantly so with his white face, glinty eyes and red lips, white suspenders pulled over a nude chest and twisted around his crotch, nipples colored red. He has a German accent.

Cumming is excellent and chilling in the role, which he created in 1998 and which is smartly directed by Sam Mendes. The memorable songs were written by John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics). Orchestra seats set up as cabaret tables pull you into the drama. If you see one musical these days, make it this one.

Dancers sing Wilkommen (welcome). And everyone is. Into the cabaret comes Clifford Bradshaw (Bill Hecht), an American arriving in Berlin to work on a novel. At the Berlin train station, he had met Ernst Ludwig, a German who offered him to way to make some money. He just has to deliver a briefcase. Ludwig is a Nazi. He referred Bradshaw to Fräulein Schneider’s boarding house.

At the club for diversion, Bradshaw meets Sally Bowles (Michelle Williams), 19, an American singer who is not very sure of herself or her future, and is sleeping with the club owner who can help her career.
As Bradshaw appears to be bi-sexual (as was Isherwood, who wrote the stories on which this is based), he turns out to be more than a good friend to Sally when she needs a place to stay. Hecht is fine as the cool American. Williams’ voice is rich and sexy, but she is rather bland and too wholesomely blonde as Sally. She makes you wish for Liza Minnelli, who did the movie role.

Fräulein Schneider (a very good Linda Edmond) is keeping company with Herr Shultz (the excellent Danny Burstein), a Jewish fruit vendor. Also at her boarding house is the prostitute Fräulein Kost (Gayle Rankin), who does business with visiting sailors. When Schneider catches her at it and warns her, Kost gets revenge by telling Ludwig that Schultz is a Jew.

A Kit Kat Klub waiter starts to sing a patriotic song that turns into the unnerving Nazi theme, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.”

Can Fräulein Schneider marry a Jew. Shultz tells her, “It is not always good to settle for the lowest apple on the tree, climb a little. I will catch you.” Then a brick is thrown threw his shop window. And Fräulein Schneider is singing a Nazi song.

The most stunning number shows the emcee/Cumming and an actor in a gorilla suit.

I know what you’re thinking:
You wonder why I chose her
Out of all the ladies in the world.
That’s just a first impression,
What good’s a first impression?
If you knew her like I do
It would change your point of view.

If you could see her through my eyes,
You wouldn’t wonder at all.
If you could see her through my eyes
I guarantee you would fall (like I did)
When we’re in public together
I hear society moan.
But if they could see her through my eyes
Maybe they’d leave us alone.

How can I speak of her virtues?
I don’t know where to begin
She’s clever, she’s smart, she reads music
She doesn’t smoke or drink gin (like I do)
Yet, when we’re walking together
They sneer if I’m holding her hand,
But if they could see her through my eyes
Maybe they’d all understand.

I understand your objection,
I grant you the problem’s not small.
But if you could see her through my eyes…
She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.

Earlier productions excised the word “Jewish.” (I couldn’t find a production photo for this scene; maybe it’s still too controversial.)

The collapse of the personal connections in the play trails the collapse of German society. Cliff wants Sally to come with him to the U.S. She ignores what is happening around her. She’ll hang onto the glamor of the Kit Kat Klub.

At the end — also not in earlier versions — the emcee pulls open his black leather coat to show a striped shirt of the kind worn by camp inmates with the yellow star for Jews and pink for homosexuals. The darker version belongs.

“Cabaret.” Book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb. Directed by Sam Mendes. Based on the play “I Am a Camera” by John Van Druten, based on stories by Christopher Isherwood. Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, New York City. 212-719-1300. Opened April 24, 2014; closes end of March 2015. 9/8/14.

Lucy Komisar is a New York journalist aand theatre critic. Her web site is www.thekomisarscoop.com 

By Lucy Komisar in New York 

Wrapped in a white gown, an iconic white gardenia in her hair, Audra McDonald channels Billie Holiday — her voice, her accent, her manner — till you believe you are sitting in the slightly tacky Philadelphia dive where Holiday sang her last songs. “What a little moonlight can do” becomes a magical mood changer. It’s helped by the dreamlike direction of Lonny Price.

One great –McDonald — sings another great, Lady Day. Her imitation is brilliant. She has mastered Holiday’s accent, a slight trill, a broad vowel. Lady Day did blues with a jazz beat, following mentors Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong.

McDonald sings Holiday’s well-known songs as if they were dramas. Her phrasing in “Strange Fruit” is a distinctive intense call of pain.

The back story of her “God Bless the Child” is a parent refusing to help a child. The projection on the wall is of Arthur Herzog Jr., who wrote the song with Holiday. Herzog’s father preferred his sister, who ended up with most of the family money, so the song-writer wrote, “God Bless the Child, who’s got his own… [money]!” Holiday’s mother also refused the generosity her needy daughter required.

As an actress, McDonald movingly interprets the story of Lady Day – arrested on a drug charge after her lover put drugs in her suitcase. As a result, she couldn’t get a cabaret card to work in New York City, which destroyed her career. The play shows her harassed by a parole officer.

The story is not only the tragic drama of one of America’s greatest artists, but a commentary about America’s repressive drug laws, which destroy people — black users jailed, white upper class Wall Street/Hollywood users given a pass — while more harmful cigarettes and alcohol remained legal because of the powerful corporations that market them.

Holiday would have had an appropriately dark musical comment about this happening in a country with a black president.

“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.” Written by Lanie Robertson; directed by Lonny Price. Circle in the Square, 50th Street between Bway & 8th Avenue, New York City. 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250. Opened April 13, 2014; closes Oct 5, 2014. 8/1/14.

Lucy Komisar is a New York journalist and theatre critic.  Her web site is "The Komisar Scoop"  (www.thekomisarscoop.com)  

Michael Ball, Britain’s leading musical theatre star, a double Olivier Award winner, multi-platinum recording artist and a hugely popular radio and TV presenter, is announced today as the host of the 2014 West End Heroes gala concert.



Following the phenomenal success of West End Heroes last year, which saw the casts of many of the biggest West End musicals unite with the finest UK military bands and musicians in a stunning performance that raised over £88,000 for the Help For Heroes charity, the newly refurbished Dominion Theatre is to once again host the event, this year on Sunday 28 September at 7.30pm Michael Ball will oversee proceeedings and also perform in The 2014 West End Heroes gala concert, which will again unite the country’s top military musicians with even more West End performers and productions in a dazzling showcase of showstopping numbers, unlikely song mash-ups and stunning choreography and precision drilling.

He said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to take part in West End Heroes and to show my respect, admiration and support for the amazing men and women who‘ve literally put their lives on the line for us all. It’ll be a joy and a challenge to host the entire evening (as well as hopefully performing a couple of songs) and I can promise it’s going to be a concert not to be missed. And, if all goes to plan there will be some wonderful surprises in store!”

Returning to form the centerpiece of the gala and under the directorship of Wing Commander Duncan Stubbs will be The Central Band of the Royal Air Force, which is widely regarded as one of the finest military bands in the UK and incorporates the celebrated RAF Squadronaires Big Band. West End Heroes will once again be generously supported by many TV and theatre stars and will feature line-ups from current and past West End Shows.

This year’s event has set a target to raise more than £100,000. General Manager of the Dominion Theatre, David Pearson, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to once again host West End Heroes and we are delighted to announce Michael Ball as our MC. He is the biggest musical theatre star in the UK and we know he will do a magnificent job as MC as well as delivering some stunning numbers himself. The Dominion is looking forward to welcoming the concert as one of the first major events following the extensive restoration and refurbishment programme, which will be completed over the summer.”

www.dominiontheatre.com