Regional UK Theatre looking forward 2018

NST Studio Theatre City

Mark Ludmon examines the year ahead for regional theatre in 2018. Bolton girl Maxine Peake has made her mark on TV and the London stage but she returns to her roots with her second play, Queens of the Coal Age. Based on the true story of four women in Lancashire during the miners’ strike in the 1980s, it will be at the Royal Exchange in Manchester from 28 June to 21 July. Also at the Royal Exchange, Maxine Peake will star in Sarah Frankcom’s new production of Beckett’s Happy Days from 25 May to 23 June. Other highlights coming up at the Royal Exchange include Julie Hesmondhalgh in Kendall Feaver’s new play The Almighty Sometimes and April De Angelis’s new adaptation of Frankenstein. A new production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard directed by Michael Boyd, the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, will come to the Royal Exchange … Read more

REVIEW: Queers Part 2, Old Vic Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Queers Part 2 Old Vic Theatre

Queers Part 2 The Old Vic Theatre 31 July 2017 Four stars In the first set of monologues curated by Mark Gatiss under the banner of Queers at the Old Vic, we were given insights into the gay lives of three men and a woman over the past century as they sought happiness against the odds. In the second set, we go down the pub to meet four more people who each show us other aspects of being gay over the past seven decades, with several again finding unexpected pleasures in spite of society’s disapproval and hate. In The Safest Spot in Town, Fredrick tells us how he became part of the hedonistic bohemian world of Bloomsbury and Soho before World War Two after arriving from the West Indies. Keith Jarrett’s monologue gives us a glimpse of the underground world of London where gay men could have some semblance of … Read more