Zinnie Harris

Regional UK Theatre looking forward 2018

Features, Regional, Touring
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: (The Fall Of) The Master Builder, West Yorkshire Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

Regional, Reviews
The Fall Of The Master Builder at West Yorkshire Playhouse

(the fall of) The Master Builder West Yorkshire Playhouse Four stars Book Tickets ‘The Master builder’, Henrik Ibsen’s play from 1893 is a masterly study of an ageing artist dealing with the loss of his powers as a result of various events in the past. Zinnie Harris’s reimagining of the story- a response to the original rather than a straight reworking of Ibsen’s text – presents Solness, the Master builder of the title, as a contemporary Northern architect again facing the unravelling of his status and power but for reasons far more focussed than those of the original. In these days of Murdoch and Trump where the power of business challenges and even supersedes the power of the state explorations in the first act of such themes as ruthlessness being an essential component of success and the tragic inevitability of youth triumphing over experience are both relevant and contemporary- however … Read more