Regional

Brighton Fringe announces 2017 award winners

Features, News, Regional
Brighton Fringe Winners 2017

The stand-out shows and performers from this year’s Brighton Fringe have been announced in the festival’s annual awards. Among the 24 awards presented, winners included The Brighton Little Theatre Company’s production of musical Urinetown (pictured), Ditto Theatre Company’s Ingo’s War, Broken Silence Theatre’s Bug Camp by Paul Macauley and Windmill Young Actors’ production of Steven Berkoff’s Agamemnon. Children’s show The Tale of the Cockatrice by Mumblecrust Theatre scooped two awards – Voice’s Best Newcomer to Brighton Fringe and the International Youth Arts Festival (IYAF): Best of Brighton Fringe Children and Family Show. Other winners include Cinebra: A History of Horror, which won £2,500 to tour to an international Fringe festival as part of the Pebble Trust International Touring Award. Teatro Pomodoro also won the opportunity to tour abroad. The company, which was part of the Brighton Fringe Window programme for exceptional new work, has been selected to tour to two Fringes in the “Nordic network” of Bergen, Gothenburg, Reykjavik and … Read more

REVIEW: Tell Me Anything, New Wolsey Theatre, Pulse Festival ✭✭✭

Regional, Reviews
Tell Me Anything at Pulse Festival

Tell Me Anything New Wolsey Theatre (Pulse Festival) 2 June 2017 3 Stars Pulse Festival Information One of the unique features of the Wolsey’s Pulse Festival is the Suitcase Prize.  Now in its fifth year, the day asks theatre makers to think in an environmentally and economically sustainable way, to create a piece that can travel on public transport with a very low carbon footprint. The day consists of ten twenty minute excerpts of shows at different stages of development, and the winner is awarded £1000 and the chance to perform it at the next Pulse. The 2016 winner was Tell Me Anything by On The Run, a beautiful, tender piece written and performed by Daniel Ralfe. When he was 15, his then girlfriend had an eating disorder, and the biographical play focuses on his responses, his attempts to deal with her and the illness, and raises many questions- asked … Read more

Pulse Festival Ipswich 2017 Preview

Features, Regional
Pulse Festival Ipswich Preview 2017

The 17th Pulse Festival at the Wolsey Theatre is almost upon us, and, once again, a huge range of contemporary performance is being presented across the 10-day festival, from June 1st-10th. Still a teenager, the festival can afford to remain challenging, occasionally confrontational, but containing loads of promise! Picking out what may be worth seeing is always a tricky feat, as so much sounds exciting and deserves attention! One thing the festival does really well is encourage new talent, and the Suitcase Prize day is a prime example of this. The prize is awarded for the best environmentally sustainable show that can be toured on public transport, and last year’s winner, On The Run, will present their show, Tell Me Anything,  at the end of the day. (2nd June) A new commission for this year, Testing Ground, is launched to develop new work by D/deaf and disabled artists and companies. … Read more

£37m Storyhouse brings new theatre spaces to the north-west

News, Regional, Touring
Storyhouse Chester

An exciting new theatre has burst onto the scene in the north-west and the UK touring circuit with the opening of Storyhouse in Chester. At a cost of £37million, the former Grade II-listed Art Deco cinema has been transformed into a glorious new building housing a cinema and library with two new theatre spaces. The main theatre will transform in the spring and autumn from being an 800-seat proscenium arch, presenting national and international touring productions, to a more intimate 500-seat space in the summer and at Christmas with a thrust stage extended over the stalls. There is also a 150-seat studio, The Garret Theatre, with its own fourth-floor bar with panoramic views over Chester, as well as a 100-seat boutique cinema. Storyhouse opens with a run of four home-produced shows, performed in rep, by a new repertory company that is the largest in the UK outside the Royal Shakespeare Company and National … Read more