Recently in Theatre Category

There aren't many moments during a theatre production which could prompt me to barge my way through the audience (pushing cast members aside as well, incidentally) to see what is going on. But, yes, the prospect of watching fascinating actress Lucy Briers performing solo hardcore porn is one. Purely professional curiosity, you understand.

But I restrained myself. It was happening on a VHS tape being played on a TV at the other side of the, performing area, you see. An extraordinary, unsettling, hilarious, and weirdly moving moment in a show which is all of those things and more from the moment you enter the auditorium of the Royal Theatre at Northampton.

I've recently struggled to the end of an Open University course. It's the first time A363 has been offered, and it needs a bit of sorting out before next year, most of my fellow students agreed. Anyway, one of the brighter spots was listening to Alan Ayckbourn on an OU CD talking about his writing methods and delving into his splendid book, The Craft Art of Playmaking - it's easily available on Amazon and is a great read for anyone vaguely interested in the theatre.

He says he has never consciously decided to write comedy or drama - just 'write a play'. The degree of lightness or darkness involved is often a matter of the theme, he says, and 'the darker the subject the more light you must try to shed on the matter.' Deliberate dramatic ambiguity with that word 'light'.

Hi readers and welcome to a new blog phenomenon. It's called a Zacharanda in honour of Steve, the Birmingham journalist who became a worldwide internet phenomenon by allowing himself to be filmed and broadcast while allegedly filing a report to his newspaper on the US election.

He was simply doing a cut and paste job from the BBC he said, and, on air, as it were, resigned from his staff job. I believe he had already accepted redundancy, but it caused a sensation and made him a hero of reporters everywhere.

So, in that tradition, I've done a cut and paste job, a Zacharanda. Seems utterly pointless me doing a rewrite of a perfectly good report from an efficient press office. The picture up there, by the way, by Robert Day, is of Kim Wall, Dorothy Atkinson and Matthew Cottle on the splendid set of Just Between Ourselves, mentioned below.Here's my Zacharanda:

Thazz the way ter do it! ... run a puppet festival, that is.

It seems entirely appropriate to use the famous catchphrase of one of the world's favourite characters (Mr Punch, in case you didn't realise - shame on you) to commend in the highest possible terms Dynamics 09 International.

This, the largest puppet festival in England, runs from this upcoming Saturday (May 23) until July 18 has 18 different shows on offer in more than 30 locations featuring the best UK and international performers in this highly specialised and increasingly popular field. Experience of previous events suggests it will be - not to put too fine a point on it - brilliant

Bob Dylan, said to have taken his name from a certain Welsh poet, once memorably referred to something as not his 'cup of meat'. Fabulous phrase. I know exactly what he means, because that Welsh poet has the same effect on me. Ditto Tolkein. Ditto Star Wars. Ditto Ornette Coleman, The Apprentice, gin, and on and on. We're all like that .Diff'rent strokes and so forth.

I wasn't always like that about Mr Thomas. But the boy once wrapped and wrapt spellbound in the warm, wheeling wonder of the web of words woven wild with bardic brilliancy, grew into an adult of some discernment. So, although I'm now a hardcore vegetarian, I can appreciate fine cuisine of all sorts. I just don't want to eat it.

Some great pictures from Alex Soulsby taken during rehearsals for the upcoming show at Royal & Derngate, which opens tonight at the Northampton theatre. A striking new take on Under Milk Wood marks the start of the celebrations marking the 125th anniversary of the marvellous Victorian auditorium.

Young Welsh director Adele Thomas brings together a cast of Welsh actors to reinvent this touchingly comic riot of a play, presenting humanity in all its mad glory.

Being fascinated by all things arts and all things digital as I am, I read Ruth Jamieson's recent 'Twitter at the theatre' Guardian article with much interest. What I also found interesting, however, was my response to her suggestion that tweeting during a performance was not only acceptable, but a valid service to followers. Said response was, essentially, this:

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! "

(Image from TechCrunch)

I thought this howl into the night might be worth exploring, perhaps more articulately, seeing as I love both theatre and Twitter and yet had a strange aversion to them in convergence.

So, Ms Jamieson, seeing as you've thrown down the gauntlet; let me have a stab at your arguments:

One of the most impressive exhibitions we saw during our Year of Culture visit to Liverpool was the International Slavery Museum. The awful transatlantic trade, the almost-hidden sub-text in many Jane Austen novels, was marked widely in the bicentennial year of 2007.

People are still being trafficked today, of course, and that's just one of the controversial issues to be featured in a special show next week, being billed as the city's most exciting youth event. Young Urban with a Voice: Birmingham's young people debate some of society's most pressing issues is the rather ponderous full title of a show at the Crescent Theatre on March 26 and 27.

Big, friendly and a giant success - the latest show at Northampton's Royal&Derngate.

The perennial Roald Dahl favourite The BFG in the classic David Wood adaptation is, in every way, magnificacious, guaranteed to make audiences of all ages whizzpop with delight.

Great pictures, courtesy of Alex Soulsby, to promote the new show at Northampton's Royal&Derngate. An old mate of mine, arguably the strangest man in Britain, Leigh Banks, billing himself these days as a ghosthunter as well as a writer, would be fascinated to meet the chap posing with the giant puppet being used in Roald Dahl's BFG.

He's Anthony Pedley and the giant puppet is made in his likeness. Tony has played the role of the BFG in quite a number of productions - he's a Roald Dahl afficionado and does a regular one man Roald Dahl show. He even has the number plate BFG 1. He's enjoying being back in Northampton having been part of the Royal's resident Northampton Repertory Company from 1966 to 1969, even playing Prospero in The Tempest at the tender age of 23.