What a pleasure it has been, during the last week or so, to have seen two wonderful performances by local Am/Drams.
Stockport based Drama Dept performed a spectacular version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats at Stockport Plaza and it was exhilarating. At one point I lost count of how many performers were on stage, but it was certainly over forty. It wasn’t the numbers, though, that impressed me most, it was the complexity and accuracy of the choreography that made it so breath taking.
Carolynne Jones, who I’ve known since she was a young girl, before her training at Laine Theatre Arts and her professional career on cruise ships, was responsible for putting that part of the show together. I spoke to her at the interval and she admitted there had been challenging times during rehearsals, but they all came through it and the results were amazing.
The Stockport Plaza has a huge stage, which certainly helped make the end result so spectacular, but every one of the performers, from the Am/Dram regulars to the young kittens who danced around in the audience, as well as boosting the numbers on stage, were disciplined and slick.
I have to admit that Cats isn’t my favourite show and as I watched it on stage, I came to the conclusion that it’s strength is the spectacle and choreography rather than the story or even the songs. I can understand why the film version which starred Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson and James Corden, bombed at the box office. The story is weak and apart from a couple of notable exceptions the songs are forgettable. On stage it was wonderful.
When the highly talented Dawn Leigh belted out Memory, at Stockport Plaza, she had the audience, including me, in the palm of her hand and the stage presence of the leading man/cat, Gary Jones, led the cast brilliantly. I’d recommend anything Drama Dept do, look out for their next show!
Two days later I was at the George Lawton Hall in Mossley watching NK Theatre Arts as they performed Six, the story of Henry the Eighth’s wives, from their point of view. It’s really more of a concert rather than more traditional Musical Theatre, but it has a highly successful professional show which is currently running in the West End. The NK Theatre Arts was limited to teens, because that’s the only way they could get a licence.
When they ran auditions for the show, they couldn’t whittle it down to just six performers, so they alternated two sets of six. The night I was there, I saw the younger group. They had attitude, confidence and immense talent. If I hadn’t know they were young teenagers I’d have assumed they were all about twenty. The show is very interactive with the audience and as well as their excellent singing and slickly choreographed routines, they absolutely got their flirty interaction spot on.
If you’ve never heard of NK Theatre Arts, it’s probably because they’re usually based at Romiley Forum, which has had to close due to the identification of RAAC concrete in their roof. The George Lawton Hall came to their rescue and provided a venue for the show at short notice. Hopefully they’ll soon be back home, once their roof has been made safe.
My Tameside Radio show, Break-a-Leg from 7pm every Sunday, has three great guests this week. You’ll hear part two of my chat to West End & Broadway Superstar Kerry Ellis, you’ll meet Tameside’s multi-talented writer and actor Seb Lassandro, who’s directing Music Man at Stockport Plaza from 24th to 28th October for Stockport Operatic Society and Kristy Hummel-Rosen joins me from San Diego, California to tell me about their Old Globe Theatre. I hope you can join me too!
