Season Preview - Royalty Theatre

ROYALTY THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2018/19 SEASON 

The Royalty Theatre have announced the programme for their 2018/19 season, and it is a strong programme with a great mix of plays which we are very much looking forward to!

They begin a packed season with classic comedy No Sex Please, We’re British. 

The farce by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott kicks off a season that theatre bosses believe has something for everyone.  It’s joined in the comedy stakes by May’s Barefoot in the Park, the film version of which starred Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

For fans of suspense drama, Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel will be performed in October and November, and the time-honoured favourite Dial M for Murder is the Royalty’s March offering.  Hobson’s Choice in February and Jane Austen’s Emma in June add to the drama.

The annual pantomime this year is Jack and The Beanstalk by local writer David Farn.

Once again, the studio is put to use for intimate small scale productions with the premier in  January of Billy Towers’ Mary, Mary, based on the life of Jack the Ripper victim Mary Kelly.  April’s studio production is John Godber and Jane Thornton’s Shakers (Re-stirred)

Thanks to the popularity of last year’s A Night at the Musicals, The Royalty are reprising this for two nights only on September 7^th and 8^th.

Visiting companies include Pink Floyd tribute act What the Floyd, appearing on 5^th October.  Sunderland Stages return to the Royalty with Red Ladder Theatre’s The Damned United, the story of Sunderland and Middlesbrough legend Brian Clough’s ill-fated 44 days at Leeds United, on 13^th and 14^th November.

Artistic Director Nikki Slack says, “We’re now raring to go for the 2018-19 season. We have a year packed with a range of diverse plays that will appeal to all. Recent media has been much focussed on equality and ‘Girl Power’ is certainly coming back with a bang! Our programme of plays this coming season shines the spotlight on our female talent from more female-centred plays to our female directors and technicians.”

Tickets are on sale now at www.ticketsource.co.uk/royaltytheatre.  
Tickets for The Damned United are available from the Sunderland Stages website.

Royalty Theatre - New Season - Preview

2017/18 Season Preview
Royalty Theatre

The Royalty team never shy away from staging plays that challenge their performers and their audiences. Their 93rd season is no exception. There are some dark and chilling tales coming up with a spattering of comedy to lighten the mood.

The season kick starts fairly safely with an Agatha Christie classic. And Then There Were None is widely considered to be Christie's masterpiece and her darkest tale. The tension and suspense builds throughout to the climactic reveal. Who is next on the list of casualties and just who is killing off the guests? And Then There Were None runs from Sept 18th - 23rd.

From Agatha Christie they move to Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills. A chilling drama set in the Forest of Dean in the summer of 1943. Childish games take sinister turn. Not supernatural but definitely something evil here, a good choice for Halloween and Guy Fawkes week it runs from Oct 30th to Nov 4th.

Christmas and the Panto Season rescue us from the darkness for a spell, thrusting us into the adventures of Dick Whittington, and a more light-hearted battle of good and evil. Will the streets be paved with gold? Maybe, maybe not, but the stage will be paved with song, dance and jokes from 7th- 17th December. Oh yes, it will...

New year brings more murder and madness with a studio production of Shelagh Stephenson's Five Kinds of Silence.  This dark play explores the damaged relationship between a man and his family. Its claustrophobic atmosphere makes it a perfect choice for staging in the studio. It runs from 24th to 27th Jan.

February brings a Pulitzer Prize winning play - The Rabbit Hole by David Lindsey-Abair. This play deals with the nature of grief and investigates with drama and humour how different family members cope with loss. From Feb 19th-24th.

The second half of the season takes a lighter turn with Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. This Goodall Brothers adaptation of  this PG Wodehouse tale runs from Mar 19th to 24th.

Their second studio production is a touching and witty fictional account of the Occupy London Protests of 2011. Temple by Steve Waters occupies the stage from 25th-28th April.

From a very British crisis we move to a typically English farce in Move Over Mrs Markham by Ray Cooney and John Chapman. Two couples separately arrange to use a friend's flat to meet up with their lovers...confusion and hilarity ensue between 21st - 26th May.

The final show of the season is Mike Kenney's adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. A great family show with Mole, Badger, Ratty and of course, Toad of Toad Hall. Explore the Wild Wood with them from 25th -30th June.

As well as the main programme, there are a number of one off performances including a concert by soprano Joanna Forest and an Open Clasp production of Rattle Snake from Sunderland Stages in October,  and in July there is the opportunity to see work by Lee Stewart, one of the Royalty's regular actor/directors as they stage his latest play There's Someone Coming Through.


All the details are available on the Royalty website. Tickets are available now and can be booked online or in person at the box office - times and dates are listed on the site. At under a tenner a ticket it's a night at the theatre that won't break the bank.

Denise Sparrowhawk

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads - Sunderland Stages - Review

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads

Sunderland Stages at the Royalty Theatre
14th Feb 2017

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads is a one man show written and directed by Adrian Berry, performed by Alex Walton and featuring the voices of Margaret Campbell (Glenda) and Rob Newman (Bowie).

This is the story of Martin - a boy with problems. His father left when he was just two years old, his mother is a chain smoking alcoholic. Martin himself is isolated, bullied, lonely and confused. He has an eating disorder and self harms - not a lot, "just enough to remind himself what it's like to feel". He is intrigued by a box in his mother's room and one day - aged 11- he picks the lock on the box and discovers a different world. The box is full of Bowie memorabilia, tickets, programmes, badges, playlists, and photographs of his father. For this lonely, misfit child it is a revelation and the birth of an obsession. From that day on he lives and breathes Bowie and dreams of his father. On his 18th birthday his mother gives him a letter that his father wrote before he left sixteen years earlier. It contains a map and an invitation to adventure. An invitation to follow his father's journey in search of their idol. Martin sets off to London on a pilgrimage to visit all the places that are significant in Bowie's early life, and believing he will finally, maybe, see his father.

Alex Walton narrates the story, introducing Martin and describing his London pilgrimage, he also plays all of the characters throughout from Martin, to the record shop owner, bus driver, barman, kebab shop server, and Martin's mother. Walton moves from character to character seamlessly, transforming with little more than a shrug from dispassionate narrator to the childlike Martin - filled with the joy of his passion for Bowie or crippled by his insecurities, or into a gruff Scottish shopkeeper, or a streetwise barman. His performance is gripping, holding the  audience and carrying us along for almost an hour and a half through the joy and pain of Martin's journey.



The story is punctuated with blasts of Bowie's music, images projected onto the backdrop, and snippets of speeches from Bowie (Newman). It's a story of how Bowie influenced and inspired two people. It is full of dreams, anguish, humour and heartache. Will Martin follow in his father's footsteps right to the end or will he become a Starman and shine? The ending is satisfyingly ambiguous. We are left to draw our own conclusions.

The UK tour of Ibiza ends on 27th Feb. You can catch the show at these venues in the north:
15 Feb: York, King's Theatre Queen Ethelburga's Collegiate
16 Feb: Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, North Yorkshire
18 Feb: Selby Town Hall SOLD OUT
21 Feb: Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre

Tickets are selling fast so I recommend booking in advance!
Information on other dates and venues can be found on the website: https://www.fromibiza.net/tour

This is the third show I have seen from Sunderland Stages. All three have been very different but all have been excellent, thought provoking productions. Their aim is to bring the best theatre, dance and
spoken word performances to different, unexpected and favourite venues in Sunderland; watch out for more from them in the coming year.

Denise Sparrowhawk