New season at The People's Theatre

Plus Kidman and Kaos

My week in theatre

The new season is in full swing now, and my first show of September was Heathers The Musical, which made for a fun afternoon out at the Theatre Royal Newcastle. (It finished on Saturday, but is touring).

This week is mostly press nights – although I’ll be missing Love it If We Beat Them at Live due to other commitments, I am looking forward to both Subterranea at Laurels and The Nurse’s Station at Alphabetti.

[Image description: poster for Heathers]

Theatre to book now

New season at The People’s Theatre

As usual, local gem The People’s Theatre has a packed autumn / winter season. The shows tend to be short run, given it’s an amateur theatre, so I definitely recommend booking in advance if you fancy something.

Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know to Be True is on this week, and future highlights include Boeing Boeing, with Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde and Collected Grimm Tales both sounding perfect for spooky season outings.

The theatre also has the festive season covered, with It’s a Wonderful Life and Alice In Wonderland, with the latter also offering a relaxed performance.

The theatre also hosts a range of events, including Broadway Live, where you can go along to either listen to – or join in with – a night of Broadway classics!

Check out the new season details here.

Autumn at ARC Stockton

Always a venue with lots going on, ARC has an interesting season lined up. Highlights include Tones: A Hip Hop Opera by Wound-Up Theatre, which looks at British Blackness, and In The Sick of It, Wake The Beast’s look at the failing (or, more accurately, being failed) NHS.

One thing that also looks interesting is the performance piece Foundation, which takes place over several days in October. Adam York Gregory and Gillian Jane Lees will be making sculptures out of 4,000 bricks – which they will then give away. This honestly sounds like one of those ‘you have to go see it to really understand it’ projects, so if you are in the area check it out!

You can read more about ARC’s autumn offerings here.

Spooky stories at Live

Live Theatre has announced some wraparound events for their spooky season show, St Maud. Certain nights will host pre-show ghost story sessions, including stories by Eliza Clark, David Almond and Matt Wesolowski. These are included in the price of the St Maud ticket – check out their socials (particularly Twitter) for details.

Mycelial at the movies

I also notice that the filmed version of Open Clasp’s play Mycelial is showing at ARC’s cinema, and I recommend you check it out if it comes to a screen near you. I really enjoyed this piece when I saw it on stage – it’s a thoughtful look at the lives of sex workers around the world, co-created with sex worker activists, handled with Open Clasp’s usual thoughtfulness.

Speaking of theatre at the cinema, the Tyneside Cinema is showing NT Live’s Prima Facie, which garnered rave reviews for Jodie Comer as a barrister in this one-woman play about sexual assault and the legal system.

Photography at Newcastle Arts Centre

I often feel NAC is overlooked as an exhibition space, but it’s a venue that is always worth checking out because it gets some great shows. These are usually small, but free, and this month’s is particularly strong. The RPS Documentary Photography Awards features some of the winning and commended entries, tackling tough subjects such as immigration, the war in Ukraine and the healthcare crisis, with a tender and thoughtful eye. It’s definitely worth popping in on your lunch hour!

What I am reading

I always tell myself I am not really a horror buff, but then when I read a book like Anna Bogutskaya’s Feeding The Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us, I realise I have seen a LOT of the films and TV shows she is talking about, so I have to wonder if that is true.

Bogutskaya is an engaging and interesting writer, even if I am not sure I agree with all of her conclusions (or, indeed, starting ideas). In places I thought the book needed a better edit, though to be fair to Bogutskaya, that is the bane of modern publishing’s cost-cutting – at least half of the books I read these days need a better edit or proof, which I don’t mind if I’m reading some little indie title, but is frustrating when the culprits is a big publishing house.

But despite these minor flaws, this is a fascinating (and female-gaze centred) look at why horror grips us and what it says about modern anxieties and society. (Also, for those of you planning to see St Maud at Live, it talks about the film of this, too).

I am also reading Sarah Moss’ memoir, My Good Bright Wolf, which is a slippery look at memory and family, and as eloquent as her usual work.

Speaking of reading, I got some lovely feedback on this blog I shared about being a working class writer, so do check it out.

[Image description: Feeding the Monster by Anna Bogutskaya]

What I have been watching

Created very much along the same slick, glossy lines as previous Nicole Kidman vehicles Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies – even sharing a similar ‘try to guess the victim by seeing who the police are interviewing’ opening trick as the latter – Netflix’s The Perfect Couple is a bingeable treat.

A limited series – so you can watch it content that it won’t end on a cliffhanger that never gets resolved because the show gets cancelled – this six-part whodunnit centres on a family of (of course) awful rich people, and a wedding that gets derailed when someone ends up dead. A top-notch cast including Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning and Isabelle Adjani are joined by a bunch of familiar faces, including respected character actors such as Michael Beach and Nick Searcy in this enjoyably camp tale of secrets and lies. Bonus points for the opening credits dance number, which will have the Meghan Trainor song ‘Criminals’ lodged in your brain for days…

Also on Netflix is Kaos, the new Jeff Goldblum-led show about the Greek gods. I admit the marketing for this led me to think it was just a broad comedy along the lines of Miracle Workers (in which, lest you forget / haven’t seen this fun little show, Steve Buscemi plays God, and Daniel Radcliffe is a heavenly worker tasked with setting up a miracle). But Kaos is actually smarter and darker than it initially looks. A clever concept – what if the modern world believed in the Greek pantheon of gods, and what if they actually existed? – is knit to a tightly plotted story that puts a fresh spin on characters that anyone who grew up a mythology nerd will be familiar with. The impressively diverse cast is great, too, featuring a host of familiar character actors. I’m two eps from the end – no spoilers! – and so far, it’s really kept me gripped.

Thanks again for reading – please do share with your friends! Every new subscriber (free or paid) really does give me a boost. And remember if you want to support my writing but a paid subscription isn’t for you (times are hard, I get it!), you can buy me a one-off Ko-fi or buy one of my books.

Remember: everything included is my personal preference / opinion, and while I strive to be accurate, I always advising checking with the relevant venue.