Irish plays showcase Loft talent
Feb 13 2009 By John Slim
LEAMINGTON’S Loft Theatre embarks on a mighty challenge – possibly a non-professional first – on Monday, when it begins a two-week season of two Irish plays – The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Pillowman on alternate nights.
Both plays are by Martin McDonagh. The Beauty Queen of Leenane is the witheringly comic story of cantankerous Mag and her long-suffering middle-aged daughter. The Pillowman is set in a cell where a young writer is interrogated about crimes he and his retarded brother are believed to have been involved in.
Loft artistic director Gus MacDonald, says: “Both plays deal with terrible – yet terribly funny – situations, veering between farcical and tragic, where violence is hilarious yet outrageous. They are not for the faint-hearted and unsuitable for under 16s, but they illustrate we are really serious about theatre.”
* MAIL sports columnist Roger Clarke is thinking about suitcases.
Having established the Royal Sutton Coldfield Theatre at The Station pub in the Royal Borough, he plans a play based on a suitcase found in a loft when a house is cleared after the death of an elderly relative. The production will be a series of sketches about the life of the case and the people who have used it.
The idea is to repeat the play each year, in the same format but with different stories. He’s inviting patrons to put on their thinking-caps.
* THE West Midlands Region of the National Operatic & Dramatic Association will hold its annual conference in Sutton Coldfield Town Hall on Sunday, April 5 – but it is clearly uncertain whether it will be its second or third. The booking form says it’s the second but the programme and timetable correctly reckons it is its third. The region held its first conference in 2007, after the Midlands was split into East and West Midlands.
* AT the age of 58, Stan Hubbard reports that he is enjoying both the challenge and the female attention as the only man in the Circle Players’ four-night production of the Richard Harris favourite, Stepping Out. The show will be at Aldridge Youth Theatre from next Wednesday.
* VALENTINE’S Night tomorrow will find Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre offering Love Is In The Air Tonight as one performance of love songs and readings in the bar, with “a glass of pink fizz” to help the sounds go down.
