Blue (Multiplay Drama)

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Someone Stares at a Dog for a Few Minutes, and Has a Think About It All by Simon Longman (The Long Listen) DOGS is a gut-punch of a play about nature, nurture and what we inherit. Content Warning – Contains themes of physical abuse and descriptions of violence For younger children, there’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea (12 to 17 February), Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book (9 to 13 April) and Tom Fletcher’s There’s A Monster in Your Show (28 May to 1 June). sees the strengthening of creative relationships with the theatres’ Associate Companies, as a springboard for fresh voices and new diverse perspectives, ensuring Liverpool’s cultural scene remains vibrant and dynamic. As well as collaborating on productions with Homotopia and Cardboard Citizens, there will be a major co-production and commission with Talawa Theatre Company to be announced in February 2024. The theatres continue to work with Graeae on their artist development programme Beyond, will support a new Liverpool-based Associate role, and welcome Graeae’s Crips with Chips: A Fork in the Road, a showcase of short plays by Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers written in response to a predetermined theme (24 February).

Sam Millard plays the young runaway Ben. His performance grew on me as he seemed to develop confidence, revealing the vulnerability behind this sullen teenager, struggling with his conscience. Kathryn Worth plays the police officer with strength and compassion and supports as the doctor and Jeryl Burgess is salt-of-the-earth Rose and supports in other roles. The Playhouse season also includes Unfortunate, a musical telling the untold story of Ursula the Sea Witch (5 to 9 March); Pilot Theatre return with a contemporary version of Orpheus in The Song for Ella Grey (13 to 16 March); Curve Theatre’s My Beautiful Laundrette (26 to 30 March), directed by Nicole Behan from Liverpool’s Paperwork Theatre;; imitating the dog create a new Frankenstein (17 to 20 April); Tim Rice: I Know Him So Well, My Life in Musicals (2 May); Showstopper: The Improvised Musical (9 to 11 May); and Drop the Dead Donkey the Reawakening (14 to 18 May);I have a friend, Joe Abel, who I knew worked in a mental-health setting but I’d never really discussed it any real depth with him. When I started working on BlueI was primarily looking at it from the viewpoint of a character who has been placed in a mental-health unit but wanted to know what it was like to work in one as well. As soon as I spoke to him about his work, a whole complex world was opened up to me that I knew nothing about. I found it fascinating, not least because it became clear to me that Joe was doing a job that I didn’t have the ability, or the fortitude, to do. It didn’t hurt that he’s a very insightful and articulate human as well. So, he was my main source of help for the play and then there was the usual watching of documentaries and reading of books. Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse today announce a 2024 season which boasts world premieres, classic plays and projects with their Associate Companies, with the development of new talent at the fore. It’s a year that sees the Everyman celebrate sixty years since it’s foundation and ten years since the Stirling Prize winning new building opened.

However, it’s important to stress that Blueis a play and not a documentary, it doesn’t need to be as there are loads of brilliant documentaries about the state of mental health services in the UK. In BlueI was trying to get closer to the feeling, the emotive content of what modern mental-health care can feel like, rather than a factual recounting of a specific mental-health unit.

With both the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse nurturing and developing new talent across decades, 2024 will see their award-winning Young Everyman Playhouse programme going from strength to strength, with a Young People and Community Festival in July.

At the heart of the Everyman season are three homegrown productions, two of which come from writers supported through the theatres’ playwright programmes. Comedy nights include Babatunde Aleshe: Babahood (24 February), Jon Courtenay: Bigger (5 April), Griff Rhys Jones: The Cat’s Pyjamas (30 April), Tom Davis: Underdog (4 May), R osie Holt: That’s Politainment (25 May) and Danny Davies (11 September). Plus there’s poetry from Hollie McNish: The Lobster Tour (27 June). sees the strengthening of creative relationships with the theatres’ Associate Companies, as a springboard for fresh voices and new diverse perspectives, ensuring Liverpool’s cultural scene remains vibrant and dynamic. As well as collaborating on productions with Homotopia and Cardboard Citizens, there will be a major co-production and commission with Talawa Theatre Company to be announced in February 2024. The theatres continue to work with Graeae on their artist development programme Beyond, will support a new Liverpool-based Associate role and welcome Graeae’s Crips with Chips: A Fork in the Road, a showcase of short plays by Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers written in response to a predetermined theme (24 February). A new play that explores capitalism, The Legend of Ned Ludd takes audiences on a whirlwind global commute from the Luddites’ nineteenth century war against new technology through to London, Liverpool, Lagos and beyond. You have only to attend one of the hundreds of lecture-recitals on early woodwind instruments which Munrow gives up and down the country, and abroad, every year to realise how much his playing has caused such instruments to be taken seriously – to be thought of not merely as musical fossils, but as a range of sonorities that hold unlimited delights for the listener, and which today’s composers can find an invaluable stimulus. If you can’t get to one of his lecture recitals, then his exciting new demonstration disc, The Medieval Sound on the Oryx label, will serve the purpose: though seeing him play these colourful instruments inevitably adds further dimension. Medieval music has never for him been a dead art exhumed by scholars. It is alive and well and flourishing world over.For younger children there’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea (12 to 17 February), Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book (9 to 13 April) and Tom Fletcher’s There’s A Monster in Your Show (28 May to 1 June).