Lindsay Williams Archives - UPSTAGED MANCHESTER

REVIEW – By Far The Greatest Team (The Lowry)

September 18, 2015kristobel1 Comment

By Far The Greatest Team © Kevin Cummins — By Far The Greatest Team
© Kevin Cummins

Date: 17 september 2015

Upstaged Rating:

Manchester-based Monkeywood Theatre Company, recipients of The Stage Door Foundation Award and Associate Artists of The Lowry are back with their most ambitious and exciting production yet. Always showing a commitment to their Northern locality, By Far The Greatest Team is a new production about the football community in Manchester, the rivalry between Manchester United and Manchester City and a place where you are either born ‘a red’ or ‘a blue’.

Greeted by a theatre in the round, the Quays Theatre has been transformed into a football ground. There are floodlights blazing down with anticipation over a football pitch laid in the centre, banners hung across the upper tiers and an enthusiastic audience on the verge of chanting. It all sets the scene for this unique production, of two halves and four separate plays, focusing on football in Manchester. Under Martin Gibbons’ direction, By Far The Greatest Team seeks to explore notions around football fandom, identity and the effect that football can have on our relationships.

First up was We’re Not Really Here by Ian Kershaw which sees Sam (David Judge), a swaggering, cocky blue football hooligan chanting the lyrics from a City song that mocks the 1958 Munich disaster. United fan Ryan (Andrew Sheridan) and City football supporter Helen (Meriel Schofield) seek to act as a conscience and education around the historical event. It’s a provocative subject and an interesting script but there is an imbalance on stage and sadly, frequent overacting detracts from any passion or believability.

Lindsay Williams’ Stretford End sees United season ticket holders Robbie (Chris Jack) and Dunc (Mark Jordan) enjoying Sir Alex’s final match. An important game for any red, Robbie’s ex Sal (Francesca Waite) arrives much to their unease. Packed with funny ‘football’ lines and a couple of amusing twists – Stretford End is an humorous take on football, love and relationships.

Following half-time, The Good, The Bad and The Giggsy written by Andrew Sheridan takes to the field. Albion (Andrew Sheridan) is dressed as Fred the Red in a kind of wild west standoff against mobility scooter bound true blue Eileen (Samantha Siddall). Absurd, wonderful and warming – it’s a hit with the crowd.

This is the One by The Stone Roses takes us smoothly into Only Football by Sarah McDonald Hughes. Possibly the most impassioned and heartfelt play of the evening, Only Football explores the difficult relationship between a football mad father Gary (Mark Jordan) and his grown-up daughter Abi (Sarah McDonald Hughes), who manage to reunite through their shared experience of Manchester City winning the league.

By Far The Greatest Team has tried to pack in all of the feeling of going to a football match – the anticipation at the sound of the whistle, the ups and the downs and those last three minutes of tension and drama. This production is a must-see for die-hard football fans and theatre lovers alike and I applaud Monkeywood for attracting audiences who perhaps wouldn’t normally set foot in a theatre.

-Kristy Stott

By Far The Greatest Team runs at The Lowry until Sunday 20 September 2015.

INTERVIEW: One City. Two Teams. By Far The Greatest Team at The Lowry.

September 14, 2015kristobel

Manchester theatre making favourites Monkeywood Theatre are set to kick off at the Lowry this Thursday 17 September with the world premiere of their new play – By Far The Greatest Team.

Told in a game of two halves, By Far The Greatest Team tells four new stories about Manchester City, Manchester United, identity, community, and belonging and gets to the heart of why the beautiful game has such an impact on our lives, season after season.

The four new plays will be written by Manchester City fans Ian Kershaw from Oldham (Mist in the Mirror, Oldham Coliseum and Channel 4’s Shameless) and Sarah McDonald Hughes (Flesh, Royal Exchange and Once in a House on Fire, The Lowry, Maine Road, BBC Radio 4) and Manchester United fans Andrew Sheridan (Award winning Winterlong, Royal Exchange and Soho Theatre) and Lindsay Williams from Oldham and lives in Chorlton (Dreamers, Oldham Coliseum, Eastenders and Emmerdale). The production will be directed by Monkeywood Theatre’s Co-Artistic Director Martin Gibbons.

I met up with Francesca Waite who told me more about this exciting new Monkeywood production which sees the Quays Theatre at The Lowry in Salford transformed into a football stadium.

Listen to our full interview here:

By Far The Greatest Team will run at The Lowry from Thursday 17th September until Sun 20th September 2015.

Ten Tiny Plays About Football is being performed script-in-hand by professional actors Saturday 19th September in the Roundabout.

-Kristy Stott

REVIEW – Dreamers (Oldham Coliseum)

June 21, 2015kristobel

Date: 19 june 2015

Upstaged Rating:

Oldham Coliseum is proud to present the world premiere of Dreamers, a new musical set in the 1990’s written by Cathy Crabb and Lindsay Williams. The narrative is set around Oldham’s legendary nightclub Dreamers – the only indie club in town, famed for its music, the variety of the people who went there and the bouncer who kept everyone under control. If you were around Oldham in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s – you probably have a few stories to tell about Dreamers too and this production is certainly loaded with witty humour, warmth and nostalgia, giving the Oldham audience a cheerful trip down memory lane.

The first half of the play is set in the 1990’s and explores the friendships and backgrounds of the young female characters. Izzy (Sally Carman) is a confident young woman who has grown up in care and who is desperate to escape from the streets of Oldham. Izzy and her best friend Toni (Rachel Leskovac), dream of escaping the grey skies of Oldham for the picture perfect marinas of the South of France as holiday reps. However, there is a longstanding disagreement between Izzy and her old friend Roz (Justine Elizabeth Bailey) which comes to a dramatic climax at the end of the first act. The second act revisits the girls twenty years later when we realise that not everything has played out the way that we thought it would.

Despite some slightly awkward overacting, most of the cast give believable performances throughout – Sally Carman shows depth as the bolshy but vulnerable Izzy and Rachel Leskovac shines playing the younger and older version of Toni with ease. Lauren Redding is outstanding though, playing a variety of smaller parts with wit and energy, demonstrating that she is a versatile performer.

Not forgetting that Dreamers is a musical – it features some well known nineties classics with slightly tweaked lyrics, ‘Sit Down’ by James, ‘I am The Resurrection’ by The Stone Roses and ‘Friday I’m in Love’ by The Cure. There are also some original compositions written by Carol Donaldson. The play also features a community chorus of talented local women who deliver the harmonies with energy and passion.

Dreamers is packed full of wit and has plenty of references to Oldham and the infamous Dreamers nightclub which really struck a chord with the Northern audience. And the humour and sentiment can be appreciated by those who are not familiar with Oldham nightlife too – we all remember sticky carpets, Diamond White and the fear of not making it past the bouncer on the door, don’t we?

-Kristy Stott

Dreamers is running at the Oldham Coliseum from 19th June 2015 until 4th July 2015.