CityLife

Detox Mansion, A Woman Of Uncertain Age, Brief Encounters @ 24:7

MANCHESTER and Salford's exhilarating new theatre festival, 24:7, is the brainchild of David Slack and Amanda Hennessy, who were inspired by a visit to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Their bold scheme offers no less than 17 drama and comedy productions, none lasting more than an hour, in five unconventional venues over a week.

To judge by the three, very different productions I was able to see over the weekend, artistically it's a great success.

Written by Steve Timms and directed by Ian Townsend, Detox Mansion takes an acerbic, provocative and blackly funny look at modern-day Hollywood as B-list actor Taylor Devilbliss staggers through a personal apocalypse of drugs, death, career meltdown and venal agents.

Very different is Maggie Dealey's A Woman Of Uncertain Age. Starring Helen Grady as a middle-aged single mother taking her new baby on a trip to see her older son, it's a bittersweet tale with a very moving climax.

The M.E.N. Theatre Award-winning Reallife Theatre Company also scores with Trevor Suthers' impressive Brief Encounters, two monologues and two duologues which include the very funny Celebrity, starring 15-year old Georgia Houghton. All are well worth your support.

Click on the link below to see the full line-up for the 24:7 festival, which continues until July 31. For further information, see the 24:7 website below or call the hotline on 01244 500 247.