CityLife

New season at Oldham Coliseum Theatre

Deathtrap

A lot of exciting news from Oldham’s Coliseum Theatre this week including an open day, an enterprising arts project and, perhaps most exciting of all, details of their forthcoming season and a first indication of what the theatre will be up to when they’re temporarily moved out of their building and out on the road while some vital work takes place on the theatre.

The season includes Tennessee Williams’ classic The Glass Menagerie and Alan Ayckbourn’s chaotic comedy Taking Steps, but opens with Ira Levin’s darkly comic thriller Deathtrap on September 8.

Writer Sidney Bruhl was once the toast of Broadway, but he hasn’t had a hit play in years. Young aspiring playwright Clifford Anderson, who is a student at one of Sidney’s writing classes, just so happens to have written a juicy thriller Deathtrap, that’s obviously bound to be successful. The desperate Sidney would do anything to claim Clifford’s play as his own. Then he comes up with a killer idea.

Deathtrap runs until October 1 and is followed at the theatre by London Classic Theatre’s touring version of Peter Shaffer’s unique psychological thriller Equus (October 4-8).

In a Hampshire stable, 17-year-old Alan Strang blinds six horses with a metal spike and is sent to a secure psychiatric hospital. Martin Dysart, the child psychiatrist assigned to him, begins to probe Alan’s past in an attempt to understand his motives. Initially the boy is silent and uncooperative, but as Dysart digs deeper, he begins to win Alan’s trust and the truth gradually emerges. Finally, as Alan struggles to be free of his demons, he must relive the events of that terrible night.

Tennessee Williams is one of the great 20th Century dramatists. Written before his other masterpieces Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, which is a co-production with Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic Theatre from October 25-November 5, is a sensitive and heartbreaking portrayal of a post-Depression family in crisis.

Ageing Southern belle Amanda Wingfield is desperate to find a suitor for her cripplingly shy daughter Laura, a young girl whose only solace is in her collection of glass animals, each as delicate and fragile as she is.  When her brother Tom brings home a colleague to meet Laura, it finally looks as if the family might have a chance of salvation.

Rifco Arts present their award-winning musical Britain’s Got Bhangra from November 8-12. Conceived, written and directed by Pravesh Kumar, this hit Bhangra musical charts the rise of British Bhangra music from the sequin-clad Eighties through to the R’n’B fusion of the current charts via the story of Twinkle, who arrives fresh from the fields of the Punjab with a song in his heart and no money in his pocket. Can his talent shine through or will the remixed bling of the Nineties DJs ruin his dreams?

One-nighters include A Night Of Musicals on October 13 and Beyond The Barricade on October 14, as well as A Christmas Carol – As Told by Jacob Marley on November 15.

Adapted and performed by James Hyland, this family-friendly show re-tells Dickens’ A Christmas Carol from the perspective of Scrooge’s deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, who is condemned to an eternity of carrying a heavy chain, forged in life.

The Coliseum are co-producing with Tamasha the world premiere of Snookered. On the sixth anniversary of T’s death, his four friends meet up, as they do every year, in their local snooker hall to celebrate his life. As they excavate the past and measure their own lives against T’s, secrets are revealed and allegiances shift as quickly as the drinks are downed. Can they put to rest the guilt they feel over T’s untimely death? And will their friendship survive the final betrayal?

This new production will premiere at University Campus Oldham from November 2-8 before going on to tour nationally, including a four-week run at London’s Bush Theatre.

Of course, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas in Oldham without the Coliseum’s MEN Theatre Award-winning traditional pantomime, complete with stunning sets, crazy costumes and all the usual panto magic.

This year’s festive treat is Dick Whittington, running from November 26. Can Dick defeat the evil King Rat? Will he marry his love Alice? Will he become the mayor of London? And what will the Dame wear?

The final Coliseum production of the season is the hilarious Taking Steps, directed by Coliseum regular and protégé of Alan Ayckbourn Robin Herford, who played Mark in the original 1979 production of Taking Steps.

This new version, running from February 16-March 10, 2012, will be the first Coliseum production staged away from the Fairbottom Street site during the theatre’s refurbishment and will be performed in the round, just as originally intended, at the Grange Arts Centre.

Alan Ayckbourn’s classic comedy demonstrates that ordinary situations can become extraordinary through simple misunderstanding and bad timing. Elizabeth is taking steps to leave her husband. Her husband is taking steps to buy a house for them to live in. Mark is taking steps to marry his fiancé, a woman recently arrested for soliciting.

Simultaneously set over three floors of a crumbling mansion house, Taking Steps follows this mismatch of people over the course of one night and the following morning, as confusion and hilarity ensues.

During their time out of the building, the Coliseum will continue to present plays at the Grange for much of the spring season before returning to the original theatre next autumn.

Plans for an open air production in the summer are in the early stages but, long before then, there’s a unique chance to find out what goes on behind the scenes at the current theatre at an Open Day on Saturday July 2. 

Activities for all ages will be taking place throughout the day including an access-all-areas backstage tour, as well as the chance to try on some of their unique costumes and wigs, or go behind the curtain and ‘fly’ scenery in and out or bring the stage to life by experimenting with lighting and sound effects.
 
You can make bags with the wardrobe department, create your own props with the stage management department, make posters with the marketing department and cause a stir at the bar when you mix your very own cocktails, as well as learning more about the Coliseum’s rich history by browsing pieces from the theatre’s archive.

Artistic director Kevin Shaw will also be running a series of talks including ‘what goes into choosing plays?’, acting master classes and a question and answer session where you can ask him anything you like.

There will also be further information on offer about the theatre’s temporary time out of the building in 2012 as well as special performances by youth groups DigiLAB and TheatreLAB plus exclusive taster sessions for all their participatory groups, catering for ages from five years old up to fifty-plus.

Out on Fairbottom Street there will be a clowning workshop with balloon modelling, stilt walkers and a juggling workshop as well as face painting. The theatre will be open from 10am until 4pm. There’s no need to book, and the day is completely free.

Oldham Coliseum is also taking part in an enterprising art project, organised by The Enterprise Centre, that involves eight schools across the borough and aims to engage young people in activities with an enterprising theme.

Several Oldham organisations are involved in the project and each of them will facilitate a different project that will involve both project planning and team work from which they can gain a related vocational qualification.

The theatre will be delivering The Thespian, a drama project addressing the hopes and fears born out of their forthcoming transition from Primary to Secondary school.

Through a series of workshops professional actors will help the children express their feelings and ideas.

On Wednesday, the group will visit the Coliseum where they will have the opportunity to work with a theatre technician to add light and sound to their performance and will also get an exclusive backstage tour by the theatre’s Production Manager Mark Alexander.

Contact coliseum.org.uk or call 0161 624 2829. for more details.