CityLife

Triumphs at M.E.N. Theatre Awards

John Thomson and Denise Black 1 / 5 images

THE Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, now in it’s 27th year, once again championed the best theatre to be staged across Greater Manchester this year.

In a glittering ceremony at the Midland hotel, stars of stage and screen, including Bob Hoskins, Frances Barber, Lysette Anthony, John Thomson and Jonathan Wilkes, gathered to celebrate the exciting talent to be nurtured and staged in the city.

The event, hosted by TV’s Loose Women, Jane McDonald and Denise Welch – a former winner in the best actress category  – continues to grow in stature being one of the first to recognise so many wonderful shows which began life in Manchester before becoming national and even international successes.

The Manchester International Festival commission Monkey: Journey To The West premiered at The Opera House here more than a year ago and has since gone on to great success around the world.

Great acclaim

Similarly, another past winner from the Octagon Theatre Bolton, Blonde Bombshells of 1943, has also gone on to great acclaim on tour around the country.

This year the region’s talent shone across all categories with home-grown actors, Maxine Peake, David Fielder, Paul Simpson, William Ash, Kate O’Flynn and Andrew Buchan among those collecting awards.

Receiving Best Actor for his roles in Waiting For Godot at The Library Theatre and Merchant of Venice at The Royal Exchange, David Fielder said: “When I was growing up the Octagon Theatre, Bolton and The Library theatre were where I first saw theatre, they’re fantastic.”

The Lowry at Salford Quays also shone, sweeping the board for attracting the best of the visiting productions to the region as well as supporting many Manchester-born productions through its new studio season.

The theatre scooped six awards including Best Visiting Production for Black Watch from The National Theatre of Scotland.

Difficult to stage

Accepting the award, Neil Murray, Executive Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, said: “When we first started doing Black Watch we played three weeks at Drill Hall in Edinburgh and we were told, ‘This show will never tour, it’s so difficult to stage.’

“The Lowry took a risk in making the pie factory a space for Black Watch to happen.” Since then the show has gone on to great world acclaim in city’s including, London , Sydney , New York , Toronto and Dublin .

The Lowry has also made its mark in attracting the best opera and dance to the region, winning both categories.

There has been some disquiet from the Salford venue about the possibility of the Royal Opera and Ballet creating a northern base at the Palace Theatre.

This debate did not go unrecognised at the ceremony when Richard Mantle, general director of Opera North, which was nominated three times, collected the award for Best Opera for Macbeth commented: “We appreciate hugely the relationship we have with this great city of Manchester and the Lowry and who needs to be Royal to win an award?”

Contemporary cutting edge

The Green Room took home the prestigious Horniman award for its 25 years of promoting new theatre in the region.

Accepting the award, artistic director Garfield Allen said: “The Green Room doesn’t do much theatre in the traditional linear narrative sense. We are about fringe, contemporary, cutting edge, trying to find the next new thing and hopefully we will have another 25 years of achieving that.”

The promotion of Manchester talent was also rewarded in the Biza Tax and Duty Free Alpha Award of £5000, which went to The Company, a new national company for youth music theatre.

Collecting the cheque Becky Hiller said: “We got so tired of all the youth theatre being based in London .

“It’s a long way to travel and sometimes makes it impossible for some young people in the north.

Youth theatre

“Already we are seeing successes, Katie Schofield, who is playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz at the Lowry, wouldn’t have the courage to audition if it hadn’t been for her involvement with the youth theatre.”

In the current economic climate, the award recognises the importance of encouraging new talent and supporting theatre at all levels.

As Chris Honer, artistic director of The Library Theatre, said when collecting his award for Best Production for Waiting For Godot: “We are coming to live in difficult times and it’s times such as these whether it’s theatre in its capacity simply to entertain or to ask the pertinent questions is when its at it’s most valuable.”

YOU can see a full list of winners, a breakdown of why they won and all the bash gossip to the right.