CityLife

JB Shorts

John Henshaw

JB Shorts is the result of a conversation during the 24:7 Theatre Festival two years ago.

Now-successful writers with a string of TV and radio credits such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street to their names remembered how desperate they had been at the start of their careers to get their work seen, using city centre pubs at lunchtimes and evenings.

Why not do it again and set themselves a 15-minute time limit, to prove they can still do it themselves without the backing of a production machine?    

The result is this enormously entertaining and stimulating, back-to-basics evening, where everything depends on the skill of the writers, directors and, of course, actors, many of whom are familiar faces from the local scene including John Henshaw, Susan Twist and M.E.N. Theatre Award-winning Ruth Evans.  

The very funny opening piece Hitched, written by Emmerdale writer Lindsay Williams and directed by North West Playwrights’ Chris Bridgman, recounts the traumatic events of a wedding night when the bride gets stuck in her dress and her mum has to help.

Small's World

In John Chambers’ moving Small’s World, directed by Helen Parry, there’s another embarrassing moment between a mum and her son when she comes home early to find him trying on her frilly undergarments!

Peter Kerry’s Mammon Calling, directed by Alan Rothwell, amusingly considers a new twist on telephone sales, as three hapless salespeople try to flog alleged fragments of the True Cross even as Apocalypse looms.  

In Dave Simpson’s timely and provocative Secret Life, directed by former Library Theatre mainstay Roger Haines, co-writer Diane Whitley and James Quinn are a couple caught in the full glare of the headlines after his secret Internet life is revealed, while Trevor Suthers’ Ashrak The Food Taster, directed by Arden Theatre School’s Paul Jaynes, is pithy and pointed.

James Quinn reappears as writer and director of this terrific evening’s last short At The End Of The Day, hilariously lampooning the idiocies of TV football commentary.

JB Shorts takes place from Tuesday, March 31 until Saturday, April 4.