Tag: Hope Yolanda

PRIVATE LIVES

Small Theatres
Jack Elliot as Victor and Hannah Ellis Ryan as Amanda in Private Lives at Hope Mill Theatre. Image credit: Shay Rowan

Written by Noel Coward

Directed by Amy Gavin

Hope Mill Theatre

HER Productions’ Private Lives at Hope Mill Theatre arrives fizzing with champagne wit and a sharpened feminist gaze, popping Noël Coward’s most famous divorce comedy like a well shaken cocktail. The result is brisk, intelligent and slyly subversive, a production that knows its Coward and is not afraid to raise an eyebrow at him.

Coward’s premise remains deliciously absurd. Divorced couple Elyot and Amanda, honeymooning with new spouses in the same hotel, discover that their shared history is as combustible as ever. Old sparks catch fire with hot temper and passion in equal measure. New marriages smoulder and combust. Doors slam, insults sparkle and love behaves badly…very badly indeed!  Director Amy Gavin honours the play’s architecture while quietly rewiring its emotional circuitry. What once felt like a duel of egos becomes a study in mutual toxicity and mutual addiction, with both leads given equal agency and equal blame.

The performances crackle. Hannah Ellis Ryan’s Amanda is played with steel wrapped in silk, her wit deployed like a rapier but her vulnerability allowed to show in fleeting, telling pauses. Charlie Nobel as Elyot is all louche charm and boyish petulance, is less the romantic rake and more the emotional arsonist who cannot resist striking the match. Their chemistry is thrilling and alarming in equal measure, the kind that makes you laugh uncomfortably even as you recognise the warning signs of ensuing violence. Coward’s dialogue mainly lands cleanly, every barb sharpened, every epigram delivered with precision rather than reverence.

The supporting roles are more than polite foils. Victor and Sibyl, often reduced to comic casualties, are given texture and dignity here.  Hope Yolande certainly has fun with her role and perhaps relies too much on  comedic expressions but is suitably fiery when required. Jack Elliot who was so good in the recent Mojo at The Kings Arms plays another blinder with his portrayal of the hapless Victor. Their bafflement and hurt play as genuinely human responses to a situation that would be intolerable offstage. This grounding choice is key to the production’s bite.  It stops the play floating away on its own cleverness and anchors it firmly in emotional consequence.

Direction is confident and pacey, letting Coward’s language breathe while refusing to let the play dawdle. The famous physical comedy in the Paris flat scene is staged with balletic control, violence and flirtation blurring in a way that feels deliberately uncomfortable. It is funny, yes, but it also asks the audience to sit with the uglier implications of romanticising chaos. The use of black and white film is a nice touch but risks being overused. As with their recent production of The Taming of The Shrew music is used to change pace and disarm as quicksilver moods shift from playful fun to violent extremes.

In Hope Mill’s intimate space, Private Lives feels immediate and faintly dangerous, like eavesdropping on a very glamorous argument next door. HER Productions deliver a revival that respects Coward’s wit while interrogating his politics, proving that this 1930s classic still has teeth. You leave laughing at the cruelty of fickle fate while wincing and quietly relieved that some passions are best admired from the safety of the stalls.

Hope Mill Theatre Jan 28th – 8th February. Dukes Theatre, Lancaster 24th- 28th February 2026

The Taming of the “Shrew”

Shakespeare, Small Theatres
The cast of The Taming of The Shrew at Hope Mill Theatre. Image credit: Shay Rowan.

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Amy Gavin and Hannah Ellis Ryan

HOPE MILL THEATRE

The bawdy babes are back with another co-production from Unseemly Women, HER Productions and Girl Gang Manchester. Here this all female and non-binary collective take on Shakespeare’s portrayal of gender roles and a women’s place in a marriage. Under the spirited direction of Amy Gavin and Hannah Ellis Ryan this production zeroes in on the enduring horror of coercive control and the mind numbing impact of gaslighting. As the Bellas teach their drunken patron Sly a lesson he won’t easily forget, the audience get to watch as the action moves from a neon pink burlesque club to Padua where the “Shrew” Katerina and her sister Bianca are wooed by a selection of potential suitors.

Katerina is a force of nature who takes no prisoners and does not mince her words. As her father offers a large dowry on her being married before her younger and more malleable sister Bianca, Petruchio decides he is up the challenge of taming this wildcat. Multiple suitors are also vying for the hand of Bianca and as Shakespeare loves a confusing twist, the wealthy Lucentio is mascarading as a tutor to woo Bianca while his servant Tranio pretends to be his Master. Katerina is forced into marriage and her new husband sets in place an abusive plan to ensure his new wife is broken in like a wild horse.

Emily Spowage and Shady Murphy in The Taming of The “Shrew” at Hope Mill Theatre Image credit: Shay Rowan

The whole production has a feel of Baz Luhrmann meets Blackadder on a Hens night out in the Northern Quarter. The costumes look fabulous and strikingly individual. Zoe Barnes has been incredibly creative and adds real visual impact especially in the Vivienne Westwood inspired wedding dress which Shady Murphy is forced into. In fact everything about this production feels considered and creative from the lighting by Tom Sutcliffe to the sound by Hannah Bracegirdle and movement by Yandass Ndlovu.

It’s great to seem a dozen female and non binary performers on stage doing their thing and strutting their stuff. There is a real immersive feel to this production with the audience seated traverse and with some seated at candle lit tables in the burlesque club itself. The pole dancing by Leah Eddleston and the bluesy vocals of Megan Holland really add to the nightclub vibe.

Shady Murphy as Katerina nails her performance as the confident force of nature brought to her knees by an abusive husband. She is at turns vibrant and vociferous before being broken and cowed by her husband. Emily Spowage as Petruchio is also utterly compelling as the leering Lothario who verbally spars with his bride-to-be before his chilling shift into sadistic bridegroom who has his whole household flinching as they observe his cold cruelty.

This is a brilliant take on one of the Bard’s more difficult plays. In particular the scenes where Andy Williams Can’t Take My Eyes of You is used and at points dramatically slowed down, really ramps up the quiet terror of coercive control. The scene where Petruchio argues the sun is the moon and challenges Katerina’s very reality now plays as gaslighting behaviour. Gavin and Ellis Ryan have kept the original text and by not shying away from it have enabled this cast to reframe the narrative for the sisterhood. Sly Christopher may be a misogynistic boor in the manner of a Bernard Manning but here he sits bound and with a gag in his mouth.

HOPE MILL THEATRE 19th -30th June 2024