Is there a Doctor in the house?

Doctor in the House, starring Joe Pasquale and and Robert Powell with Emma Barton and Tom Butcher, comes to the Grand Theatre from Monday 2^nd July.

Doctor in the House follows the fortunes of Simon Sparrow starting as a new medical student at the fictional St Swithin's Teaching Hospital in London. 

Taken from the novels by Richard Gordon, Doctor In The House was the most popular box office film of 1954 and this success spawned six sequels and a popular television series.

When young student, Simon Sparrow has to leave his first choice of lodgings to get away from his landlady's amorous daughter, he ends up with three amiable but less-than-shining fellow students as flat mates including the work shy Tony Grimsdyke (Joe Pasquale).

Towering over them all is the short-tempered, demanding chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt (Robert Powell), who strikes terror into his inadequate undergraduates.

Since being crowned ‘King of the Jungle’ in the 2004 series of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Joe Pasquale (dubbed the hardest working man in comedy) hasn’t stopped!

A veteran of live comedy, he has been performing for over twenty years. In between stand up gigs he has voiced characters for Hollywood movies (Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties and Horton Hears a Who!), appeared at five Royal Variety performances and become a mainstay of the British pantomime season. As well as performing, Joe has also qualified as a pilot, taken up boxing and competed in Celebrity Total Wipeout alongside Fatima Whitbread and Sally Gunnell!

Did you get the Daily Mail on Saturday?

Did you read the fantastic article with the original Birds this Saturday? 

Birds of a Feather ran on the BBC for nearly ten years throughout the 1990s becoming a massive hit right from the word go and remains not only a classic comedy but also, as a female-centred long-running series, a truly rare gem.

Now the three stars of the TV series are reunited on stage to recreate their adored characters, sisters Sharon Theodopolopoudos and Tracy Stubbs and their sex-mad neighbour, Dorien Green, in a brand-new show created especially for the theatre by The Comedy Theatre Company, producers of the highly successful tour of Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies and Keeping Up Appearances.

Pauline Quirke could, until recently, be seen as Emmerdale’s Hazel Rhodes. She is also known for her portrayal of Olive Martin in the award-winning drama The Sculptress, Down to Earth, Cold Blood and Missing. In 2008 Pauline launched The Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts, to celebrate her forty years in the business. She now has over thirty academies across the country!

Both Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph have performed in theatres across the UK in The Vagina Monologues. A regular guest panellist on ITV’s Loose Women Linda has also appeared on stage in Grumpy Old Women Live and 

Lesley’s theatre credits include Calendar Girls, Hot Flush, Humble Boy and Annie. She took part in, and won, channel 4’s Celebrity Come Dine with Me in October 2011 and presented a BBC Radio London show alongside Christoper Biggins

Join ‘the birds’ when Birds of a Feather takes to the stage at the Grand Theatre from Tuesday 24^th to Saturday 28^th April. 

If you go down to the woods today...

A young girl, a hungry wolf, and a walk through the woods. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Red Riding Hood isn’t scared...well maybe she’s a little bit scared.

Horse + Bamboo present a gorgeously rendered re-telling of the classic girl-and-the-wolf tale. Exquisite visuals blend with pantomime-style silliness and spooky moments to create an enchanting piece of theatre.

The original tale is well known, Red Riding Hood leaves her mother’s house with provisions for Granny. Along the way she encounters a wolf, the wolf races her to Granny’s house and eats poor Granny all up.

In Horse + Bamboo’s version Red plays with the wolf and they sing together, though she becomes aware there is darkness in him. The wolf is playful and foolish at Granny’s house, but already Granny is a goner...It is Red that saves the day though and releases her Granny from the depths of the wolf’s belly.

The piece is performed using storytellers. They tell the tale with beautifully carved puppets and handmade masks. At the end of each show the audience will get a chance to look at the living props and ask questions about Horse + Bamboo’s working processes.

Horse + Bamboo Theatre Company have been  making and touring high quality theatre for over 30 years. To sustain the company for this long they have had to keep their work fresh whilst also still providing Horse + Bamboo’s distinctive visual impact. Horse + Bamboo’s audiences leave with a mind full of lasting images that can rarely be compared to anything seen before or after.

Take a behind the scenes look at the Diary of Anne Frank

 Robert Galas, Nikolai Foster, Amy Dawson, Sarah Ingram, Victoria Ross

The tender and heartbreaking story of Anne Frank is at the Grand Theatre from Monday 16^th April to Saturday 21^st April.

The Touring Consortium Theatre Company, led by producer Jenny King, is a group of UK theatres who annually co-produce one large-scale drama, supported by high quality education work. This year’s production, Diary of Anne Frank, will be taking to the Grand Theatre’s stage from Monday 16^th April

The beautifully tender and heartbreaking story of Anne Frank charts two years of her life from 1942-1944. Hidden from German Nazis with her Jewish family in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Anne documented her hopes, frustrations and day-to-day experiences in her diary.

This stunning production dramatises Anne’s observations of herself, her companions and the world around her in the most hostile of environments.

Marking the 60^th anniversary of the diary’s publication in English this extraordinary personal account of hope, courage and survival has united and touched people all over the world.  

Amy Dawson (Anne), Christopher Timothy (Otto)

The National Theatre’s smash-hit comedy, One Man, Two Guvnors, now a West End and Broadway sensation, is coming to The Grand!

Love stories, murder plots and the search for a missing sandwich...it’s all in One Man, Two Guvnors, at the Grand Theatre from 27th November.

Based on the 1743 Italian play Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, One Man, Two Guvnors replaces Italy and the 200 year-old time-period with 1960s Brighton, updating the classic story. Written by Richard Bean and directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner this award-winning play is a glorious celebration of British comedy: a unique, laugh-out-loud mix of satire, songs, slapstick and glittering one-liners.

What happens when you go from having no job to having two?

Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from his fiancee's dad… but Roscoe is really Rachel, posing as her own dead brother…who’s been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers.

Holed up at The Cricketers' Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be re-united with Rachel. To prevent discovery Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.

In One Man, Two Guvnors, sex, food and money are high on the agenda! Throw in a doddery butler, a spectacularly unintelligent mobster’s daughter and a faux-existentialist actor and you’ve got a recipe for disaster...or laughter!

Richard Bean spent five years as a stand-up comedian before turning his hand to writing and joining BBC Radio’s Control Group Six. His plays include England People Very Nice for the National, Harvest which won the Critic’s Circle Award for Best New Play and a new version of The Hypochondriac for the Almeida Theatre.

Sir Nicholas Hytner became Director of the National in 2003. For the National Theatre he has directed The History Boys, Henry V, His Dark Materials, The Alchemist, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet amongst many more. On screen he has directed The Crucible, The Madness of King George and The Object of My Affection along with the film version of the highly acclaimed The History Boys. He was knighted in the 2010 Honours List for services to drama.

A sell-out on both the West End and Broadway One Man, Two Guvnors has been described as ‘one of the funniest plays in the National’s history’ by the Guardian, and ‘one massive hit’ by the Independent. It won the Evening Standard Best Play Award for 2011 and the UK Critics Circle Award for Best New Play in January 2012.

FROM DOG TO OPERA STAR!

If your pet pooch is the canine equivalent of Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansson, then they could take a place in the spotlight in the beautiful and romantic opera La Bohème, coming to the Grand Theatre on 6^th March.

International soloists have been selected from across the world to join the Ukrainian National Opera of Kharkiv’s production – but there is still one part to be cast, the role of Muzetta’s pet dog.

So, will it be your Shih Tzu that shines, your Pomeranian that preens or your Poodle that promenades its perfection on stage? Your canine thespian could be a Yorkshire terrier, Chihuahua, Dachshund – or any small, well-behaved dog.

Award-winning opera director and producer Ellen Kent said: “People say never work with children or animals but I love to do both. The first time was 20 years ago when my pet cat Holly Go-Lightly was in one of my productions and was an instant hit. Since then we’ve had horses, goldfish and once even a golden eagle with a 6ft wingspan on stage.

“Many years ago when we last did La Bohème and asked local people to volunteer their pets it was a huge success. We even used a rescue dog once and found him dozens of new owners!

“We’re a nation of animal lovers after all. I’m sure there is plenty of doggie talent out there!”

Your pet needs to be well behaved and small – and as his owner, you will need to be prepared to go onstage in costume to look after him or her. 

ANNE CHARLESTON & HAYLEY TAMADDON RETURN TO THE GRAND

It could be described as a Neighbours Bake-off on Ice… But, it’s nothing of the sort!

Anne Charleston, Mel Giedroyc and Hayley Tamaddon star in Eve Ensler’s hilarious The Vagina Monologues, at the Grand Theatre for one night only on 18th February.

Based on interviews conducted with women from around the world this poignant, hilariously witty and moving collection of tales gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, brave and thoroughly human stories. 

Join Anne, Mel, Hayley and the 2million men and women who have already witnessed one of the thousands of performances and over 25,000 fake orgasms as The Vagina Monologues returns to Blackpool. 

Sex has never been funnier or more poignant than in this collection of highly original stories gathered by the show’s creator, New Yorker Eve Ensler. Eve asked over 200 women of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and walks of life to share their most intimate secrets on such normally taboo topics as birth, sex, orgasms and relationships with truly revelatory results. 

Eve said “I decided to talk to women about their vaginas to do interviews which became The Vagina Monologues…at first women were reluctant to talk. They were a little shy but once they go going you couldn’t stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one has ever asked them before.”

The Vagina Monologues has been critically applauded, receiving prestigious nominations for Drama Desk and Obie Awards in 1999 in New York and a nomination for the 2002 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. 

Every performance of The Vagina Monologues will donate a portion of the ticket sales to the V-Day Fund – an organisation that provides charitable aid to women and girls who have been victims of abuse and violence. Since May 2001 the West End and touring production has donated over £250,000 to local charities