Tag Archives: Eithne Browne

The Star, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Eithne Browne in The Star. Photograph by Robert Day.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Eithne Browne, Michelle Butterly, Helen Carter, Kevin Harvey, Danny O’Brien, Jack Rigby, Michael Starke.

Musicians: James Breckon, Elliot Chapman, Danny Miller.

Looking up into the Heavens, one can see the gallery of happy faces, the stars are there to perform, and they find no reason to ever stop beaming their light on the world below. For audiences making their way to the Playhouse this festive season, The Star is shining brightly and it is one that captures all that is good about modern theatre and the remarkable memory it invokes of hearing about the good old days of the music hall experience.

The Star, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(418 words, 1 image, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Maria Lovelady, Eithne Browne, Christopher Jordan, Emma Dears, Jake Abraham, Tom Cawte, Roy Carruthers, Phil Hearne.

The taste of 1930s Britain so elegantly captured in Helen Forrester’s Twopence To Cross The Mersey is arguably more palpable, more authentic than any text book that might go on at length to describe the after effects of the Great Depression on those caught in its wake and the sacrifice many individuals had to face just to survive; it is genuine, touching, brutal and one that still pervades the modern era and the way its shapes politics today.

Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(474 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

A Fistful Of Collars, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jake Abraham, Eithne Browne, Suzanne Collins, Lindzi Germain, Angela Simms, Alan Stocks, Lenny Wood.

The world is a harsh place at times, not everybody plays by the same rules and those who are fair, honest and upright in their morals are the ones forever being treated like dirt, that they have the very will to continue offering the service they do is a measure of their honour, that they refuse to be stitched up by those kicking against them a sign of their trustworthy and good nature.

A Fistful Of Collars, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(404 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

The Golden Oldies, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ruth Alexander Rubin, Eithne Browne, Dennis Conlon, Annie Edwards, Greg Fossard, Hayley Hampson, Phil Hearne, Paul Kissaun, Olwen Rees.

It is a question of definition, of how your generation will be remembered, not by the politics it suffered or the times they live through, but by the music that they send up the charts and the beat they constructed in alleyways, clubs and bars. Music is the beat of the heart and if the heart keeps pumping then the music stays alive and in Dave Simpson’s gentle but absorbing musical comedy, The Golden Oldies, music is not just the food of love, it is the art that keeps all staying alive.

The Golden Oldies, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Roy Brandon, Eithne Browne, Carl Chase, Suzanne Collins, Paul Duckworth, Adam Keast, Andrew Schofield, Francis Tucker.

It is undoubtedly one of the finest productions to come out of Merseyside in the last ten years, a difficult birth it may have been, a show that found itself with an audience but being put on due to commitments and other factors somehow making the play seem an impossibility and yet a decade on, over 200,000 members of the public later, Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels is a show of insurmountable honest and terrifically funny appeal; so much so that it is only right and proper for it to come back to the Royal Court Theatre and give the jolt of marvellous humour needed after a January of gloom and false starts.

Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(426 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Mam! I’m ‘Ere!, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Eithne Browne, Helen Carter, Paul Duckworth, Michael Fletcher, Rachael Rae, Andrew Schofield, Alan Stocks, Keddy Sutton, Jamie Hampson, Hayley Hampson.

Musicians: Emily Linden, Simeon Scheuber, Alex Smith, Lauren Williams.

One of the great musical comedies to have come out of Liverpool in the last few years has to be the outstanding Mam! I’m ‘Ere! Making its debut in the grand space of The Dome, it took audiences to a place where imagination and riotous laughter met, shook hands, frolicked in the winter cold and sent them home happier than a free weeks pass at a holiday camp with drink supplied.

Mam! I’m ‘Ere!, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(487 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Night Collar, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jake Abrahams, Eithne Browne, Suzanne Collins, Michael Ledwich, Alan Stocks, Lenny Wood.

Confession and revelation is not confined to the unburdening of souls in the wooden box that adorns many a church, the simple act of sticking a paw out for a taxi when time, tide and the day is against you is perhaps arguably a more sincere way of getting the troubles of the soul purged, for the taxi driver hears all, sees all and unless you happen to become the topic of conversation which revolves around the words, “You’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab last week”, then your secret torment, bad relationship, money troubles, who you would like to see bumped off, what you think of the council, all are kept secret.

Night Collar, Theatre Review. Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(567 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

The Hit Musical, Mam! I’m ‘Ere’! Returns To The Liverpool Stage This Summer.

2012’s smash-hit disco musical, MAM! I’M ‘ERE!, is back this Summer in an exciting co-production between Life in Theatre Productions (The Sunshine Boys, A Life in the Theatre, The Last 5 Years) and The Royal Court Liverpool and will take place between Friday 26th June to Saturday 1st August 2015.

The Royal Court Theatre are pleased to announce the return of the original cast, including Andrew Schofield, Alan Stocks, Paul Duckworth, Keddy Sutton, Eithne Browne, and Rachel Rae. They will be joined by recent Scouse of The Antarctic cast members, Helen Carter (also in the original production) and Michael Fletcher. Michael replaces his brother, Stephen Fletcher, who now directs the production.

The Hit Musical, Mam! I’m ‘Ere’! Returns To The Liverpool Stage This Summer. full post

(423 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Theatre Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jake Abraham, Eithne Browne, Roy Carruthers, Daniel Davies, Emma Dears, Brian Dodd, Christopher Jordan, Maria Lovelady.

There is a horrible sense of deja vu as one looks around closely in hidden doors and hears the sounds of families at war with themselves that the period known as the Great Depression, the 1930s stumbling block to world peace has been making itself at home for the last few years and nobody has truly noticed. Thankfully the true depths that the world groped around in the dark with during that time has not materialised again but only perhaps good fortune, rather than political reckoning has saved the type of scenes witnessed by the writer Helen Forrester as she grew up impoverished in a city that was fighting for grim survival and without even Twopence To Cross The Mersey.

Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Theatre Review. Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Full Casting Announced For 2015 Production Of Twopence To Cross The Mersey.

The full cast has been announced for the new stage play of Helen Forrester’s Twopence To Cross The Mersey, which tours four Merseyside theatres in the Spring.

The play will visit Liverpool, Southport, St.Helens and New Brighton between 10th March and 23rd April.

The eight-strong cast – a number of whom will play dual roles in the production – features a number of well known and popular Liverpool actors.

The tour opens with a three-week run at the Epstein Theatre Liverpool (10th to 28th March), followed by visits to Southport Theatre (9th to 11th April) and St Helens Theatre Royal (14th to 16th April), and ends with a trip across the River Mersey to the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton (19th to 23rd April).

Full Casting Announced For 2015 Production Of Twopence To Cross The Mersey. full post

(790 words, estimated 3:10 mins reading time)