Tell Tale Theatre make a welcomed return to the dramatic world of George Orwell for their next production. Animal Farm will be performed at the Arts Club on Seel Street from 28th-31st October 2014.
In 2010, Tell Tale’s very first show was a visceral performance of Orwell’s 1984. They have come a long way since then. Tell Tale Theatre recently received funding from the BBC Performing Arts Fund which will support the production and will enable Animal Farm to tour to local secondary schools.
Music and video used to go hand in hand with each other, especially in the 1980s, where it was expected that a well-made video would give a band or artist a huge lift in sales. For anybody who was getting into music in the early part of the tandem craft, songs such as Ultravox’s Vienna, A-Ha’s Take On Me, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes, Marillion’s Kayleigh and Genesis’ Land of Confusion were as well remembered for their iconic videos as they were for the creative lyrics and supreme music.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Leanne Jones, Paula Stewart, Donna Ray Coleman, Christine Heaney, Laura Hall, Lucy Graham, Dan Pendleton, Jack Spencer, Lee Burnitt, Shaun Roberts, Bradley Thompson, Alex Clark, Tom Nevitt.
Tell Tale Theatre have already carved out a growing reputation as a production company that doesn’t adhere to the norm, the cosy or thankfully the easy to do. Their production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a glowing testament to that fact, and where angels fear to tread, where other’s might find the ever growing trickle of sweat just too much to bear, Tell Tale Theatre wrack up the pressure on themselves another notch and produce an amazing piece of choreographed art, full of absurdity, lots of insanity and above all tale of what can happen to us all if left alone in the dark too long.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Tony Irwin, Christine Heaney, Sally Fildes-Moss, Kevin Foott, Jack Spencer, Sophie O’Shea, Donna Ray Coleman, Dan Pendleton, Lee Burnitt, Shaun Roberts, Leanne Jones, Paula Stewart, Meera Bala, Alex Clark, Bradley Thompson, Sophie Kirby.
Within 12 months Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, arguably one of the towering stage works of the 20th Century, has been performed in Liverpool by two amateur dramatic companies. In both cases the play that has been seen by audiences has left them spellbound and lost for words. This particular version by Tell-Tale Theatre at the Static Gallery and Directed by Emma Whitley and produced by Leanne Jones is without doubt the finest production possibly seen on either side of the Atlantic in decades and something that the playwright would have salivated over and found disturbingly majestic.
The Crucible is arguably one of the crowning glories of 20th Century theatre, a play so powerful that the parallels it drew on one of the sickening acts in American history, the show trials conducted by Senator McCarthy in an attempt to goad the decent people of the country in to believing that everyone, neighbour, friend, lover was part of a Communist conspiracy, was too big to ignore. Bringing together the fear and jealousy of one era, a harsh time dominated by religion and comparing the post Second World War American dogma was a piece of genius that only Arthur Miller could have done and written so incredibly well.