Results tagged “empire” from Liverpool Echo - Culture Chat

Bill Kenwright's new touring version of Whistle Down the Wind (the musical) opened at the Empire this week and I popped along to review it last night.
I'd meant to re-watch the classic Hayley Mills/Alan Bates film before I went, but I was pleased that I hadn't in the end because it may have confused the issue.

So Phill Jupitus will be stepping into Edna Turnblad's shoes (and fat suit) when Hairspray arrives in Liverpool in August.
It was likely to be either the Buzzcocks team captain, currently doing duty in the West End production of Hairspray, or Brian Conley who is also deputising for Michael Ball at some venues on tour.
Still, it's also great news that our own Les Dennis is set to appear alongside all three as Edna's loveable but crazy hubby Wilbur.
He told me at Christmas that he was in talks with Michael Ball about a possible role in the show, and now it's official. It will also be Les's third visit to the Empire this year as he's also in High School Musical 2 which is in town from February 1 for a week.

Some may think he looks far too angelic and baby-faced to play a dangerous fugitive, but that's just what Jonathan Ansell will be doing when he arrives at the Empire next week.
The former G4 singer is taking on the role played by Alan Bates in the 1961 film, but this time in a full-blown musical version penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Well we know he's not fond of some of the comments made about his partner's dancing on Strictly.
But "bad boy of ballroom" Brendan Cole has asked to be judged kindly for his singing when he comes to the Empire with his "Live and Unjudged" tour next week.

THE Echo's Winkler Watch - where readers call or email in with their sightings of the Happy Days star - has got a namecheck in the New York Times.
The American paper did an intereview with our own Captain Hook - very amusing to see how panto is explained to non-Brits.

Natasha Hamilton has revealed that learning her swashbuckling swordfights with Henry "Captain Hook" Winkler has been great fun - but potentially rather painful.
I caught up with the 27-year-old at the Empire yesterday to talk about how pregnancy has grounded her from any flying scenes.

Liverpool comedian John Bishop's star really is in the ascent.
In fact the 43-year-old (happy birthday for today John!) barely seems to be off the telly recently - and there's another Bishop offering on the way.

Henry Winkler - how lovely is he?
The Fonz (as we can't help but call him in this office) has taken to life in Liverpool like a duck to water, shopping for groceries in Sainsbury and chatting to all and sundry in the street.

A somewhat alarming - quite literally as it happens - night out at the ballet last night.
All was well in the English National Ballet's super production of Giselle (professed by many to be their favourite ballet) until the start of the second act.

Verdi's celebrated La Traviata tells the tragic tale of the doomed love affair between the boyish Alfredo and the consumptive courtesan Violetta.
But who would have thought so many members of the audience at the Empire last night would have come out in sympathy with the 'dying' heroine?

Where and when did you do your first Time Warp? In the theatre? At a party? In the privacy of your own front room after a couple of glasses?
I remember (as the song goes) buying the Rocky Horror Picture Show LP when I was in Oxford on a snowy December day trying (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to win a place at university there.

You wait for one Strictly show - and then FOUR come along, if not together than in fairly close succession.
Merseyside fans of the BBC Saturday night dance extravaganza will be spoilt for choice come the new year as nearly every Strictly Come Dancing star will descend on the city.

Tenor Alfie Boe can't wait to get back to Liverpool to appear in the Welsh National Opera's new production of La Traviata.
Because not only is the singing star a big fan of the city (he told me if he moved back to the north west it would be to Liverpool), but he's a big BIG fan of LFC too.

There was an atmosphere, as I've said in my review today, somewhere between Anfield and a performance of Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels at the Empire last night.
And it was particularly charged because some of the heroes of Liverpool's 2005 win in Istanbul - Stevie Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Rafa Benitez - were in the audience for the opening night of One Night in Istanbul.