A new UK tour of musical Judy & Liza opens for a week-long run at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre (May 28-June 2), ahead of visits to Wales, Runcorn, the North East, New Brighton, Leeds and venues wider afield. Charting the careers and relationship between Hollywood mother and daughter Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, the production tells the turbulent tale of the stars against the backdrop of their infamous 1964 London Palladium concert, an emotional rollercoaster as they reveal the uncanny parallels between some of their most iconic songs and their personal lives. The show is created and written by Emma Dears, who also plays Liza. Liverpool-born Emma’s acting career began when she was nine, touring the UK in the title role of Annie. Her West End roles have included Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Oliver. Helen Sheals - widely known for her roles in Coronation Street and Downton Abbey - is no stranger to portraying Judy Garland, having previously played the title role in the West End musical Judy!. Her extensive theatre includes Merry Wives and King Lear for Northern Broadsides; The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Shirley Valentine, as well as many TV roles. Producer Bill Elms said: “It’s a show very close to my heart; I worked on the first run 12 years ago. We can promise audiences an entertaining and memorable experience with some fantastic music." “The show is full of love, heartache and passion," said Emma. "Helen and I have worked to make sure we get every tiny detail right." More info and tickets here

Liverpool's Everyman Theatre will celebrate its birthday year with a revival of Willy Russell’s mega-hit Shirley Valentine (March 1-29, 2025), featuring Liverpool actress Helen Carter as Shirley. At 42, Shirley's zest for life is missing; she has an empty nest, an emotionally-distant husband and only "the wall" for company. When her best friend offers the trip of a lifetime to Greece, Shirley jumps at the chance to go... Originally commissioned and staged by the theatre in 1986, the play is now one of the most successful one-woman plays and films ever staged. Announcing the news, Willy Russell said: “I’m delighted to be back at the Everyman, a theatre that holds a special place in my heart. As it has done for so many writers, actors and directors in its 60-year history, the Everyman gave me my first opportunities as a writer. "I can’t wait to work on bringing the play back home and seeing Shirley on the boards on which she was born”. Willy Russell is one of the most celebrated and widely-produced writers of his generation, with works regularly seen across the globe. He has had a long association with the Everyman, which staged his breakthrough play John Paul George Ringo… & Bert in 1974, which transferred to the West End and won several awards. Further stage plays at the Everyman have included Breezeblock Park (1975) and Stags and Hens (1978). After huge international success with Blood Brothers and Educating Rita, Russell returned to the Everyman in 1986 to write Shirley Valentine. Originally commissioned by the Everyman for the theatre’s 21st birthday by artistic director Glen Walford, Shirley Valentine opened with Noreen Kershaw in the title role and Glen directing. The show enjoyed huge success and an extended run. Playing Shirley for the celebratory production, Helen Carter has several stage credits at the Everyman and Playhouse, including The Flint Street Nativity, Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi, No Wise Men, The Star, A Christmas Carol and Dead Heavy Fantastic. She most recently appeared at Liverpool’s Royal Court in Boys from the Blackstuff, soon to be seen at the National Theatre. Director Stephen Fletcher has also worked extensively at the Royal Court as a writer and director. He has performed in three of Willy Russell's plays, Breezeblock Park, Our Day Out and Stags and Hens and alongside Helen in The Last 5 Years and Dead Heavy Fantastic. Theatre CEEO Mark Da Vanzo said: “Bringing Willy’s celebrated Shirley home is the perfect end to our 60th birthday year. It’s a huge honour for us all to be working again with Willy and a wonderful opportunity to celebrate not just the Everyman’s past but look confidently to its future as well”. Tickets for the show go on general sale from noon on May 1, priority booking from April 26. More info here

A show filled with original stories from the lives of older people returns to Leeds Playhouse this week. The Performance Ensemble developed Sinfonia as part of 1001 Stories, a festival that celebrated age and ageing at the Playhouse for LEEDS 2023, the Year of Culture. Directed by Alan Lyddiard, the 2024 production, at Leeds Playhouse's Courtyard Theatre on April 26-27, features new stories and performers in a more intimate show that will be performed in Leeds, Doncaster and Barrow. Local performers will share tales of activism and politics, love and family, told by the generation that pioneered punk, fronted marches and invented the internet. Alan Lyddiard, who is the company's artistic director, said: “We’ve been creating high quality performances with people aged over 60 for years now, giving a voice to generations that have been forgotten. These people have full lives and experiences worth sharing and we are revealing and celebrating them in new, beautiful and emotive ways.” The ensemble has just become an Arts council England National Portfolio Organisation, which neans it is guaranteed national funding. "We want to say life doesn’t stop as you get older," said Alan, who himself is 73. "In becoming an NPO we have been able to offer 12 new roles in the company to people usually closer to considering retirement; each of them bringing a lifetime of expertise and enthusiasm.” More info here

Know your theatre: Theatre architect Frank Matcham's masterpiece sits on a windy street back from the prom, on an awkward corner site that was once a circus. Built between December 1893 and July 1894 at a cost of £20,000, today it is known as "Matcham’s masterpiece", a glorious, Grade II* listed, 1,100-seater four-level wonder of ornate gilded plasterwork. The Grand is one of several Matcham masterpieces, but for Blackpool he was asked to design “the prettiest theatre in the land”. There might be arguments about that (Matcham's Buxton Opera House anyone?), but as well as being beautiful it had innovations such as cantilevered tiers, which needed fewer pillars and offered unobstructed views. The theatre had been successful until the 1930s, but then faced competition from talking pictures. Outside summer seasons it also had to operate as a cinema. The vast, nearby Opera House in 1938, and later the arrival of TV, put the theatre into financial decline. Popular summer farces in the 50s and 60s couldn’t sustain it year-round, but thanks to Jeffrey Finestone of the Victorian Society, it was listed as Grade II* in 1972 and demolition plans proposed months later were rejected. After tortuous negotiations and time as a bingo hall, the Friends of the Grand, with Blackpool Council, bought the theatre in 1980 and it reopened with an Old Vic performance of The Merchant of Venice , with Timothy West and Prunella Scales. Vast amounts of fund-raising have produced a couple of major restorations since then, and the "Glorious Grand" is now the UK’s National Theatre of Variety, and Lancashire’s top touring-show theatre. Grand Theatre, Blackpool Address: 33 Church Street, Blackpool, FY1 1HT Phone: Box office 01253 290190. Theatre administration: 01253 290111 Facilities: As a late-Victorian theatre in a busy town, the Grand has the usual run of bars and a place for coffee and light snacks (Matcham Court Bar), but no restaurant. The theatre has relationships with a number of nearby chain restaurants, which sometimes offer deals on food for theatregoers. The theatre has baby-changing facilities and disabled loos (rear stalls). Assistance dogs are welcome. Parking: Online box office: The nearest car park to the Grand is West Street car park. The theatre offers a special parking ticket at this site only (£2.50, 5.30pm-12.30am, which is car park closing time), available only with a show ticket. Tickets can be purchased at the time of booking or on the evening at the box office. Go here and follow the booking route to your show choice

Know your theatre: Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool The Royal Court is the largest producing theatre in the Liverpool City Region, an historic art deco Grade II listed building, extensively modernised and refreshed. The theatre has developed its own unique style, producing eight plays a year, mostly comedies and musicals with a Liverpool theme, and a largely local cast and crew. Pre-show dining, cabaret-style stalls seating and a range of drinks are served before and after the show – a feature of a night out at the Court. The site has been at the heart of Liverpool culture for nearly 200 years, first as Cookes New Circus in 1826, renamed the Royal Court Theatre in 1881 but destroyed by fire in 1933. Rebuilt as an art deco showpiece, it reopened in 1938, with exemplary acoustics and sightlines and the largest revolve outside London. Astaire, Gielgud, Richardson, Olivier, Yul Brynner, Margot Fonteyn and Ken Dodd all appeared here; Judi Dench made her acting debut here in 1957 and is a patron of the theatre trust, having supported the £12m restoration campaign that over the past decade has created new foyer space, provided lifts to all parts, a 150-seat basement venue and new technical facilities, bars and toilets. Further improvements are still in the works. Address: 1 Roe Street, Liverpool, L1 1HL Phone: General inquiries: 0151 702 5890. Box office: 0151 709 4321 ​ ​ As we suggested above, a main feature of the 1,100-seat Royal Court is its auditorium layout. There are traditional seating rows in the circle and balcony, but cabaret-style seating in the stalls, at which meals are served for many of the shows (arrive an hour early minimum if you have ordered such). The Royal Court prides itself on its friendliness and social atmosphere, and apart from its local approach to theatre runs several groups, including a community choir, a playwriting group and even a gardening group to keep theatre planting tidy. There are extensive youth attractions too, including a youth theatre company. Facilities: Parking: Nearest parking is St Johns Shopping Centre car park which is £5.00 after 6pm for up to six hours. If not travelling by car, the theatre is close to Lime Street station and next to the Queen Square bus station. Timetables can be found here Online box office: Tickets can be bought online by finding the show here and following the links ​

Know your theatre: Contact Theatre, Manchester The most unusual-looking theatre building you’ll ever come across, Contact has undergone more radical changes of direction than your average performing arts organisation. Built as the performance space for Manchester University Drama Department, it was briefly used by the ‘69 Theatre Company before that became the Royal Exchange Theatre Company. In 1972 the building became home to the Manchester Young People’s Theatre, aka Contact, a sadly now little-remembered repertory company under the likes of Richard Williams, that presented many of Alan Bleasdale’s stage successes and gave young actors such as Mark Rylance and Rick Mayall early roles. The set-up later changed again to take Contact back to its young people's theatre roots, and a rebuild in 1999 produced the highly-distinctive current ventilation chimneys. Now fully open again after a £6.5m re-vamp in 2020, the emphasis is even more on young people doing it for themselves. Contact’s aim is to enable young people to change their lives through the arts as well as enabling audiences of all ages to experience new shows. Contact is the leading national theatre and arts venue to place young people at the decision-making heart of everything. Young people aged 13-30 lead the organisation, working alongside staff in deciding the artistic programme, making staff appointments and acting as full board members. Pic: Joel Chester Fildes Address: Contact Theatre, Devas Street, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6JA Phone: Box office 0161 274 0600 (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm), General inquiries 0161 274 0646. Facilities: This fascinating - not to say quirky - architectural edifice near the university has a main 320-seat auditorium (Space 1) and an 80-seat studio. The redevelopment has produced new performance spaces, a new recording studio, an arts and health development space, new offices for organisations to hire and a new café/bar. The work also contributed to the building's emphasis on sustainable development: Contact is reckoned to be in the top one per cent of the North West's most environmentally-friendly buildings. Parking: Contact doesn't have its own parking, but visitors can use the university car park, which is directly outside and subject to charges. Online box office: Go here and follow the booking route to your show choice