Curtain up

When he arrived to run the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2012, Leeds native James Brining promised several things.

He promised that the theatre would connect with the city in which it sits and he promised bold and ambitious work for the stages of the theatre of which he took charge. In the newly announced Autumn and Winter 2017 season, launched this week, Brining delivers on those promises.

A celebration of Leeds Carnival in its 50th year, a first time collaboration with BBC Radio Leeds and the most structurally demanding production the Playhouse has seen in its 27 years all help to make Autumn 2017 one of the most striking seasons the theatre has seen in some time.

To the last in that list, first: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Long time supporters of the Leeds theatre will be forgiven for thinking they are experiencing déjà vu. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Yes, it was the title of the big Christmas show for the Playhouse in 2004 and then three years later in 2007.

Why is it being restaged as the big Christmas show this year?

Well, for several very good reasons.

Chief among those reasons is Sally Cookson. The Olivier award nominated director is one of British theatre’s hottest properties right now. Thanks to her staging of the classic movie La Strada, which has taken in theatres across the country including the West Yorkshire Playhouse and her adaptation of Jane Eyre currently touring from the National Theatre around the UK, she is hugely in demand. In truth, it’s something of a coup that the Playhouse has managed to get her. She will be at the helm of the new version of the C S Lewis classic story and that is a serious reason to be cheerful.

What will her production look like? No one knows, least of all Cookson, whose modus operandi is to go into a rehearsal room with a group of actors and simply throw ideas at the wall to see what sticks. It’s known in theatrical circles as devising and it is one of the strongest ways to create magic – and Cookson is a magician par excellence.

She, however, is only one of several reasons why this production will be so hotly anticipated: there’s also the fact that this will be the first co-production by Elliott and Harper, a new theatre production company led by the War Horse director Marianne Elliott. Then there’s the really big reason: it marks the first time the 27-year-old theatre has staged a piece in the round. What this means is that the Quarry theatre, the vast space that holds the Playhouse’s main productions, will have seats all the way around with the playing space in the middle. The reconfiguration will see audience sitting in banked seating where the stage currently sits and an increased capacity to over 1,000 seats.

At the launch of the season, held on the stage of the Quarry, a visibly excited Brining announced that it will be like turning the theatre into the shape of Headingley stadium with seats on 360 degrees around the stage.

Suzi Cubbage, the head of productions at the Playhouse and the woman in charge of turning the Quarry theatre into a cauldron of drama declared it the ‘most ambitious thing we’ve ever attempted’. I can tell you now, it is going to be spectacular.

Speaking of which, those at the launch of the season were also treated to an impromptu performance by Jenny Sealey, the artistic director of Graeae Theatre company, talking about the show her company will be adding to the season, Reasons to be Cheerful.

Although all she did was speak about the production, when Sealey speaks it always feels like a performance. The woman who directed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics, Sealey is a force of nature and spoke passionately about Reasons to be Cheerful, which visits the theatre in October and celebrates the infectious music of Ian Dury and the Blockheads. In a continuation of the move in British theatre to integrate disabled and non-disabled performers, it will feature innovations such as audio description taking place via an 
on-stage old-fashioned payphone.

It will clearly also bring some of the trademark anarchy of Sealey to the stage. At the end of August Leeds will come alive with the incredible sights and sounds of the Leeds West Indian Carnival as the event celebrates its 50th birthday. Brining has always said that he wants the city to bleed into his theatre and Queen of Chapeltown, directed by the theatre’s newly appointed associate director Amy Leach, will help continue the relationship between the theatre and its city, celebrating one of Leeds’s major cultural events.

Written by Colin Grant the play will be a snapshot documenting the creation of this Leeds event that has become internationally renowned. It will also mark a culmination of events at the Playhouse celebrating Carnival, including the hosting of the Carnival King and Queen coronation on August 25.

Brining himself will be at the helm of (the fall of) The Master Builder. A reimagining of Ibsen’s classic drama, director Brining will team with the Playhouse associate artist Reece Dinsdale, who was seen in the theatre as Alan Bennett and Richard III.

The season also features the return of Kneehigh, always a welcome sight, the world premiere of Pink Sari Revolution from Suba Das, a play about the incredible women of India’s Gulabi Gang, and that collaboration between BBC Radio Leeds and the Playhouse, a play called Partition being written by yours truly, about which you’ll be able to read more in next week’s Culture.

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Furnace Festival, September 11 to 23: Always thrilling to see new work emerging. Ones not to miss include RashDash’s Two Man Show and beatboxer Testament with his rap show about feminism, Woke.

Crumble’s Search For Christmas, November 29-December 30. The Playhouse has staged some beautiful Christmas shows for children in recent years. This will continue the tradition.

(the fall of) The Master Builder, September 30 to October 21. Reece Dinsdale, Ibsen, writer Zinnie Harris and Brining: a heady combination.

Tickets www.wyp.org.uk