Tag: Melting Pot

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The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time to play Grand Opera House in October with teenager Chris now female

The full cast for Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s tour of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, playing Grand Opera House, York, from October 27 to 31

ALEX Keenan and Imi Price will become the first women to portray fearful yet fearless teenager Chris Boone in Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep’s bold new interpretation of The Curious Incident In The Night-Time, booked into the Grand Opera House, York, for October 27 to 31.

Directed by Ned Bennett, this fresh perspective on one of contemporary theatre’s most iconic characters will honour the heart of the original story while inviting audiences to experience Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel through a new lens.

The story combines the intrigue of a whodunit with a coming-of-age story, wherein 15-year-old schoolgirl Chris Boone is gifted with a brilliant mind for numbers but is unsettled by the unpredictability of people and everyday life, distrusting strangers deeply, never venturing alone beyond the end of her road.

Novelist Haddon never called Chris autistic or attributed Asperger Syndrome to the character, but she does not like to be touched, is incapable of lying, can count binary numbers to infinity and has powers of logic beyond conventional reasoning or normal patterns of behaviour.

When a neighbour’s dog is discovered killed, Chris comes under suspicion. Determined to prove her innocence, Chris becomes both detective and suspect, drawn into a mystery that grows darker and more complex with every clue uncovered.

Charlie Brooks as Teresa Phillips in her York debut at the Grand Opera House in 2017 in Alan Ayckbourn’s How The Other Half Loves

What begins as the search for a culprit soon reveals secrets closer to home, forcing Chris to confront truths that will test her courage, family and understanding of trust, independence and the wider world.

Keenan and Price will alternate the lead role on tour, joined by Charlie Brooks and Joe McFadden as Chris’s parents Ed and Judy.

Brooks is best known for her long-running soap opera role since 1999 as wildcat Janine Butcher, caught up in cocaine addiction, murder and prostitution in EastEnders. Rumours began yesterday that Janine is to return after four years [on release from prison] for “two explosive episodes in the autumn”.

Brooks made her York debut in October 2017 in Alan Strachan’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1969 comedy of matrimonial mishaps How The Other Half Loves, playing Teresa Phillips on tour at the Grand Opera House. “Teresa is fiery and strong, like Janine, but I think the similarities end there,” she said at the time.

McFadden has appeared in the BBC’s The Crow Road and Holby City and ITV’s Heartbeat and was the 2017 Strictly Come Dancing Glitterball winner to boot. He played film director Jason in the Original Theatre Company’s production of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d at York Theatre Royal in October 2022 and was last seen on a Yorkshire stage as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption at Leeds Grand Theatre in May this year.

Joe McFadden’s Jason, the film director, in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d at York Theatre Royal in October 2022, playing opposite Sophie Ward

Completing the ‘Curious Incident’ cast will be Bridgette Amofah as Siobhan; Alex Murdochas Mrs Alexander/Posh Woman/Voice One; Matthew Bulgo as Roger (Mr Shears)/Duty Sergeant/Voice Two/Mr Wise/Man Behind Counter/Drunk One and Jerone Marsh Reid as Mr Thompson/Man with Socks/London Policeman/Voice Three.

Carla Garratt will play Punk Girl/No. 40/Voice Five/Information; Tom Clegg, Reverend Peters/Uncle Terry/Voice Four/Station Policeman/Station Guard; Robert Penny, Voice Seven, and Sera Mustafa, Mrs Gascoyne/Woman on Train/Shopkeeper/Police Officer One/Voice 6. All will perform ensemble roles too.

Alongside Ned Bennett in the production team will be set & costume designer Eleanor Bull; lighting designer Laura Howard; composer & sound designer Giles Thomas; video designer Hayley Egan; movement director Jenni Jackson; costume supervisor  Izzy Pellow; props supervisor Eve Hall; casting director Abby Galvin and associate director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour.

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2012 and has been seen globally by more than five million people. The National Theatre’s inaugural tour visited the Grand Opera House, York, in January 2015. York company Pick Me Up Theatre staged the play in April 2025 at Theatre@41, Monkgate.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Andrew Isherwood’s production of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, in April 2025

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REVIEW: Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, Grand Opera House, York ***

Tom Chambers: Putting the morose into Chief Inspector Morse in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Picture:

THIS is Re-Morse, a new staging of Alma Cullen’s Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, the first Morse stage play.

Taken on a small tour in 2010 and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in a 90-minute version in March 2017, it returns for a nationwide tour on a grander scale, mounted by Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep, with a cast led by 2008 Strictly champ Tom Chambers as Morse and Tachia Newall – Macbeth in Amy Leach’s Macbeth at Leeds Playhouse in 2022 – as Lewis in the detective double act.

Cullen wrote more than a handful of episodes for the television series that ran from 1987 to 2000, based on Colin Dexter’s books. House Of Ghosts is an original story, set as ever in Oxford, in 1987, although Colin Richmond’s functional set design does not evoke the city of dreaming spires, typified by the Crown pub being represented by two men – Morse and Lewis – leaning on a bar in Alas Smith And Jones mode.

Cullen’s play mirrors both the two-hour span of each TV episode and the familiar structure of short scenes, while adding a theatrical element by rooting the play in a production of Hamlet. Or, rather, two productions, one warming up for a London run at the Oxford Playhouse in 1987; the other, a student production in 1962 with the same director in his gilded youth and Morse forever in the background in a bit-part.

Detective double act: Tachia Newall’s Lewis, left, and Tom Chambers’ Morse in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Picture: Johan Persson

This is the House Of Ghosts, a reference both to figures re-emerging from Morse’s academic past and to the significance of ghosts [Hamlet’s father] in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Cullen’s play opens with Spin Glancy’s Justin, already highly strung and later prone to putting powders up his nose, putting too much ham into a Hamlet monologue. Enter young actress of her generation Rebecca Downey’s Ophelia (Eliza Teale), who suddenly drops dead, blood spewing from her mouth. This is not Ophelia’s usual death by drowning, but death for real, alas poor Rebecca.

Chambers’ Morse, taking on the John Thaw mantle in the year Thaw first played him, happens to be in the audience, bringing the performance and production run to a halt, much to the ire of Lawrence Baxter (Robert Mountford), the vainglorious, uncompromising director in desperate need of a hit.

Into the web of intrigue Cullen spins not only the reckless, crushing Lawrence from Morse’s student past, but also the now dipso actress Verity (Charlotte Randle) and university historian Ellen (Teresa Banham), one of Morse’s unrequited loves from his salad days.

Re-appearing too is Paul Kincaid (Mountford, part two), once the doyen of Oxford student actors and Baxter’s rival in bed-post conquests, but now answering God’s calling as a Monsignor (who takes Rebecca’s funeral at the outset of the superior Act Two).

Stoking up old history: University historian Ellen (Teresa Banham) and Inspector Morse (Tom Chambers) in Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts. Picture: Johan Persson

Glancy’s Justin and James Gladdon’s “piece of north eastern rough”, Freddy, the uppity Laertes to his flaky Hamlet, are at odds with each other both on and off stage. Enter the fray Lawrence’s wife Harriet (Olivia Onyehara, from the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s The 39 Steps and Pilot Theatre/Northern Stage’s A Song For Ella Grey), pre-occupied with IVF treatment in London.

The plot thickens, revelations pile up, not least of Baxter’s practice of bedding his leading lady pre-show to bring out the best performance, but House Of Ghosts does not hold a candle to the TV series, and some of the acting under the normally reliable Anthony Banks’s direction is surprisingly histrionic. The sozzled meltdown of Randle’s Verity at the Crown, however, is a comic gem.

Act Two is much more sure-footed, not least in the partnership of Chambers, bringing the morose to loner Morse with a frown worthy of Thaw, and Newall’s matter-of-fact, diligent Sergeant Lewis, craving a night in alone with his wife.

Revisiting an old favourite is not always a good idea, and in truth Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts induced a feeling or remorse in your reviewer.

Melting Pot and Birmingham Rep present Inspector Morse: House Of Ghosts, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: atgtickets.com/york