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Showing posts with the label Joseph Atkins

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The Green, Green Grass of Home: Mr Jones An Aberfan Story - Finborough Theatre

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A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales.  The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town.  Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...

Sing from the heart: Liza Pulman - The Heart of It @riversidelondon

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Liza Pulman is on this week at the Riverside Studios . It’s in keeping with the series of shows that we should have seen two years ago or things that we should have been doing two years ago (if it weren’t for that pesky global pandemic). Her show is called The Heart of It , and there’s a lot of heart in it. Watching Pulman sing a series of classic and perhaps overlooked songs of the past feels like we’re all picking up where we left off. The songs she sings are part of a timeless series of classic standards by the likes of Irving Berlin and Fats Waller. Songs about love, loss and revelation all fit into the category of easy listening, and with her sublime vocals, they are easy on the ear. And they may not be songs for the young, but they are songs for the young at heart. Liza Pulman comes from a show business family. Her father was screenwriter Jack Pulman, and her mother was an actress. Growing up, she sang in a close harmony duo with her sister. She would then train as an opera singe...