SHE may have been living in London for the past 30 years but Sunderland-born actress Melanie Hill still calls the North East home. Which is why she’s delighted to be back in the region in new play Nativities which launches at Live Theatre next Tuesday.Read
YOU just can’t keep a good show down. Since its 1983 debut, Willy Russell’s award-winner has been faithfully doing the rounds and, nearly 30 years on, fans could probably claim to know these brothers better than their own.Read
DIRECTOR Roman Polanski strips away the veneer of civility that supposedly separates man from beasts and reduces two well-to-do couples to snarling adversaries in this film version of the award-winning stage comedy God of Carnage.Read
GENTLEMEN don’t prefer blondes in this scabrous black comedy about a faded beauty queen who clings to the past to avoid acknowledging the loneliness and despair that hang over her like cheap perfume.Read
WITH great power comes great responsibility. Three high school students learn that harsh lesson in this low-budget sci-fi thriller, which imagines the catastrophic consequences for the pals when they are suddenly gifted incredible mental and physical skills.Read
AN ARTIST who created some of the defining album covers of the 70s – including Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon – will show off his greatest triumphs in a new solo exhibition.Read
TO many people, Simon Callow is the voice of Dickens. In his one-man stage shows the ebullient actor brings to life the stories, sweeping from Victorian sentimentality to galloping high drama, of Britain’s best-loved author.Read
GOOD things come to those who wait and it’s been an agonising seven years since writer-director Alexander Payne ventured to the sun-dappled vineyards of the quirky Oscar-winning comedy Sideways.Read
A GIANT flea nurtures a passion for music in this computer-animated fable that teaches us to never judge a wingless, blood-sucking parasite by its spiny legs or hairy abdomen.Read
THE Byker scrapyard fire, which was seen from more than 30 miles away as smoke billowed over the city last year, inspired a project which culminates this evening in a special event at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle.Read
Barbara Hodgson is an arts and entertainment writer who also contributes to our sister Culture magazine. She has worked in journalism for 18 years and has worked at ncjMedia for the last nine years.
