This week's news from the Coliseum...

After our period of annual maintenance we’re getting back into the swing of things this week, the cast arrived on Monday to start rehearsals for Deathtrap. It can be a little like the first day at school – some of them know each other, most have worked here before, although Russell Richardson who is playing lawyer Porter Milgram is completely new to the Coliseum, but you may recognise him from his many appearances at Bolton Octagon. Regular attenders to the Coliseum will recognise Helen Kay who performed in Absurd Person Singular and One for the Road and Roberta Kerr who was more recently in Blithe Spirit and Quartet. Steven Pinder, who lots of you will recognise as Max Farnham from Brookside, returns after a great performance in our production of Absent Friends. Most of the cast are locally based and regularly attend our performances and they know all about the Coliseum, its atmosphere and its audiences. Andrew Cullimore who plays Clifford has worked at the Coliseum before on rehearsed readings and our writing festival Wordsmith but will be treading the boards on our main stage for the first time this September.

Steven Pinder (front, left) in Absent Friends 2010

On the first day of rehearsals staff from all departments came down to the rehearsal room for a quick meet and greet. The play’s designer talked through a scaled set model – Deathtrap is set in a converted barn with the walls adorned with guns, handcuffs, maces and battle-axes so – as you can imagine – the model looked really impressive. I can’t wait to see it on the main stage. He also showed us all his costume designs. Both the set model and the costume designs give a genuine impression of what the production will eventually look like – although most of the cast are mainly interested in what they’ll be wearing! Next we had the first read through of the script. This was the first time the cast had all been in the same room and we started to get the words off the page and the play on its feet.

Deathtrap is a classic thriller and there’s a great amount of comedy thrown in as well as surprises. This is a fantastic play to work on and it’s been a while since we had a thriller here. The production is fast-paced which will keep the audience guessing right up until the last scene - just when they think they might have it sussed out, another twist comes out of nowhere. As a director I need to make sure the shocks really do shock, there’s a moment when I can guarantee you’ll jump out of your seats…but I can’t anything away!
See you at the theatre,

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director