Thriller Live is essentially a Michael Jackson concert through his back catalog of work spanning a staggering  4 decades, a real must for any fan!  This musical anthology begins with Jackson’s early years as a child, beautifully sang by child sensation Tyler McLean who belts out the early Jackson Five classics, along with his ‘brothers’ , with a voice both fragile and powerful the resemblance was astounding.

Shying away from a tribute act the vocals are provided by six very different singers who all bring a certain magic to  to show. For me, much as all the singers were fantastic and of course worth mention for their talent, Ian Pitter, Nathan James, Dwayne Wint, it was Samantha Johnson, who combines attitude with a powerhouse voice to some of Jackson’s best loved tracks from my era, that stole  the latter part of the show for me. The choreography and costume bring the show to life, and paints a picture of the changing time as the decades and music roll on

It is a great night out, full of fabulous hits played to by a very talented band and with great high octane  dance moves, a supremely talented cast and great visual effects, a must for all Jackson Fans

Did you know that Bristol has one of the most prestigious, successful and well respected graduate theatre schools in the country, whose alumni regularly grace TV and film screens, theatre boards and radio plays nationally and internationally? It has been a bit of a standing joke in the school that the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School is one of Bristol’s best kept secrets, despite garnering huge acclaim around the world. Thankfully, that is changing, and so it should. With graduates like Jeremy Irons, Pete Postlethwaite, Helen Baxendale, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gene Wilder and Sir Patrick Stewart, this home-grown Bristol establishment deserves to be held aloft as one of the jewels of this city.

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In each issue of Suit Yourself, Creative File goes behind-the-scenes to talk with Bristol creatives in their own working space. Zuleika Gregory is a seriously multi-talented woman working here in Bristol involved in aerial, theatre, performance and design. We caught up with her at her home workspace in Montpelier.

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Friday 27th January until Saturday 5th March 2011 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

Faith Healer is a fantastically crafted piece of drama, one which explores the power of story telling and the Chinese Whispers effects it can have upon each individual. It is a collection of unreliable monologues from a very tragic and slightly secretive ‘love’ triangle. Frank Hardy the ‘Faith Healer’, Teddy his manager/best friend, and Grace, Frank’s beloved and estranged wife, each reflect upon that one drunken night inside a Ballebeg pub and the events leading up to it.

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Tuesday 11th until Saturday 29th January 2011 @ The Brewery, Tobacco Factory Theatre, Bristol

Written, well just about, in 1953 by the late and great Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood was first conceived as a play for voices. Since its rather eloquent first words on the BBC it has walked miles, crossing TV and theatre stages on its way and still remains an ambitious text to adapt. Splice Productions rise to the challenge and present their audience with an interpretation which stays true to Dylan’s original play while also showing just how original and imaginative they are.

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Wednesday 8th December 2010 until Sunday 16th January 2011 @ Tobacco Factory Theatre, Bristol

We are all too familiar with the sweet tale of the puppet boy, Pinocchio. With the famous Disney version dominating the original heritage of the fairytale, we forget about the origin of such a now commercial tale. Originally a creation of Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio has transformed into a rather grand topic in popular culture, maybe because of his ever growing nose or his foolish reformations, all the same, the wooden hip hopper has now found himself stringed to the walls of the Tobacco Factory for their annual Christmas show.

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Wednesday 1st December 2010 until Saturday 15th January 2011 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

I never read Swallows And Amazons as a child. Growing up as I did on a dense diet of vivacious adventure stories however, it seems incredible that I could have missed such a classic childhood text, Arthur Ransome’s famous book being universally popular since its first publication in 1930. This Christmas at the Bristol Old Vic the story has been given renewed energy as it is reborn for the stage and I am delighted to report that the life, excitement, beauty and sheer good fun of the source has transferred superbly.

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SY’s Agony Aunt answers your questions…

1 - How old do you have to be before it’s uncool to still get Christmas stockings from your parents?
It’s never too old to get Christmas stockings from your parents. When you’re dying for a wank at the end of Christmas Day, there is nothing better than spuffing your load and using your stockings to mop up the mess.

2 - How do I make my housemate do her share of the housework? It’s a nightmare!
Have a meeting with her and draw up a rota. Hopefully she’ll be overly impressed with your organisational skills and offer to suck you off.
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Sunday 24th until Wednesday 27th November 2010 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

The tragic story of Jason And Medea is a textbook piece of Greek mythology. It is a tale of love and hate with a strong current of power and inequality waving about throughout. Transposing this to the stage is an ambitious task for any theatre company let alone giving the myth a new slant, script and style. Cue the Bristol Old Vic Young Company present their audience with a Jason and Medea like no other.
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Every year around Christmas, just as much as we love stuffing our faces with cranberry sauce et al, watching abysmal TV, and humming along to tacky songs in supermarket queues, there’s another festive tradition that’s more fun than most – a trip to the theatre! Whether you’ve got kids, find usual stage productions too much of an effort, or are in fact a bit of a theatre junky, we all enjoy that extra special festive vibe that watching a Christmas show with friends and family can provide. Let’s see what the stages of Bristol have in store for us all in December 2010 then:

Tobacco Factory Theatre – The Adventures of Pinocchio
The team behind 2008’s A Christmas Carol are back with the classic story of Pinocchio. Geppetto the Italian carpenter carves a block of wood into a puppet who will be the son he has always wanted but Pinocchio runs away on an epic voyage of discovery to become a real boy.
www.tobaccofactorytheatre.com

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