“MY songs couldn’t be in better hands,” says Bob Dylan, of the West End and Broadway hit musical that boldly reimagines his legendary music as you’ve never heard it before.
Girl From The North Country, coming to Bradford’s Alhambra from November 29 to December 3, is written and directed by Irish playwright Conor McPherson, with music and lyrics by Dylan. Set in 1934 in the heartland of America, it’s an uplifting, universal story about family and love. In a time-weathered guesthouse, a group of wayward souls cross paths at a turning point in their lives. As they search for a future, and hide from the past, they face unspoken truths about the present.
On a shelf in Conor McPherson’s cluttered Dublin office is a large gift box of Bob Dylan albums. It was this package, of more than 60 discs, that Dylan’s management company sent when the multi award-winning writer/director came on board for the project that became Girl from the North Country. The gentle but powerful study of family and poverty, love and loss, opened in London in 2017, to critical acclaim. It’s set in a down-on-its-luck boarding-house in Dylan’s home-town of Duluth, Minnesota, when the Great Depression is biting hard. The stories of this ensemble of drifters and dreamers are intertwined with more than Dylan 20 songs.
Conor says the show’s appeal is down to the “universality of Dylan’s music, which is loved all over the world. He manages to distil his subjective experience into something people relate to. It has the strange, odd contrariness of people’s real thoughts”.
His aim with the show has been to pack the cast with performers who “move the air when they come on” and wants the audience to take away with them “a feeling of the mystery of life as they understand it”.
The setting came to Conor while he was walking beside the sea where he lives. “The Depression era is a time that continues to resonate with us,” says Conor. “We all wonder how we would cope when the chips are down, because that’s who we really are. When all the distractions of modern life are stripped away, people think, ‘How strong am I?’ The truth is that humans are very resilient and we don’t need a lot of what we think we need. That’s a good thing to know.”
It’s not hard to spot the similarities between this and the recent lockdown times. How did he fare? “I think it depends what age you were when lockdown happened,” he says. “I’m 50 now and am old enough to know that I have the resourcefulness to get through something. Playwriting is a very up and down career, so I think I’ve discovered that although life is short, we take the long view. You have to.”
He has never actually met Dylan: “We’ve only ever communicated through his management and have never spoken directly. We’ve had a lovely artistic correspondence.”
He has nothing but praise for the creative free rein Dylan has given him, leaving the writer to select songs he wanted to include in the show. “I didn’t have any preconceptions. I listened to everything and thought I’d see what spoke to me. The ones I latched onto I brought in. It had to be that kind of instinctive, personal feeling.”
How many times has Bob Dylan seen it? Conor smiles: “He’s such a mysterious person. He claims he’s seen it a few times. I know that he saw it in New York in 2018 and spoke to our cast afterwards. He snuck in and sat up the back with a hoodie on. I think he nips in and out and doesn’t make too much of a fuss.”
* OVER at Bradford Playhouse, six brave men are about to reveal all... “Drop everything to see this show”, says David Ayres, director of this Broadway musical adaptation of hit 1997 film The Full Monty.
Running at Bradford Playhouse from November 9-12, it follows out-of-work pals Jerry Lukowski (Darren Ryder) and Dave Bukatinski (Ric Neild) as they devise a plan to become strippers to earn some cash after being made redundant from a Buffalo steel mill. The pair are joined by friends and colleagues Malcolm (Jonnie Taylor), Harold (Paul Forsberg) Horse (Ben Reilly-Cunningham), and Ethan (Fen Greatley-Hirsch), and together the six men dare to go where no Chippendale has gone before...the Full Monty.
“This really will be a hilarious and entertaining night out,” says David. “It has everything from comedy to raw emotion, hilarious stripping scenes unlike any you’ve seen before, plus six men baring their all at the climax of the show. And with the new Full Monty TV series currently in production, it felt like a great time to bring this amazing story to the Bradford Playhouse.
“We want audiences to get involved, and make a real event out of it. We have an amazing cast and crew, an outstanding set and a live band. Massive credit goes to the six gents who have put themselves on the line to leave nothing to the imagination.” For tickets go to bradfordplayhouse.org.uk
* WEETON & Huby Players are staging JB Priestley classic When We Are Married for their centenary production. And as the nation adapts to a new monarch, WHP will maintain the tradition of plying the National Anthem before each performance, just as it has been since 1922.
The Players’ first production was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Since then, with a few interruptions along the way - including the war years and Covid restrictions - WHP has staged one or two plays a year. When We Are Married, their 137th production, is at Almscliffe Hall. Huby, November 17-19.
Says chairman Neil Muffitt: “JB Priestley takes a swipe at the pomposity of Edwardian society as three stalwarts of a local chapel celebrate their joint silver wedding, only to discover they were not actually married at all. It’s a cast of strong characters, a joy for the actors. We have recruited new faces on stage and behind the scenes to mark our centenary in style.”
Directed by Alison Muffitt, the play features Pauline Moulsdale, Heather Goring, Chris Holland, Neil Muffitt, Nick Moulsdale, Tim and Wendy Bennett, Alice Rowbottom, Andy Nichols, Clover Weiderman, Jo Butler, Kate Charters and Paul Edgar. Call (01423) 734871 or 07710 342054.
* FROM Love Me Do to Let it Be, the Bootleg Beatles pay tribute to the remarkable legacy of the Fab Four. On December 9 they return to St George’s Hall with a tour featuring a special set marking the 60th anniversary of the Please Please Me album.
The “world’s premier Beatles band” takes audiences on a whistle-stop Magical Mystery tour, with every vocal inflection and witty Beatle quip meticulously studied.
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