‘I would often get roles where I was a kid who was very angry, or where I was sassy or disobedient, rather than having positive attributes.’ From there, there was no stopping her, although for a lot of her early career, as she moved through her teenage years and into her 20s, she struggled against typecasting and racist stereotyping, she says. She then quickly found herself auditioning for professional productions, landing a role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down The Wind in the West End, aged seven. Hailing from London, Gabrielle ‘fell into’ performing from a young age, after her mum sent her to a Saturday drama club so she could channel her energies into something. Titanic star, known for one of the film's most heartbreaking scenes, dies aged 94 I think it’s been quite a healing experience for me to do this show, actually.’ ‘We live in a world that still doesn’t honour or respect women that look like me in the way they should. It’s not a subject that is explored very often on stage and screen, let alone within a musical, yet it should be, given how prevalent such prejudice remains, as Gabrielle points out. Those topics include, at the show’s core, colourism, with Daniel being a member of the country’s lighter-skinned, mixed-race elite, who look down upon darker-skinned people like Ti Moune. What compelled her to come aboard this production in particular, however, was the vision of director Ola Ince, who rather than creating a generalised Caribbean vibe, as in previous stagings, really wanted to pay attention to the specifics of Haiti’s history, culture and religion, as well as ‘lean into the hard-hitting topics’ the show addresses. Gabrielle says Once On This Island has resonated with her ever since she sang a song from it for a drama school assessment – ‘It’s one of the first shows I could see myself in because there weren’t many musicals that told a story through the Black gaze and specifically through the eyes of a dark-skinned Black woman.’ More info: Brooks received an Olivier nomination for her performance as Rita Marley in Get Up, Stand Up!(Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for SOLT) In conjunction with this production of Educating Rita, Manchester Metropolitan University and the British Theatre Consortium are running a brand new exhibition, The Spirit of Theatre, as a celebration of all things related to The Library Theatre Company. Whether you want my advice or not, you’re getting it go and see the play. For avid and sporadic theatre-goers alike, Educating Rita is a must see. It is abundantly clear that the play’s discerning director expertly guided these great actors through a funny, brilliantly written play, to the extent that I say with confidence this production is a real triumph. Here we have two actors who had clearly worked very hard to get through rehearsals, and it really, really showed. Any actor with the stamina and ability to tote a character in the palm of their hand for such a length of time on stage is made of stern stuff. Bretherton’s adroit portrayal of an impassioned alcoholic, at times paranoid and always lacking in self-esteem, was spot on.įor a two-hander, the performance was fairly long – around 115 minutes. As a discontented working class Liverpudlian hairdresser, the progression of her character through educational self-improvement was clear to see. Her portrayal of Rita confirmed my existing feeling that Kearney is a very fine actor indeed, with considerable versatility and savoir-faire. I’ve seen Kearney act before, in the BBC’s Casualty as well as in the Liverpool Everyman’s production of Macbeth. With Philip Bretherton as Frank and Gillian Kearney as Rita, the production was cast perfectly. On a more elementary level, it looked great. Performed in The Lowry’s Quays Theatre, the moment I took my seat I was captivated by the appropriate and very real set it was perfect for the business of the play and a good reflection of the era. These conflicts, as with most great theatre, are what make things tick. It’s a bubble Frank yearns to escape, but which Rita is gradually absorbed by. This is a comedy replete with British humour and ironic wit, yet with some very serious undertones, particularly – as the play’s director Chris Honer puts it – “about the transforming power of education.” I love how the tables are turned Frank’s disillusionment with, perhaps even hatred of, academia contrasts markedly with Rita’s initial ignorance of it, and later her passion for education. They were not met – they were surpassed with accomplished theatrical finesse. Attending their production of Willy Russell’s Educating Rita at The Lowry, I had high expectations. The Library Theatre Company, Manchester, has a superb reputation.
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