The Full Monty! - 12.09.12

First things first;

The Full Monty is hilarious!

Each character is played excellently, each with his own troubles that need to be resolved, proving that (contrary to popular belief) this is a show about much more than nudity.

Accompanied by an excellent band and supporting cast, six friends psyche themselves up for stripping for ONE NIGHT ONLY (don't worry, the Drill Hall is showing it for five) in front of one thousand women (including their wives and a mother, unfortunately) to raise enough money to solve each of their problems.




Several catchy numbers ("Let it go, let it go!") keep the play moving nicely and showcased some of the great voices the actors and actresses posses.

I can't skirt around the fact that 90% of the audience was female but that's no reason not to invite your man along! Alternatively you could treat them to Calendar Girls in October!

With a feel-good ending as well as THE stripping scene ( the group named themselves Hot Metal did'ya know) this is a perfect night out for mum's, daughters, neighbours, friends, anybody!

You've got four more shows (two are nearly sold out) to catch it, but whatever you do, DON'T MISS IT! See here for times and tickets.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

The Last Night of the Proms - 08.09.12

Last Night of the Proms aka the last chance this year we get to use our flags/bunting/union jack hats etc!

The whole place was dressed up red, white and blue and the classical music in the Cafe Bar before the concert started really set the mood for a night of celebrating being British with great music!

However right from the start audiences were in for a shock. 15 year old performers Elliot Crouch (trombone) and Emma Brown (oboe and cor anglais) played two short sets each and completely wowed the crowd with their talent! It was great to see young musicians up on stage promoting classical music.

After a short break (and a technical hitch) we were ready for the traditional Last Night line up, live from the BBC! Particularly outstanding were violinist Nicola Benedetti and tenor Joseph Calleja...

And then the old favourites You'll Never Walk Alone, Jerusalem, Pomp and Circumstance/Land of Hope and Glory, The Hornpipe and Rule Britannia! (featuring the Olympic athletes of course!)

There was no doubt that absolutely everyone in the room loved it and from the back all I could see was a sea of red, white and blue.

Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves, Britain's never never shall be slaves! :)

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

PREVIEW Something Wonderful is Coming... 30.08.12

'Something Wonderful' is a project commissioned by LOV (Lincolnshire One Venues) to Liverpool artists Jonathan Raisin and Elizabeth Willow - and given a deliberately vague title because nobody had any idea what it would be.

Based on the forgotten, hidden and thrown away things of everyday life, Raisin and Willow wandered around all ten venues that belong to LOV and turned their travels into art.






Now I can't give too much away but I went to go see a scratch performance last week at the Riverhead Theatre in Louth....













And thoroughly enjoyed a performance of music, poetry, literature, memory, imagination, laughter and sadness.

How well do you know Lincolnshire? Are you good at using your imagination? This show definitely touches on appreciating the little things in life that make everyone's day just that little bit better.

-love in Grantham, taken from the Raisin and Willow blog

Keep your eyes and ears open for Something Wonderful between 5 and 10 November this year :)

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

The Bangers & Mash Ball - 26.08.12

Having spent several months on the organising committee for the ball I was very anxious to see it all come together on this Bank Holiday weekend.

Under the theme of 'Best of British' we began decorating the main Hall with red white and blue EVERYTHINGS. You name it!

(yes it's a gnome)

BUT if you as a non-ball-attender have heard anything at all about our annual Ball's you'll have heard of this............................................. the Barrow of Booze!!

Quite literally a wheelbarrow of alcohol that gets auctioned off to the highest bidder. I think in total there were 54 bottles of wine, ale and even some champagne which a very lucky person took home for £325! 

Bargain.

Excellent food (thanks Black Peppermint) and wine (Merci to Steep Hill Wines), FAB music (Love Boat Captains - see our Back To The Future Nights!), beautiful decorations, programmes and auction and raffle prizes (thanks to Design by Distraction among others) and even some magic courtesy of the amazing Scott Perry made this a truly memorable and brilliant night.

If you've never been to one of these ball's before (as I hadn't) I strongly recommend you keep one eye open for it when next August comes around.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

City of London Sinfonia: Lullaby - 07.06.12

At 1pm the mums, dads and little ones started pouring through the Drill Hall doors (including my high school geography teacher; small world) to see the City of London Sinfonia introduce tiddlers to classical music via the theme of animals at 2pm.

If you know a little about classical music you may recognise some of these pieces:

- The Elephant (from Carnival of the Animals)
- Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky's ballet)
- Fantasia from Greensleeves (by Vaughan-Williams)
- Old Macdonald had a Farm (of course)

...as well as the unnamed piece that transported us between these excerpts when we got on our horses and galloped to the next stop on our musical journey.

Leader of the event Claire Bloor was great at getting the kids jumping up and down, pretending to be animals (there were a couple of small tigers & lions around anyway) and racing each other when they got on their horses.


As well as it being great that the Drill Hall was packed with little ones, it was even more great that they clearly loved it! 

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

31.05.2012 - Nubes (Clouds) by Aracaladanza

Where to begin?

A show for children but I'm not a child, a show for dancers but I'm not into dance.. but I LOVED it!

It was just brilliant.

There was never a particular storyline, only a series of loosely connected events that left your imagination to fill in the gaps.

Two of my favourite moments:

1. Watching the cast waddle around in flippers

2. Giggling at overly tall men with wobbly heads!

I left the theatre feeling light as a feather and extremely happy to have parted with £8 in exchange for my new found faith in humankind.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

A Sonnet For Anne - 25-7.04.12

Brilliant!!! 

The structure of it!  Perfect! 

Jo Hollingworth and Stephen Gillard.  Brilliant!!! 

Their make up.  Extreme! 

Their performances.  Hypnotic!  Linking the action so cleverly! 

The set.  Brilliant!!!  So simple and so effective! 

All the performances.  Brilliant!!!   And so many words to remember!  Amazing! 

And the writing.  David Owen Smith.  Brilliant!!!

Everything Brilliant!!! 

But most brilliant of all, Liz Lucas!  Mrs Shakespeare.   Narrow-minded, a snob, over-possessive, ordinary.  The woman next door.  A woman who loved her husband.  A portrait of a woman who loved her husband.  That simple.  That complicated.  So intricately portrayed.  And when Mrs Shakespeare cried, we cried with her. 

Brilliant!!!  Brilliant!!!   Brilliant!!!

-Jenny Clarkson, Box Office Assistant

Children's Festival 10-14.04.2012

After many weeks of looking forward to the annual Children's Festival it finally arrived! Four days jam packed of children's shows and workshops it was bound to be busy and a little frantic, but great nonetheless. 

In fact, if you were in Lincoln Centre on March 31 you may have noticed us walking around dressed as clowns/minnie mouse/woody, face-painting and finger-painting especially for the occasion!

Day 1 - "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" with amazing storyteller Kirsty from Rhubarb Theatre, followed by "Let's Make a Salsa Band" and "Travelling By Tuba" in the afternoon (we could hear salsa melodies and rhythms floating through our doors all afternoon!), and finally the Doctor Who TV Quiz in the evening!

Day 2 - Exciting adventures with "The Gruffalo" and Kirsty, brilliant children's author Jeremy Strong and the Waterstones bookshop and storytelling workshop with Pete Davis! Phew.

Day 3 - Face-painting, beautiful and musical performance of Red Riding Hood and for the film fans, a showing of everyone's favourite alien, E.T the extra terrestrial.

Day 4 - Face-painting, dress-up-as-your-favourite-storybook-character Diddy Disco, Caterpillar Club (a disco for toddlers and young-uns with disabilities) and, a night for the parents, the Slimline Papas!

We had an absolute blast with the Children's Festival, and really hope you loved it as much as we did! It was great to see the Drill Hall buzzing with so many families and kids. If you missed out on the Children's Festival but need something to entertain your little ones, please have a look at our family events on our website. 

See you soon!

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

Back To The Future 80's Night - 31.03.12

The minute I encountered Simon Le Bon closely followed an exhuberant & stylish Adam Ant, I knew the evening was going to be a winner. My ears were already being assailed by the music & DJHeretic was cranking up the heat with the Jam, the Proclaimers & the Clash. 

Out on the dance floor the cocktail tray was doing the rounds, closely followed by shots of every colour, served up by a hot little sweetheart who wove her way between the Kids from Fame, the Boy George lookalikes & the punks. 

A kaleidoscope of colour & the movement of the crowd exploded like a paint ball onto the big screen behind the DJ & the requests just kept coming.

Out in the cafe bar more party goers threw  their shapes in a moving arena whilst Rod Hull & Emu laid traps for the unwary reveller. The live band  kept it coming & we just lapped it up - the good times were never better.

The 80's had hit town like a Christmas cracker & we all wanted a piece of it - with its flamboyant legwarmers to its glitzy black lace to the arrogance of the New Romantics. 

From Tears for Fears to Rick Astley to Ultravox & beyond! - we loved them all - we picked the music & we got what we wanted.

It doesn't get better than this when you turn back the clock & choose the best - one of the things the Drill Hall does well - they know how to throw a mean party! Even the staff were in the mood!

To the moment when we scmaltzed to the Slow-y then ripped it up to the reggae of the Ghost Town - we gave it our best shot.

So c'mon guys - heres to the next one - bring on the 90's night..............!

-Terri Newstead, Front of House

Earthfall: At Swim Two Boys - 28.03.12

I rolled up at the Drill Hall knowing a little about At Swim Two Boys, having heard SO many good things about it from the Drill Hall's director, Simon, and from seeing the crew set up the auditorium for the past couple of days, but still I was curious.

As the show started I must admit to having a few preconceptions about dance and physical theatre - my knowledge of both is very limited and ignorant!

However, as it progressed I began to form my own opinions about what I thought was happening - though there was no glaringly obvious storyline I still found myself in some way able to make a narrative of what I saw, and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process.

The dancers themselves were amazing - I was breathless just watching all the moves they were pulling off! 

So as not to spoil the show for those of you who haven't seen it yet, I won't tell you the ending. But I will mention that by then my imagination was in full flow and as the lights went down I was on the edge of my seat with my fingers in my ears! 

If you see it, you will love it.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

(Also, you may have seen some paper boats around Lincoln and the Drill Hall made of the Earthfall flyers - that was me).

Me, Myself and Miss Gibbs - 09.03.12

What are the chances, out of all the people in Britain, of finding the sender and recipient of a postcard that was sent more than 100 years ago? Slim, at best, probably.

Francesca Millian Slater narrates a lovely little show explaining her own ups, downs, swings and roundabouts on her journey to find Miss L Gibbs, receiver of said mysterious postcard.

Sent from Lincoln to London in 1910, Francesca tells the audience how she travelled to London to spend hours over newspapers, records, birth, marriage and, sadly, death certificates, all to find a trace of the elusive Miss L Gibbs. Ever given a thought to how many Miss L Gibbs' there could be in Britain at one time? No, me either, but Francesca has.

Francesca brings the original postcard with her to the show and reads us it's intriguing message again: "Be careful tomorrow. A.C." Why does Miss Gibbs have to be careful? Could something have happened to Miss Gibbs the very day the postcard reached her - something we might never know about?

Francesca made her personal mission to find out.

A highly recommended show, and surprisingly emotional, she will have you hooked on the life of Miss Gibbs in a matter of minutes.

And if anyone knows a man by the name of Royston Farrell. please get in touch ASAP.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

Translunar Paradise - 14.02.12

I didn't know quite what to expect when I bought my ticket for Translunar - I'd heard good things about it but the fact that it was effectively a mime: completely wordless, left me a teeny bit sceptical (not least because I'd be sitting by myself, watching a romantic show, on Valentine's Night, boohoo).

The show opened with a freeze frame of an elderly couple (Rose and William)sitting at a table.  As the show went on it was impressive how obviously the story came across, despite the fact not a word was uttered.

The actors were constantly switching between the present day..

..and the past..

..using a combination of masks, clothes, lighting and accompaniment music to make the time change obvious.

Surprisingly close to the beginning, Rose dies, leaving William standing by her bedside, suddenly alone. Rose exits her body and, finding herself a ghost, and therefore invisible, begins to teach William how to function without her. As he tries to hold on to memento's from their past together, she flings objects around the place and, probably the most heart-wrenching thing in the whole show, takes away her mug when he tried to make two cups of tea, istead of one.

After an hour and ten minutes of a mixture of tears and laughter, I would not hesitate to recommend this show to anyone. Bring a tissue - I could definitely spot some of the men in the audience holding back tears when the lights went up.

Warning: This show will induce an urge to call everyone you know to tell them you love them.

-Hilary Shepherd, Marketing Officer

Retina Dance : Layers of Skin - 10.02.12

Retina Dance are the East Midlands’ only professional contemporary dance company and have visited the Drill Hall on many occasions with some amazing performances and participation projects and on Friday 10 February they presented Layers of Skin, their latest project.

Involving a small group of local young dancers who worked with the company all week the final performance was an astonishing hour of extreme physical dance and athleticism that was exhausting just to watch.

I always love that with Retina’s shows you can just watch them and enjoy them without being made to feel like you should necessarily be understanding every nuance. With some other dance companies you’re made to feel like maybe you’re missing something… but not with Retina.

Layers of Skin was one their best yet – thrilling, entertaining, amazing and hugely rewarding to watch. We hope to get them back here again soon : )

-Simon Hollingworth, Director