Coffee-Table Notes

When Julie Hesmondhalgh left Coronation Street in 2014 after playing Hayley Cropper for sixteen years, she didn’t have a clue what would happen next. After being on the nation’s TV screens every night, suddenly she was a jobbing actor again. The fact that Hayley herself had become iconic as the first serious depiction of a trans character in mainstream TV drama made things potentially even harder. Given that Hesmondhalgh is both a brilliant actress and clearly one of the warmest people to walk this earth, she needn’t have worried. As it is, what happened next saw the Accrington-born actress come home on very level. “I asked my husband to write me a play,” says Hesmondhalgh of her request to her actor/writer hubby Ian Kershaw, whose stage work has been seen at theatres including the Royal Exchange, Manchester and the Lowry, Salford, while TV credits include Shameless, EastEnders, and of course Corrie. “I said to him, whatever it is, write it so it doesn’t have to be a particular ag

Assembly Roxy Four stars It’s all happening down at the Kirktoon Amateur Dramatics Society. The company need a new show, and Louise McCarthy’s wannabe director Amy thinks she has just the thing if Gail Watson’s queen bee Sheena will give her the chance. With inclusivity policies meaning extra brownie points in the district am-dram competition, they hit on the idea of staging My Left Foot, the Oscar-winning film about Christy Brown, the working class Irish kid born with cerebral palsy, but who went on to become a writer and artist. As with the film, which saw Daniel Day-Lewis ‘crip up’ as Brown, KADS cast John McLarnon’s ex west end luv Grant in the lead. Dawn Sievewright’s love-struck Gillian, however, has other plans, particularly where Matthew Duckett’s Chris is concerned. Softley Gale’s show is designed to mark inclusive company Birds of Paradise’s twenty-fifth anniversary, and is co-produced here with the National Theatre of Scotland. What follows is a potty-mouthed exer

Huff begins with a suicide attempt. This sets the tone for Cliff Cardinal’s fearless solo look at the underbelly of Canada’s indigenous community. What emerges through Cardinal’s dynamic and discomforting tale of three brothers is a picture of disenfranchisement, brutalisation, inter-familial abuse and collective dysfunction. This is told through the voice of Wind and his kid brother Huff, feral little punks getting high on anything they can. Cardinal is a human whirlwind throughout Karin Randoja’s production, originally presented by Native Earth Performing Arts and co-produced here by Cunning Concepts and Creations as part of Summerhall’s CanadaHub strand. Beyond geographical specifics, there is a recognisable universality at play. This is what happens to marginalised communities the world over. When Wind decides to live, it’s the first messy step in recognising that it doesn’t have to be that way. In Ulster American , Hollywood A-lister Jay and right-on London Theatre directo