Nottingham Playhouse is ushering in the spring with mirth and music, as three star performers return to the venue. April brings appearances by two of the nation’s best-loved jesters, Rich Hall and Lenny Henry, as well as folk music’s finest young troubadour, Kate Rusby. As with their previous Nottingham Playhouse successes, tickets are in hot demand.
Rich Hall is nobody’s fool. The acerbic American is a familiar face on such TV shows as Have I Got News for You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI and many more besides. On the other side of the Pond he is celebrated for his Emmy award-winning work on the David Letterman show. This hasn’t prevented him laying into his homeland at every opportunity and his grouchy, deadpan, bitingly ironic style has won him a particularly warm following in the UK. In his eyes, the world is on a donkey ride to hell and Rich is your tour guide. He last visited the Playhouse in the guise of his redneck alter ego Otis Lee Crenshaw; hear Rich Hall deliver his crushing observations in his own voice on Thursday 5 April at 8pm. Ever since he first burst out of our TV sets in the 70s, Lenny Henry has been one of Britain’s best-known and best-loved personalities. Comedian, impressionist, singer and actor, Lenny’s appeal is classless and ageless. Now, following his sellout dates at the Playhouse with So Much Things to Say in 2004, Lenny has done it again with his new show Where You From? The show sees Lenny go back to his stand-up roots, meditating about life in noughties Britain, alongside the welcome return of key characters from throughout his career – all the way back to The Wolfman from the original Lenny Henry Show. Where You From? concludes its UK tour at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 6 April at 8pm.
Folk music has experienced a massive new surge of popularity over the last few years and Kate Rusby has been very much at the forefront. The unassuming lass from Barnsley is riding higher than ever: in 2006 she was voted Best Live Act in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and her most recent album The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly notched up massive sales. Meanwhile she won ever more fans with her top ten hit duet with Ronan Keating, "All Over Again", and her cover of the Kinks’ "Village Green Preservation Society" for the TV comedy Jam and Jerusalem.
Following her professional debut, aged 15, at the Holmfirth Folk Festival, Kate rose to prominence a full decade ago with her album "Hourglass", and cemented her reputation when its 1999 follow-up "Sleepless" was nominated for the Mercury Award. Her craft has subtly matured since then, but crucially she remains true to her roots. Her live shows are renowned for the humour of Kate’s storytelling between tracks, but the music is to the fore: a lively blend of traditional songs, learned in her childhood, and her own intuitive song-writing. After selling the house out on her last appearance at the Playhouse two years ago, Kate will be performing two shows this time, on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 April at 7.30pm.
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