EVENTS: Key Liverpool Arts events

Mar 7 2008 by Phil Key, Liverpool Daily Post

IN CELEBRATION of My Sisters is a variety concert marking International Women’s Month. A mixed bag includes singer Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson, comedienne Donna Spence and Llewellyn Gideon from The Real McCoy and jazz from Yolanda Brown and The Sisters of Liverpool. People travel from across the country for the event, now in its 12th year. 7.30pm, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Tickets £10, £15 and £20 (boxes). 0151 709 3789.

NIGE is a firm comedy favourite in Liverpool, a real Scouse scally character created by comedian Keith Carter. It is said his up-front performance in front of those judging the city for European Capital of Culture status was so impressive, they gave us the title. Now Nige replies by offering Nige’s Guide to Capital of Culture, Part One, his own take on the city and its cultural year. It might surprise those same judges. Part Two is due next month. 8pm, Unity Theatre, Liverpool. Tickets £12 (concessions £10). 0151 709 4988.

FAMILY Dance Day presented as part of the current Leap dance festival is an opportunity for the public to get up and dance, too. Includes a workshop by the dance company IMIC (I Move, I Imagine, I Create), Liverpool’s only dance company for adults with learning difficulties. All Play: It’s Rude to Point is a dance piece about friendship which allows the audience to act as mediator while X-Tension dance group use hip hop and rap in their new work Rags. Other events for tiny tots, the Over 50s and 4-7 year-olds. BBC Radio Merseyside Performance Space, 10am-4pm, tickets free. Bookings 0151 708 8810.

MRS BROWN, a tough, Dublin pensioner with a sharp tongue has become a comedy legend in Liverpool where she was first introduced to English audiences by her creator Brendan O’Carroll. Written by and starring O’Carroll as Mrs Brown there have been three plays so far and this is the fourth, written specially for Liverpool. O’Carroll claims it to be not the only the funniest Mrs Brown but the funniest thing he has ever written. The story has Mrs. Brown looking for love on Valentine’s Day. Warning: the show is almost sold out. Opens today, 7.30pm, Liverpool Playhouse. Tickets range £13-50-£22.50. Until Saturday with an extra week added September 29 - October 4. 0844 847 2525.

CREATED in 1945, the Borodin String Quartet is now the longest surviving string quartet in the world. It has a brilliant reputation and an affinity for the quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich, both represented in this concert. Includes Beethoven’s quartet in C minor, Op 18 No 4, Shostakovich’s quartet No 13 in B flat minor, Op 138, Haydn’s quartet in D, Op 64 No 5, The Lark, and Miaskovsky’s quartet No 13 in A minor, Op 86. 7.30pm, St George’s Hall Concert Room, Liverpool. Tickets £15. 0151 709 3789.

ORIGINAL members of Frank Zappa’s band – Napoleon Murphy Brock, Don Preston and Roy Estrada – join forces with Miroslav Tadic and Christopher Garcia to recreate his music in this tribute band, The Grandmothers of Invention. They perform workings and re-workings from the Mothers of Invention back catalogue in a concert unlikely to be repeated. 8pm, Pacific Road Arts Centre. Tickets £16 (£14 concessions), £17.50 on the door. 0151 647 0752.

THE sentimental wartime story, Goodnight Mister Tom, was a television success starring John Thaw. Now comes the musical stage version. This Merseyside premiere is presented by the Port Sunlight Players, giving musical emphasis to the story of a grumpy old man and a wartime evacuee. 7.30pm, Gladstone Theatre, Port Sunlight Village. Tickets £8 (concessions £7). Until Saturday. 0151 643 8757.