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There are more photos from this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Supergran by Phil Woods - Professor Black

- Leeds Playhouse & National Tour. Directed by Chris Hayes.

Supergran was a moderately successful kid's TV programme about a granny with Superman-like powers. This touring stage version, sadly, was not all that super. There was nothing wrong with Phil Woods's script. But the show, like Gran, never really flew. The main issue was that most of the show's 'special effects' were achieved through the use of a laser (which was, to be fair, pretty cutting edge back then!). There were two problems with this; firstly, the effects that the laser was able to produce weren't really that special (shining a scanning laser through smoke gets really old really quickly), and secondly, some of the local authorities in the towns that the show played took one look at the word 'laser' and barred us from using it (no doubt with apocolyptic visions of mass blindness and lawsuits running through their minds). So the laser was a bit of a wash-out and, as a substantial portion of the show's effects budget had been spent on it, there was no money left to spend on Gran's super-powers, which therefore largely consisted of being really REALLY enthusiastic about things and then nipping offstage to do a bit of unseen 'supering'. Meanwhile the rest of the cast, greek chorus like, stood around like idiots and described what she was doing as the young audience shifted and groaned in frustration.

Mandy Moore played Gran with gusto, despite the staging's shortcomings, and we had a good baddie in the wonderfully-named B.A.Bronzebody (Peter Straker slumming it manfully and with good grace). The supporting cast was pretty good too. Everyone did their best, but this show was a real struggle to find any enthusiasm for. By the time we'd done it for a month I (along with, I suspect, most of the rest of the cast) was in a state of terminal boredom. Apart from the welcome small income, a bit of a waste of several months of my life.

One tip that I did learn the hard way in this show, though - wheelchairs and raked (slanted) stages don't mix; on one memorable occasion I found myself sliding inexorably towards the orchestra pit despite my chair's brakes being firmly applied. Luckily I managed to avoid the final plummet, but I can still see the panic in our pianist's eyes as he edged himself sideways out of the 'drop zone', still playing...