The stage October 28^th 2004

 WEST HEADS NORTH AS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF SHEFFIELD THEATRES – stage and screen star will replace Grandage in June 2005

By Jeremy Austin

Award-winning actor and director Samuel West has been appointed as Michael Grandage’s successor at Sheffield Theatres.

West, who was awarded the Critic’s Circle Award for his Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001, will begin programming the 2005/6 season immediately. Grandage stands down in June next year.

Said West: "At heart, this job is about continuing to make great theatre for the people of Sheffield – a city I have known and loved since childhood. The present high standing of Sheffield Theatres has come from a combination of great leadership and the perfect mix of spaces.

"The Crucible in particular is one of the most exciting stages in the country and I am looking forward to exploring it both as an actor and a director. I am delighted to be joining Sheffield Theatre as an artistic director and I anticipate the challenges of the job with relish" Son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales, he has turned his attention recently to directing recently, with projects including Three Women and a Piano Tuner at Chichester Festival theatre, Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Bristol old Vic and Cos Fan Tutti for English National Opera at the Barbican, for which he received an Olivier Award nomination.

Grandage, who is also artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse, added:

"I think this a wonderful appointment. Sam has the talent, profile, drive and enthusiasm to ensure Sheffield Theatres goes from strength to strength.

"Having worked with him in our current season, I know he already has Sheffield’s best interests at heart and I have every confidence that he will develop this to an astounding level."

                 Doctor Faustus

Minerva Theatre and Chichester Cathedral

The large cast is headed by Samuel West, whose Faustus, is extremely effective and who turns from a frustrated academic to selling his soul, yet exhibits a powerful underlying belief in God. The final scene in the cathedral is absolutely chilling.

Insignificance

WHITE HOT BRILLIANT WILL HAVE YOU REACHING FOR YOUR GOGGLES

Dominic Cavendish The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 2^nd March

Any nagging doubts about Sam West’s readiness to add new challenges to a career chocka with acting work by taking over as artistic director at Sheffield Theatres when Michael Grandage leaves in June are swept aside by his pitch perfect revival of Terry Johnson’s Insignificance.

Where West’s regional directorial debut at the Bristol Old Vic a few years ago – Les Liaisons Dangereuses – had all the finesse of a botched experiment, here he handles the material with unmistakable confidence.

High Tables Low Life

TAVERNER PROVES HE'S THE DON OF COMEDY DRAMA WITH WITTY WHODUNNIT

The stage Februray 24th 2005 -  Moira Petty

Writing successful comedy drama is a tricky balancing act but one that Mark Taverner has puuled off, with a showy pirouette or two, in his new series High Table Lower Orders. From the author of absolute power and In the Red this latest set piece, set among the fusty quadrangles of a small Cambridge college, offered suspense and humour in the internecine wranglings of the dons.

One of them, a TV historian - the purveyor of video nasties to the masses, according to one colleague - has been bumped off. This allows for the reintroduction to the college of two of his old students who are attending his memorial service, of which one grouchy fellow remarks "Is this stand up comedy or performance art?"

One of the newcomers is a health and safety official, whose disgruntlement with his job and track record in investigating a major train crash, makes him the pefect candidate to serach out the truth of the don's untimely death. Sam West deliciously underplays the role of sleuth, allowing the dryly witty script to sparkle. while the academics are busy publishing important papers he announces that he is the co-author of paragraphs four, five and six in a handbook about hazardous substances. even more entertaining is the sublime Geoffry Palmer as gilbert, a caustic don with all the best lines, which are uttered with that familair weary cadence.

Taverner portrays academic life with the drama of custer's last stand, the backbiting of Westminster as the division bell sounds and the tetchiness of a geriatric's nursing home. So, no surprises there then. But he gives us sharply discernable characters, a wealth of set pieces from student high jinks to the tabloidisation of newspapers ans a virtually corn free script that had me giggling happily.