{"id":400452,"date":"2025-09-05T16:50:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400452\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T16:50:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:50:25","slug":"from-bramley-to-bake-off-musical-dean-patrick-is-putting-culture-on-the-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400452\/","title":{"rendered":"From Bramley to Bake-Off Musical – Dean Patrick is putting culture on the map"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Noelle Williamson<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Great British Bake-Off Musical will be live on stage at the Carriageworks Theatre, Millennium Square next week, September 11-13.<\/p>\n

This will be the Regional Community Premiere \u2013 for the whole middle of the country from Middlesbrough to Nottingham \u2013 directed by Dean Patrick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many will know Dean from Leeds 2023, when he curated Bramley\u2019s Cultural Collective, whose success he translated into the independent annual Bramley Community Arts Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The festival packed out St Peter\u2019s Church, Bramley Villagers and Bramley Baths last July, and returns on September 20-21 this year. Dean has actually come full circle, from doing his first panto with Bramley Parish Theatre Players at St Margaret\u2019s Church before he was ten, to directing and choreographing BPTP\u2019s annual pantos. (Look out for news of the next one: Puss in Boots!)<\/p>\n

Also, having worked his way through LAMDA grades (London Academy of Dramatic Arts) as a boy, then trained in London and worked professionally up and down the country, he now leads Class Act Youth Theatre<\/a> at Trinity Methodist Church, mentoring the next generation of performers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But why community theatre rather than professional theatre? And why Leeds?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat drew me to Leeds 2023 was the Bramley\/Stanningley thing. When you work with communities, with people who come from all walks of life to be part of a show, there\u2019s a different dynamic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of professionals will work on similar arts projects from Birmingham to Leeds to Bradford. Quite a lot of people I worked with in Leeds went straight on to Bradford but I thought, if we\u2019re doing something, it should be made by the people from here, for all the people from here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, you know, I identify with Leeds, and being from Leeds, and champion everything that happens in Leeds. The whole point of the Year of Culture \u2013 particularly the projects I worked on \u2013 was to try to connect with people from the area, and happen in the area, and I kind of take that with me wherever I go.\u201d<\/p>\n

And why The Great British Bake-Off Musical?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s about trying to put Leeds on the map. This is the conversation I had with the Carriageworks and Leeds City Council. Everyone knows the Bake-Off, so putting Bake-Off on in the city centre has the potential to attract people who aren\u2019t from the area. And those people may return because they think, well, I only went for the Bake-Off, but they do all these other things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also puts the theatre on the map. The Carriageworks is a bit of a hidden gem. You talk to a lot of people and they don\u2019t know it\u2019s there (in the Electric Press building on Millennium Square). And I\u2019m like, it\u2019s a council-owned facility, that\u2019s for the Leeds community \u2013 primarily for community theatre.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He had hoped to stage the national community (amateur) premiere, but the dates would not work. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a chicken and egg situation: I needed to secure the performance rights to book the theatre but I needed to have the theatre booked to get the rights.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, this is the first production of the musical outside of London in a very large radius of the country \u2013 and at the heart of Yorkshire!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken four years of effort and patience to get to this point, and Dean is funding the show himself. He has gathered a cast of very talented and experienced actors \u2013 amateurs in the best sense of the word \u2013 and Musical Director Wil Jones has brought in professional musicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe production has just got to pay for itself. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do here. The thing is, it\u2019s never been about me. It\u2019s about everybody else. It all comes down to the cast on the night! I\u2019m never going to be rich. It\u2019s a passion. People and theatre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComing back to where you\u2019re asking me about Bramley \u2013 if I\u2019m gonna do it, it\u2019s about, you know, hiring spaces like this (The Bede Room in St Peter\u2019s) and keeping them in existence and making and creating in Bramley. That\u2019s why we pay to hire The Villagers, to benefit locals, you know? Whatever I do \u2026 Bramley\u2019s just a part of me and, fundamentally, it would always be my starting point, really.<\/p>\n

Tickets can booked here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sponsored content<\/p>\n

\"\"www.bramleybaths.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Noelle Williamson The Great British Bake-Off Musical will be live on stage at the Carriageworks Theatre, Millennium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-400452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115152724193149388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}