Review: Those Magnificent Men, Touring

New Perspectives' touring production of Those Magnificent Men, a two hander detailing the accounts of John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in their bid to become the first men to fly non-stop over the Atlantic, is a piece of theatre with real sparkle. As actors C P Hallam and Richard Earl barrel-roll through the histories of the two men, the audience are sent soaring along on their epic journey across the pond with gusto, swooping and fizzing from the Turkish POW camps of World War One to a dilapidated guest house in Newfoundland or a radio transmission station in County Galway. The action-packed show is filled with information, laughs and some really touching moments, most notably when Hallam tells Earl about Alcock’s death just 6 months after the flight, but it is all fused together well and never over didactic.

Their plane creates a character of its own too, with its bin lid propellers and wings made from folding tables. It has a rickety presence on stage and gave the audience the feeling of being in such a ‘crate’ – quite literally in this case! This device was not over used either, the plane only being constructed at the very end of the first act and then performed upon in the second, allowing for its effect not to be diminished. However the most notable element in the show is the energy which the actors bring to the piece and it is this exuberance the audience pick up on, Alcock and Brown’s excitement transferred onto those watching. Although Those Magnificent Men is essentially a comedy it is one with a big heart, never out for cheap laughs, and plaudits must go to the actors and director Daniel Buckroyd for injecting a vibrant enthusiasm into every facet of the production. A thoroughly enjoyable night out.

Those Magnificent Men: ****
Image courtesy of New Perspectives.

Review: Blood Wedding, Nottingham Playhouse

In the main auditorium at Nottingham Playhouse, the in-house youth theatre take centre stage in their version of Lorca’s 1933 play, Blood Wedding. When entering the audience are met by dark shapes, bodies enveloped in black cloth, that then writhe and dance by way of a prologue. It is this cloth which is one of the most striking elements of the production with great swathes of it crossing the performance space and slowly unwrapped throughout the story, each layer removed revealing the next step in the tale. The movement direction is crisp and precise but at several points it does little to progress the story. The motif where Death, played as an ominous Baron Samedi by Matthew Morrison, and Moon, Gemma Caseley-Kirk, enact the fatal duel between the two male protagonists works beautifully but equally the mechanical workers in the first act serve only to upstage. The combination of live and recorded sound is imbalanced and the transposing of the woodcutters into three travelling Mariachi, whilst a neat idea, doesn’t really come off. However, there are strong performances all-round in the ensemble with Chloe McKiernan (The Bride), Imogen O'Sullivan (The Servant Woman) and Maria Fafouti (The Wife of Leonardo) the pick of the bunch and any moments of rushedness or swallowed lines easily attributable to first night nerves of such a large stage. It is the innovative use of material, both cloth and literary, that strikes the most about the production and the young company, made up of school and college students aged 15-17, should take great pride in what they’ve achieved. It is artistic decisions and the want to create something overly complex with a simple story that lets Blood Wedding down but this doesn’t detract from it being an enjoyable night at the theatre.

Blood Wedding: ***
Image courtesy of Nottingham Playhouse.

Review: 11 and 12, Nottingham Playhouse

It is in a sandy orange box that Peter Brook sets his newest work, 11 and 12, adapted for him by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the stories of Amadou Hampâté Bâ . A tale of the age old issues of faith and intolerance, 11 and 12 deals with the complex issue of religious doctrine but on a level which can be viewed as almost absurd: the sticking point being whether a recitation of a prayer should be done 11 or 12 times. The piece is superbly acted by small ensemble of performers playing cross gender and race with no hint of pantomime whilst a down stage corner is converted into a one-man orchestra pit, musician Toshi Tsuchitori, with Japanese zither and cymbals, accompanying the action. Tsuchitori percussive score works best in the scene when the feet of one of the 11s are burnt by a group of 12s, the crashed cymbals and calming wind chimes combining to give the scene an abstract and stylised brutality.

There are also moments of great humour and sadness in the piece with scenes of the French colonials teaching the Malian locals La Marseillaise whilst they interrogate a captured African zealot in another. It is the French that come away from the piece as those who are uncultured, the final image of the work being a Gallic park keeper commenting that if they move the grave of Tierno Bokar, leader of the 11s, he won’t get to meet so many nice Africans. It is a pleasure to see the work of a theatrical great like Brook but the calm presentation of this complex story lacked the urgency and emotion which it would have doubtless have had in reality. This considered approach, whilst actively making the audience engage critically with what was happening, did not connect on an emotional level leaving them to wonder what the feelings of those involved really were.

11 and 12: ****
Image courtesy of Tristram Kenton.

Review: By the Bog of Cats, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Haunting accordion strains crackle through the chilling air and childish crayon drawings greet the eyes as audience enter for their encounter with Hester Swain - Irish Traveller, Mystic – her last hours, the action about to be witnessed. Played commandingly by Fiona Mikel, she shimmers on stage, a mix of caustic venom and frailty, as she sways like the rags adorning her ramshackle caravan. This Irish Medea, Euripides’ original transposed by playwright Marina Carr, is the offering of Warwick University to the Festival and the tale which unfolds in this forsaken bog captivates entirely. Swain, visited by soothsayers heralding her end, is confronted with eviction from both love and property and the play becomes an account of the death-throes of the condemned. The performance’s traverse staging is an inspired artistic choice, the crux of which, a derelict bathtub, bears the grisly finale to this lurid account. Despite the silent pleas there is no respite: as audience heart-strings snap, those opposite are illuminated by harsh florescent tube lights, their reaction as much part of the performance as that unfolding on stage. This tautness is created through expert work by the actors, in a strong cast Rio West’s Josie and Matt Stokoe’s Carthage excelling alongside the inimitable Hester. In the cold Clive Wolfe Auditorium, the harsh landscape of the bog is created through the meticulous design and subtle lighting. The live musicians play with a haunting beauty whilst the sound design imbues the evening with an eeriness of an almost tangible quality. Bertrand Lesca’s production is a compelling performance, charged with a rare energy. This is theatre at its visceral and desolate best.

By the Bog of Cats: *****
Image courtesy of Peter Marsh, Ashmore Visuals.

Review: The Pillowman, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman is a play about stories and their inherent power. Katurian, a writer, is being held in a police station and questioned by two detectives regarding the mysterious deaths of small children in the town which echo those which appear in his work. Katurian is tortured and imprisoned with his brother Michal, whom has a learning disability, beginning a downward spiral which culminates in both men's physical, but not creative and spiritual, destruction. This production, by Bath Spa University's Passion et la Goire Company, identifies the pitch-blackness of the humour in the show and perform it with assured style. The real crux of the show is undoubtedly McDonagh's razor-sharp script written with Pinter-esque rapier wit, vivid stories and absurdist ideas: with such a text driving a show the direction must follow the same vein. However, the staging of Katurian's stories, their narrative depicted in dumb show behind the author as the tale's teller, broke the closeness of the interrogation exchanges and the intimacy of the brothers. This decision undoubtedly brought more visual humour to a text heavy show but in a play about the power of words to illicit actions this creation of activity would have been better served by the imagination of the audience. Equally, the transitions between scenes and into the interval were under considered. The Pillowman, questionable in its message beyond that of satire - what if people do enact what they read? - is a fine show and with strong central performances from the four core characters, particular praise going to Matthew Johnson's Tupolski, but with some sharp flaws in the language of its staging.

The Pillowman: ***
Image courtesy of Passion et la Gloire.

Review: In Loving Memory, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

RLJ Productions' In Loving Memory tackles the contemporary social issue of youth gun culture through a tight piece of dance theatre. Taking much of its structure from the idea of the funeral procession, the audience are shown, in a series of flashbacks, the choices and consequences that led protagonist Sean to this lifestyle and his premature death. Inspiration is drawn from a wide range of cultural sources, Pina Bausch to Def Jam records, and the news footage of gun-crime's victim's funerals, which are becoming more and more common, are a reference never far from the audience's minds. It is the movement direction and choreography which impresses most, the togetherness and discipline of the large and diverse ensemble leaving a lasting mark on those watching. The language used is in neatly structured verse and their declaiming style evokes the tribalism combined in both rap culture's gangland territory wars and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This is a worthwhile piece and is performed with great energy by an ensemble who make you feel this issue is as pressing for you as it is for them.

In Loving Memory: ***
Image courtesy of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College.

Review: Angel, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Performance art piece Angel from DeMontfort University's Open Bracket Productions is curiously infuriating for the audience. A cluttered stage is invaded by strains of opera and disco in equal measure whilst demonic laughter howls from the Doctor, a character dressed in the garb of an absurd ringmaster. One character does come to the fore, a man in white wearing fairy wings, who tells his audience he is stuck going round and round in circles. They are then left to disseminate the repeated images the company create before them with no discernable artistic intention. An aperture of string disrupts the sight lines and can be read as the blinkers on the performance's clarity, yet this answer, like so much else with this piece, is made unavailable to the audience. There is a kernel of content within the piece, the relationship between Man and Doctor is interpretively interesting, but this is never explored enough and the three chess pieces, save for the very end, add nothing to the discourse except further distraction from the only relationship even half established within the work. The ironic ending, a character picking up a book of only images then complaining that there is no story, does leave those watching smiling but this metaphysical farce needs clarity which would help performers and audience alike.

Angel: **
Image courtesy of edge.org and taken from a Robert Foreman performance, no Angel images available.

Review: Into The Woods, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Steven Sondheim's Into The Woods is the only musical of the festival offering its audience a chance to see what happens after ‘happily ever after' in that land, far, far away, and its light, bubbly music enchants its audience early on. The performance however does not replicate this fantastical quality and the show falls flat, lacking the essential sparkle a musical needs, consequently losing the audience's attention. This causes the pace to feel slow with the show never hitting the high notes required instead plodding along in the middle of its range. The design is visually striking with its innovative wooden ladders and maypole like streamers but this is clumsily used whilst the utilisation of some of the company as Wood Nymph scene-shifter dancers is a decision never properly justified. Britain Fleming's Baker's Wife and Oliver Thompson's Prince Charming are standouts in a cast which otherwise felt tired, Thompson especially accessing the subtext of his part and giving the show some great gestic comedy moments. That is all the show currently has though: moments. It does have the potential and the band give a fine performance but the actual stage action is sadly lacking.

Into The Woods: **
Image courtesy of UCL Bloomsbury Theatre.

Review: 4 Bar and Rising, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Massive Owl's 4 Bar and Rising presents the audience with a modern everyman exhausted by the strain of life through vivid physical action and choreography. The performance, whose piercing silences are one of its most striking motifs, is play filled with repetition and proliferation. Whilst the everyman struggles, the others in this strong 4 man ensemble cast, pile of on more pressure ranging wildly from shoe regulations to official documentation. The real power of the piece is through the repeated choreography which spreads from cast member to cast member, each echoing the everyman's movement, his runs, blocks and half-falls. The presentation of the play - basic costume, no discernable set save a white backdrop and black wings with simple props - gives the piece a sanitised feel and shows a blank canvas onto which this broad everyman's life can be created in the audience's minds. The show's unlikely superstar is, however, a large, thin sheet of bungee-like fabric which, when stretched out over the performance space conjures up a neat metaphor of this tensile pressure the show's protagonist feels. When this sheet is released, one of the ensemble receiving its force into their chest, the snap breaks the quiet - the silence is beholden to their reaction. 4 Bar...is a show which does not try and top its simplicity and it is commendable that the brave cast have stuck to their guns. A great piece of theatre which transports a communal, universal dread into one unified character and proceeds to be performed with if not clarity, the audience not given explanatory programme notes until the end, but an assuredness which made it entertaining and intriguing in equal measure.

4 Bar and Rising: *****
Image courtesy of Noisesoffmagazine.blogspot.

Review: Our Country's Good, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Our County's Good, the first text-based work in four shows seen at the NSDF, is a difficult piece but Bristol Old Vic's Young Company perform Timberlake Wertembaker's work with commendable energy. This, a tale of convicts transported to Australia and the redemptive quality of theatre, rounded off a fine second day at the festival. Lieutenant Clark's crusade to perform Farquhar with a cast of criminals is the drive of this often metatheatrical text and their endeavours and setbacks form the core of the drama. The show oozes professionalism in creativity and design whilst in a cast which boasted a strong ensemble, the performances of Aydin Balli as Governor Phillip and the sadly underused Lucy Bishop as Shitty Meg shone through. A challenging performance was given by Jesse Jones who both enthralled and infuriated as tortured midshipman Harry Brewer, capturing the audience with his first lines but then stayed at the same level of energy throughout - a shift through the gears would have improved this. As a show the transfer to performance in the round worked fantastically and it would have been interesting to compare this with its Old Vic Studio original. The strongest element of OCG was the competent use of live sound with sung harmonies, piercing wails from oscillating wine glasses and thud of the bass drum creating the best soundscape of the festival so far. As mentioned, a difficult text chosen by director Miranda Cromwell but its is executed well by a cast willing to do more than just act on the stage, the ensemble inhabiting the back of the auditorium behind the audience and creating a great performance energy all around the space of the SJT main. A comprehensive piece of theatre which tackles both social and artistic questions within the microcosm of transportation but intent on addressing the wider issues of the play in society on a whole and a great ending to a day at the NSDF.


Our County's Good: ****
Image courtesy of Bristol Old Vic.

Review: Whitehouse Institute, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

The University of Manchester bring us at the NSDF the opening of the White House Institute, a stingingly observed piece of immersive theatre. Inspired by the work of La Clique's Ursula Martinez and Christopher Green, namely their 2008 Edinburgh hit Office Party, White House Institute is the gallery opening and unveiling of the newest work by radical ‘artist' Tracey Hutcheson. The audience are able to mill around with wine and nibbles discovering the great visual gags hidden in ‘art' they find around them. This is punctuated with short films and speeches from the gallery's curator. The audience is split off into different groups and given talks by one of the performers, this giving a real sense of privilege in the hearing of these more private asides; the sniping art critic whose description of Hutcheson's for sliding from exaltation to disgust a particular treat. Protests break-out and the feeling of the privileged witness appears again when you exit the show - the curator kidnapped in the back of a car. White House Institute is a craftily considered and meticulous post-modern farce reminding the audience more of TV like The Office or The Thick of It. Its satire is cleverly constructed and structure of the evening which allows the audience to move freely in the space whilst setting up lighting and sound conventions early on that prompt the audience's reaction keeps the performers in control. The thing that really stays with this performance is its observation and whilst some characters seemed under used, Hutcheson herself - though correct in her characterisation of the vague and pampered artist - could have done more, the audience goes away with the feeling that this could be happening at a regional gallery right now.

White House Institute: ****
Image courtesy of Traceyhutcheson.blogspot.

Review: Guidelines for Measures to Cope, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Guidelines for Measures to Cope by Electric Shadows of the University of Northampton is curious dance theatre piece which tackles the issue of BDD or Body Dysmorphic Disorder, a psychosomatic condition which causes extreme reactions toward the sufferer's own looks. It is tastefully executed with the performer's using their own bodies as the performance object, dressing and undressing with fervour. Neat technical devices are driving force in the production, clever projection onto a stage controlled blind to name but one, however these innovations do not make up for the gaps in the show and, whilst sympathetic to the subject and often entertained by the talented performers, the audience were never grabbed by the issue raised. Where Guidelines excels is as a piece of dance theatre investigating the practice of DV8's Monochrome Men or Forced Entertainment's Showtime and you can dare to venture that this was part of its conception. As issue based theatre goes there was not sufficient empathy in those watching to make it truly compelling but the three strong cast do themselves a great credit in this and as performers should go on to greater things.

Guidelines for Measures to Cope: ***
Image courtesy of Electric Shadows.

Review: Phaedra's Love, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love performed at NSDF by the University of Leeds' Ravenrock Theatre Company is marketed as a comedy for the severely depressed, this paraphrased from the suicidal playwright's letters, and is relayed to the audience from the perspective of another manic jester - the misogynistic Hippolytus. This decision by director Ashley Scott Layton is one of the strengths of this widely liked show and serves to highlight what could otherwise have been a preachy and droll play. The director's well prepared insight into the work is aided in its performance by a central cast who give some of the performances of the festival. In small, two-hander scenes Rupert Lazarus' Hippolytus entertains and disgusts in equal measure whilst Phaedra (Rachel Helen Shaw) lays herself bare, at points literally, in front of this monster of manhood. The overt sexuality of the piece is dealt out with a clever mix of the explicit and the cloaked, again Shaw's Phaedra excelling. It is after her suicide that the play loses some of this visceral appeal and although justified by the director as a further decent into Hippolytus' madness, the shift to operatic style funeral and ensemble mob scene with cardboard set and props never recaptures this special connection with the audience. The live band played very well and Louise Roberts sang beautifully, yet too many songs were thrown in and their half-used motif with Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart was not fully realised. A show filled with strong principals and although he scores more hits, director Ashley Scott Layton does score some misses.

Phaedra's Love: ****
Image courtesy of Noisesoffmagazine.blogspot.

Review: Tell Tale, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Telling the story of 7 characters stuck in a space, cluttered with junk, Tell Tale is a cake-mix of nonsensical rhythms and ukulele strums; gurgles, squawks and a silhouette T-Rex. Tell Tale was striking in its lyrical quality and tripping, lilting delivery of its mythical, Just-So stories which left the audience warmed inside and filled with biscuits and cheap squash. Whilst there had been no actual plot outside of the Kipling-esque episodes of tail tales, one of the Just-Sos was how the kangaroo got its tail, through watching and listening to the beautiful nonsense those witnessing this event could create their own take where all is fluid and can take on any form, to quote one of the tellers, the name used for the characters in the ensemble, of this captivating tale - ‘nonsense is the seed that springs creativity, meaning in everything saps the good out of spontaneity.’ The Tell Tale company's use of the audience recalled nights spent watching Punchdrunk, Kneehigh or performance artist Bobby Baker, the last especially true of performer Abi Speer whose bubbly portrayal swings from childlike enthusiasm to an introverted and shy reservedness. The Kneehigh comparison also stands up to their use of actor-musicians with members of the ensemble showcasing their skill on the aforementioned ukulele and the cello. All were excellent singers and harmonies drifted in and out of the audience's aural focus, washing over you them the Wollgongilong River of which the troupe sang in all its absurd glory. The production’s structure could have done with strengthening and greater care should have been exercised when considering the audience’s involvement in the piece, possibly a product of the space in which they were performing. A piece of colossal potential and writer-director-performer Sarah Davies however has, in my opinion, a bright future if this is anything to go by.

Tell Tale: ****
Image courtesy of Noisesoffmagazine.blogspot.

Review: Bad House, National Student Drama Festival

This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.

Bad House tells an intriguing and chilling tale through the eyes, or indeed eye, of a ghastly village publican. These dark narratives all culminate with some gruesome climax of drowned brides and children burnt alive and are told with real gusto by the ensemble. The star performer is the Landlord (Tom Gill) who for the first 15 minutes is the only member of the strong cast to speak and who holds an audience captivated with his yarns whilst still unselfishly supporting the rest of the troupe with his grunts and yaps. Musician David Ramsey also adds to the overall feel of despair and dread with his atmospheric accompaniment on violin and accordion. Bad House impressed most through the quality of the writing from Adam Z. Robinson and Lucy Arnold which had real style, great visual qualities which is essential for fringe theatre like this, and a rough texture fitting with their performance environment of a dilapidated rural pub. Some of the technical elements of the performance, whilst not letting the piece down, over-complicated a show whose appeal was earthy, non-urban and with a deep, dark and sinister underbelly. Bad House was an excellent piece of writing and sets the bar way high for the rest of the festival.

Bad House: ***
Image courtesy of Theatregroup.wordpress.