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Triad

  Triad at Norwich Cathedral, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2015 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 25 May 2015 The Cathedral’s soaring acoustics provided a perfect setting for Triad to showcase their traditional, compelling, toe-tapping virtuosity in a Celtic music concert that entranced a packed audience. Comprising two Irishmen and one from Brittany, the trio played through a wide range of jigs, slow reels, airs and pipe marches, some very old from Europe’s Celtic regions and others they wrote themselves. Beside trad-dance melodies, there were slip-jigs and songs, a few in Gaelic. Their fingers danced too as their instruments created a harmonious completeness to a beautiful evening as the shadows lengthened inside and out. The sets were interspersed with informative anecdotes and jokes that enhanced the intimate atmosphere. These men, musical maestros … Read entire article »

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Neighbourhood Watch

  Neighbourhood Watch at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 May 2015 Alan Ayckbourn’s 75th play is a gem, which he described as one of his ‘darker pieces’. Apprehension in society is the theme and the Maddermarket team, ably directed by Jude Wyatt, handle escalating madness with consummate skill. It’s understandable that the small community wish to protect their little world from the perceived threats of the common estate a short distance away. But soon, the Neighbourhood Watch has taken on a life of its own with ID cards, razor wire fences and even stocks to punish ‘wrong-doers’. Neighbourhood Watch is classic Ayckbourne. Out of the ordinary comes dark comedy and he spotlights undercurrents of insanity that run under calm surfaces. Zanna Foley-Davies and Ian Shephard play the joyfully bizarre … Read entire article »

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John Lanchester

John Lanchester at The Hostry, Norwich Cathedral part of the Norwich and Norfolk Festival 2015 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 20 May 2015 I have long admired John Lanchester the novelist. Now, after his money talk, he’s impressed as an explainer of complex financial matters. It was the first in the Norwich Writers Centre festival in a weekend and was in the form of a ‘conversation’ which we are told people prefer these days to a talk. It was chaired by the verbose Jonathan Morley, from WCN. Lanchester gave a reading from his book ‘How to Speak Money’, discussed literature and how the ‘unhelpful term non-fiction is a particularly English language thing’, politics and economics. He wrote the book from a desire to explain financial vocabulary, as most of us have ‘semi-knowledge’ at best; … Read entire article »

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A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing Norwich Playhouse, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 15 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 14 May 2015 Readers of the ground-breaking novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, telling the journey of an Irish girl from pre-birth to 20, may be surprised to see it’s transposed into a play. But it makes a terrific performance. Eimear McBride’s personal journey is spell-binding theatre by Dublin company, The Corn Exchange and director Annie Ryan. The sole actor, Aoilfe Duffin, brings the foetus, the child, the young woman to life before our eyes in a tour de force that reveals her ‘complex and conflicted character.’ Her inner narrative is played in a stream of different voices and characters. She undergoes sexual awakening, religion and pain through a unique dynamic language … Read entire article »

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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Open Space)

Open Space Theatre in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Fisher Theatre, Bungay Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 11 May 2015 The versatile Open Space Theatre company are touring Albee’s 1960s’ classic study of marriage, aspirations and personal pain levels in a production by David Green that is masterful, moving and memorable. Yves Green and Peter Sowerbutts are the well-matched, long married couple who niggle and goad each other with alcohol-fuelled vitriol. They sustain the rollercoasster of emotion superbly, ultimately revealing how their fantasies and games have fed them and how their sometimes mutual loathing is another side of love and need. Mick Davison and Emma Martin are the young married couple, their increasingly reluctant guests, who watch in horror as their hosts wield personal emotion scalpels before themselves being gradually … Read entire article »

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