Rannel Theatre Company Norwich Playhouse Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 1st October 2010 Flhip-Flhop Hip-hop, street dance, rap, sampling and comedy theatre are acquired tastes. Rannel Theatre Company brought them to Norwich and a mixed-aged audience lapped them up and wanted more. They rocked. They brought a refreshingly new and energetic take on a classic sketch that was unique and modern, yet also just good old-fashioned fun. Two madcap decorators, young, very contemporary, painting walls but interfering with equipment and things they chanced upon in the apartment, mixing music, dance routines and comedy gags, in a gleeful romp across the absurd, at times surreal edges of life today. The beatbox sounds and rhythms, the MC-rapping from both real music and from inside their crazy heads was the driving undercurrent. The superb timing and hilarious content of … Read entire article »

Chamber Orchestra Anglia Playhouse Theatre, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 25 September 2010 The Soldiers Tale A concert in aid of Help for Heroes was a perfect vehicle for Chamber Orchestra Anglia to show their skills in an entertaining and richly varied way, under the firm but sensitive baton of Sharon Choa. A suite compiled from an original radio score by Benjamin Britten, Sword in the Stone, started the loosely-militaristic themed evening. This early work of some parody and musical directness demonstrated perfectly Britten’s emerging but unique voice. Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale is set to a text from an old Russian folk tale. With repeated militaristic imagery and rhythms of jazz, ragtime, tango, waltz and marching, it demands the highest virtuosity and dexterity from the instrumentalists. They gave it in full measure. The libretto was … Read entire article »

Man is Man Theatre Paradisum, at the Norwich Playhouse Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 21st January 2010 ‘Tonight you are going to see a man reassembled like a car; leaving all his individual components just as they are…’ No surprises with Brecht. The message is always spelled out. This is the tale of a simple worker bribed with beer and cigars to take another drunkard’s place in a machine-gun troop and is deliberately turned into a happy killer. It’s also about knowing your identity. Against the  backdrop of  global conflicts today, it’s relevant and timely. The young all-female cast (another neatly Brechtian angle) tackle it with gusto and obvious relish, demonstrating the characters as Brecht demanded. Theatre Paradisum are building a credible Brechtian expertise and this early but substantial piece from the master’s extensive catalogue … Read entire article »

Gob Squad at the Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 6 May 2009 Kitchen If you can remember the Sixties or weren’t there and want a taste of what a Happening was like, this is the show to watch. The quirky, aptly named Gob Squad hold forth in Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It so Good), a reconstruction of the 1965 Andy Warhol film. This Anglo-German group are well versed in public and open-space performances and offer comedy with traces of surrealism and a streak of anarchy. The randomness of events, such as throwing cornflakes or smoking coffee granules, is typical of much of the thearical and artistic experimentation of that era. They use three screens behind which most action occurs, and we see the filmed projections from out front. Gradually, several individuals … Read entire article »

Nola Rae at the Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 14 February 2005 Exit Napoleon, Pursued by Rabbits It takes some doing – 75 minutes on stage by a one-woman inventive comic mime artiste with a powerful message. The international physical theatre specialist enlivened the strange tale of Napoleon Bonaparte and, by extension, other dictators, on a desolate field in a tattered tent with the detritus of life – pots, spoons and a cheese grater providing endless comic opportunities. She toured a humorous repertoire, punctuated by an inspired soundtrack and effects, like an historic Mr Bean, from pathos to tape stuck to a finger. From the entrance through the audience, reminiscent of the nightmare crone in David Bowie’s Labrynth, to the end as Hitler orchestrating air raids, she took us on a journey … Read entire article »

Saltmine Theatre Company at The Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 18 May 2005 The Hiding Place Real-life events can sometimes be difficult to work in a theatrical context. Truth is often the first casualty. But in this perfomance of the Ten Boom family’s heroic hiding of Jews in their clock shop during the Nazi occupation of Holland, truth shines out alongside passion, Christian compassion, love and family values. Making a welcome return to the city, Saltmine brought their much-acclaimed show, The Hiding Place, out of the lifestory of Corrie Ten Boom and on to the Playhouse stage in an engaging and totally inspirational evening. Inevitably inviting some comparison with the Diary of Anne Frank and Schindler’s List, this went further. It’s timely on the 60th anniversary of war’s end to consider how forgiveness … Read entire article »

Kaos Theatre at The Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 6 October 2005 Moll Flanders Kaos Theatre returns to Norwich with a reputation for cutting-edge physical theatre and original storytelling. Expectations are high in the tale of the heroine/anti-heroine Moll, whore, victim, thief, woman…. The trouble is, Moll is played by a man (to reflect that the story is really of the disreputable writer Daniel Defoe himself). Many of the male and female parts are strangely swapped. By the end, the confusion has ceased to be comic and become distasteful and pointless. If there was any doubt that performance art reinvents the past, this is proof. It has shades of The Beggar’s Opera (six songs and early musical theatre) and a touch of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera (music, villains and a moral message). But the … Read entire article »

Theatre Melange at the Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 7 October 2006 The Mona Lisas Mona Lisa – the smile that launched a thousand spin-offs. Forgive me mixing my metaphors, but in a surreal performance artpiece, eclecticism comes as normal. It was a tour round the history of art from Da Vinci to Impressionism, then Cubism and Dada to Andy Warhol. Loosely hung round this frame, six performers in search of something mixed unmatcheable images and sounds to create not a sense of wonder at the fusion of art and theatre, but bewilderment. The Anglo-Romanian company is an international collaboration of cultures and history using the Italian painting stolen from France in 1911. Surrealism is a perfectly acceptable stage form. This had giant props, distorted dances, strangely sexual costumes and enough … Read entire article »

The Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 2 October 2006 Marcus Brigstocke Tall, lanky, the liberal in corduroy, Marcus Brigstocke treated us to a comic style that was a cross between a chat in your own front room and a loopy, clowning schoolboy winding up the teacher but impressing his mates. His targets were mainly predictable – Labour and Blair, George Bush, terrorism, air travel, transport, the French, Jamie Oliver, Daily Mail readers, the Scots and the EU. Material on the Olympic Games, children and TV adverts was more unexpected, but some of the religious and/or racial gags fell flat. While parts were hilariously funny, others were puzzling – why not sing the song that was threatened throughout? The audience question and answer session that passed for an encore added little. People posed … Read entire article »

The Playhouse, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 September 2006 Thalidomide, the Musical In a time when musicals are made from almost anything from Jerry Springer, Nixon and Thatcher to the NHS and Ofsted, it should be no surprise that Thalidomide gets a showbiz treatment. That this is written by and co-stars Mat Fraser, a well-known disabled actor, gives it an added edge. A man with very short arms looking for love in a long-armed world is the basis for a story that’s as politically incorrect as it can be. Through songs and docudrama, the narrative of the passing years, the horror of the Thalidomide tragedy is made flesh. Throughout, he is totally enabled by Anna Winslet as they ride a rollercoaster of musical genres, puppets and emotions. Some incredibly funny moments at first … Read entire article »