David Porter » Archive
We Come in Peace
We Come in Peace Keith Skipper and Friends, Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 2 June 2014 and Lowestoft Journal, 6 June 2014 The squire of squit travels abroad Norfolk folk legend Keith Skipper braved the perils of foreign travel leaving his natural habitat to bring local squit, mirth, stories, dusty jokes across the border into Suffolk. Lowestoft’s Marina Theatre hosted ‘Skip’ and friends Sheilah Olley, Pat Nearney, Danny Patton and the ‘sit-down comic’, Colin Burleigh. Suffolk man Ian Prettyman showed the truly inter-county flavour of the mission. Songs from our shared East Anglian sea and farming past and jokes about aging were interspersed with poems and ditties, letters, wisecracks and accounts of mardles from village pumps to high streets, current affairs and old adventures. Timeless Singing Postman songs enriched a warmhearted, generous afternoon … Read entire article »
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Annie
Lowestoft Players Marina Theatre Review published in Lowestoft Journal, 23 May 2014 Multi-award winning Lowestoft Players have revisited an old musical favourite for their latest production, complete with orphans, US President Roosevelt and a dog. 11-year old livewire Annie (Kitty Taylor and Jessica Tovell) is taken from an orphanage to spend Christmas with a billionaire. It’s her opportunity to find her long-lost parents. For him she is the key to a reconnection with humanity. Things don’t turn out as she’d dreamed but it’s still a heartwarming ending when the baddies are caught. The song ‘Tomorrow’ is the best known. The whole show is slick with professional quality commitment from everyone – on stage, orchestra, back stage and front of house. They make the audience feel free to just sit back and enjoy. The company are a good … Read entire article »
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Long Live the Little Knife
Fire Exit at Loddon & Chedgrave Jubilee Hall as part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2014 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 13 May 2014 In a little story in a play doing the rounds of city and county venues, Long Live the Little Knife sees two performers playing minor league con artists/art forgers hurtling through a range of emotions that leave everyone swirling! David Leddy’s piece is a lively romp through the travails of the underworld carrying some well crafted comedy too – ‘champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.’ Wendy Seager and Neil McCormack brilliantly play the couple, happily together yet not, switching voices and personas with breathtaking speed as the characters face up to their misfired plans. They – ‘we tell lies for a living’ – are the … Read entire article »
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Ray Davies
Ray Davies at the Playhouse Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2014 review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 12 May 2014 Ray Davies, the man behind the influential Kinks band, sat relaxed on stage at the packed Playhouse talking about his life, work and fifty years of music. As it was the literature section of the festival under the auspices of Writers Centre Norwich he was interviewed by author Peter Blegvad. He didn’t need questions to open up. He read from his book Americana: The Kinks, The Road and The Perfect Riff to set the scene for a musician, writer, artist and film enthusiast who’s seen and done it all, including being shot in a mugging in New Orleans. Never far from his working class north London upbringing, Ray has written and sung about Englishness for Britain and … Read entire article »
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Woman in Mind
Woman in Mind Open Space Theatre, Beccles Public Hall review published in Eastern Daily Press, 12 May 2014 Despite being almost 30 years old, this play resonates today with its ideas, characters and that bitter-sweet comic/tragic life commentary we expect from Alan Ayckbourn. Susan (mesmerisingly played by Yves Green) is a woman of a certain age going through a mental breakdown. She has created a fantasy life that becomes ever more real and gradually merges with her banal ‘normal’ world. Her husband (Geoff Cadman), her real son (Jake Kubala), her sister in law (Gill Mullen) and the hugely eccentric, comic doctor (Simon Evans) are cleverly interwoven with the idealism of her parallel family. The oily fantasy husband (Paul Baker), his brother (Steven Phipps) and the daughter she always wanted (Emma Martin) see and despise the real … Read entire article »
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Peddling
Peddling at the High Tide Festival, The Cut, Halesworth Review commissioned by Eastern Daily Press, but not published by them through their administrative oversight! April 2014. Remarkable drama sets tone for national festival Halesworth’s High Tide Festival with its reputation for new, experimental and unexpected work is in its 8th year and running till 19th April. Only able to catch one from a tempting catalogue of new, homegrown and visiting acts, Peddling came up for review in an afternoon showing. An inspired choice as it turned out. Steven Atkinson, co-founder of High Tide and child actor Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies, wrote and performed this remarkable drama about a young offender peddling household goods door to door in London. He wakes in some sordid field and journeys back from a ‘long list of yesterdays as … Read entire article »
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Phantom of the Opera
Norfolk Youth Music Theatre, at Norwich Playhouse Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 12 April 2014 The increasingly ambitious, hugely talented Norfolk Youth Music Theatre team excelled in their magnificent, confident Phantom, which is a big show by any definition. Whether in the dramatic solos and duets or the entire ensemble on stage, this was a smooth operation allowing the music, singing and Marina Bill’s tight choreography to drive the emotions in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s dark love story. Never easy musically, the orchestra under Mark Sharp’s expert baton sounded so good somebody near me thought it was a professional backing track. Norwich School of Dance delivered glorious ballet routines. Adrian Connell, stage and musical director, should be proud of his performers and know that he is guiding many future stars. Hyoie O’Grady donned the … Read entire article »
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Hitchcock Blonde
Hitchcock Blonde at the Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 22 February 2014. Playwright Terry Johnson doesn’t write about famous people so much as use them in his own intricate fixation dramas. This intriguing work runs two parallel obsession stories. The superbly loathsome Alfred Hitchcock (John Mangan) and his nameless, underestimated blonde (Gemma Johnston) play dangerous games with cameras, a knife and her darkly silent man (Dave Myers). On a Greek island, working through the chance discovery of rotting reels of early Hitchcock celluloid in rusty cans, middle-aged university lecturer Alex (Edward Wallis) tries it on with his not so naive blonde student (Libby Waite) so that she becomes more infatuated with him than the film. It’s Educating Rita taken to a different level. It’s obsession with consequences while unpicking human frailties … Read entire article »
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John Newton – Amazing Grace
‘John Newton – Amazing Grace’ Saltmine Theatre, Marina Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 17 February 2014 The man who wrote the world’s most famous hymn, Amazon Grace, was John Newton (1725-1807). To state that doesn’t do justice to an extraordinary life of sea adventuring, long-life romance with his wife and finding God. However, Saltmine Theatre have taken his story and brought it to life in a gripping drama culminating in his crowning achievement of his hymn. In a period when the British economy depended on slavery, Newton was press ganged into the navy before working slave ships to the colonies. When his ship was storm threatened, he cried out in wretched fear to God to be saved and became a passionate Christian believer, leading into ministry. A parallel with the Prodigal Son was well … Read entire article »
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