Snake in the Grass
Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 18 September 2010
Snake in the Grass
Alan Ayckbourn writes brilliant comedy with a dark side, an under belly of thoughtful, uncomfortable truth that makes for a fascinating evening, as if we are being mesmerised by a literal snake.
Director Judi Daykin takes hold of this less well-known four-hander and produces rivetting drama. Rhett Davies’ set, cunningly built into the small stage, is a delight, a deceptively peaceful, ramshackle old English garden, hiding all sorts of menace.
Two sisters are reunited after the death of their father. The apparently capable older one is played with perfectly balanced strength and vulnerability by Dawn Brindle. Her sibling, a masterful Etta Geras, is not quite as broken and crazy as she first appears.
Alexandra Berridge is the nurse/companion to the late old man who carries her aggressive disrespect very effectively. When she is dropped into the well, it’s a relief!
The fourth character is the presence of the old man, who exerts as much malign influence over his daughters in death as he did in life.
However, the plot has more twists and turns than a garden path, and the dark, brooding build-up to the unexpected climax is worthy of any stage thriller, handled with impeccable timing and class by a talented company.
Filed under: Reviews
The Price
Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
The Price
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 July 2010
Life is full of choices that come with a price. This is the thread of Arthur Miller’s rarely performed study of two brothers attempting to settle the chattels of their late father’s life and their own troubled relationship.
*A gifted writer but controversial man, with his outward humanitarian enthusiasm, his three marriages, including to Marilyn Monroe and his institutionalising/neglecting his Down’s syndrome son till just before he died,* Miller wrote this play as a powerful and emotional journey through how people react, what they know and how they deal with others.
The brothers – one, almost-retired cop, short of cash and indecisive (handled sensitively by Richard Mann); second, older, successful yet flawed, (a masterful interpretation by the always worth watching, John Mangan) – face two antagonists, besides each other. The cop’s wife (Judi Daykin, a bit subdued), pushy yet crushed, and the furniture dealer, (John Hare, a superb Shylock-like elderly wide-boy, who mined every nugget of humour in the text).
It is not comfortable to watch, but the past isn’t a total joy, and the cast work hard to draw the audience in to their fragile peace, their hurt still visible. *Direction is cramped round a central chair, but as challenging, unusual period drama still relevant, this is a strong contribution to what’s on in Norwich now*.
NOTE: The sections between * * not published in the review in EDP, sub-edited out, lack of space!
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The Voice Project
The Voice Project
Norwich Cathedral, part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2010
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 May 2010
The Festival curtain fell with another world premiere and a bang, the brilliant DJ sampler Jan Bang. Blending found-sounds and created, musical and unearthly, he mixed technology with sublime massed human voices of the Voice Project Choir and the musical brilliance of trumpeter, conductor, singer Arve Henriksen.
In the first half, scripture, 16th century poetry and contemporary verse were given the Voice Project interpretation. After the break, Recording Angel was the new work that will sit in the canon of 21st century repertoire.
To describe it is to delve deep into the lexicon of praise. Simultaneously experimental, traditional, a fusion of genres from choral chant and Biblical text, to poignant, touching-heaven emotions, it was conducted by the inspired Sian Croose, leading the most versatile instrument, the human voice.
Soprano Sianed Jones, alto Rebecca Askew, tenor Jeremy Avis and UEA graduate Jonathan Baker, bass, brought virtuoso singing that blended not only together, but with the extraordinary harmony of magnified sounds, a guitar and creative percussion at one point.
In the soaring vaulted chamber of the Cathedral, the whole became a sensuous experience that touched the body’s inner core. It grew organically from all the ingredients to release emotion that will haunt listeners for ages to come.
Filed under: Reviews
High Tide Festival 2010
High Tide Festival, Halesworth
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 3 May 2010
Three Plays
The annual High Tide Festival arrived in Halesworth, securely establishing itself as a high-quality forum for new, contemporary, cutting-edge theatre by unknown, developing writers, ranking it alongside top regional and national festivals.
Three new plays were on offer along with discussions and films. ‘Lidless’ by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig used the tiny Scout Hall as a barracks at Guantanamo Bay, in a mock-site-specific setting for a disturbing tale of a former female interrogator and detainee who tracks her down to ask for a kidney as he is dying, in return for what she and the Americans did to him.
In the theatre at The Cut, ‘Moscow Live’ by Serge Cartwright is set in a state-run English-language TV station in Moscow, and is about the news and truth, about relationships in a working environment and the clash of views between Britons, Russians and the lands between.
Beth Steel’s ‘Ditch’ is in a future England engulfed by floodwater, where a faceless tyranny rules people clinging to precarious survival in an isolated corner, people who are powerless as global war finally finishes them off.
The plays are hard-hitting, almost heavy political messaging and thought-provoking and if the writers are all young, it says how concerned they are about the present and their futures.
The acting is consistently high-order interpreting the powerful writing, images and human stories. The whole stays in the mind for a long time, as good theatre should.
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T’is Pity She’s A Whore
RoughCast Theatre at the Fisher Theatre, Bungay
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 26 April 2010
T’is Pity She’s A Whore
Forbidden love (incest), obsessive jealousy, teenage desire and problems endured by parents wrapped in gruesome revenge are the ingredients of the latest from RoughCast Theatre given two interesting innovations.
Written about 1630, this is a post-Elizabethan/Jacobean classic, drawing heavily on Romeo and Juliet, Othello and other revenge tales. What RoughCast do is to make it relevant to a modern audience.
The first big experiment is to to combine young actors from regional company The Keeper’s Daughters, with regular and older performers from RoughCast. The result is a realistic generational conflict. Directed and produced by Mark Finbow and Emma Martin, they take convincing parts themselves.
Young players Ryan Hill and Alice Mottram bring style to the doomed sibling-lovers. Danny Ridealgh and Adrian McKeogh complement the strengths of Simon Evans, Amy Gibbons, Pat Quorn and Paul Barker.
The second, effective development is a traverse stage, the audience halved across a rectangular space, the action brought closer to more people. The relationships between older and younger people ring totally true, and the quality of acting prevents the savage cruelty becoming comic.
Recommended for all ages.
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Frankenstein
Seagull Club at The Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 3 April 2010
Frankenstein
A woman, Mary Shelley, wrote it first. A creature put together from the body parts of others and brought to a life of its own, lonely, unloved and feared, is the macabre Gothic horror that has always thrilled.
Local actor Richard Boakes makes his writing and directorial debut in the Seagull Theatre Club’s latest production. A good job he makes of it, too.
He brings Frankenstein’s grisly old corpse alive, charting in a series of narrative scenes the sickening obsession of the young man (Reece Ayers, in horror-struck form) as his monster (a wonderfully rough Ryan Hammond) wreaks vengeance on innocent people for being created.
That the original experiment was intended to find a way from disease and into eternal life, is well argued as we realise that too much knowledge can be a dangerous passion in a world with limits.
The drama is enabled by the skills of Holly Drake, as the long-suffering love interest who meets a hideous end; and young Tyler Grimes, the boy also destined to be snuffed out by the Creature.
A strong supporting cast, some evocative music and a joy at seeing the Seagull Theatre doing well enjoyed by all ages, makes this a cracking good night out.
Filed under: Reviews
84 Charing Cross Road
Open Space Theatre
at The Cut, Halesworth
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press and East Anglian Daily Times, 8th March 2010
84 CHARING CROSS ROAD
Eagerly embracing more challenge, Open Space Theatre take on a play based on a twenty year exchange of letters, between a rising American writer and the staff of a London bookshop.
We see how the staff, especially the rather formal, English manager played convincingly by Alan Bolton, relate to the outgoing, louder Jewish American played superbly by Anne McClarnon, from either side of the Atlantic.
National events from the late 1940s to the swinging sixties are background, as letters, like personal diaries, and thoughtful gifts are exchanged.
Throughout, as friendship grows to a kind of romance – this long before internet communication – the anticipation of her coming to visit, summer after summer, adds to the build-up of emotion.
That she only arrives after he has died and the bookshop closed is a moving conclusion, the perfect culmination of the touching insight we have shared.
David Green directs with a masterful and sensitive hand, while Janet Koralambe, Claire Gallant, Jake Kubala, Ros Redelsperger and Emma Jaggs play supports that move effortlessly from humorous moments to deferential assistance to human concern.
All in all it’s a delight, a glimpse into the history of two nations from post-war to affluent excess with generous servings from the heritage of English literature.
Filed under: Reviews
Paul Carrack
Theatre Royal, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 15 February 2010
Paul Carrack
How Long Has This Been Going On? So sang one of those greats of the last 40 years, a performer in the same league as Van Morrison, Phil Collins and Jools Holland, as a packed house rocked along.
From rock-jazz fusion in the early 70s, to hit groups Ace and Roxy Music, through Squeeze in the 80s and with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, to Mike Rutherford in Mike and the Mechanics, Carrack progressed to a solo career where his total eclectic background was given full rein.
Wearing trademark dark glasses and backed by a 6-piece band and female singer who were impeccable, Carrack showed his versatility in singing and playing guitars and keyboards in numbers ranging from Loving You Tonight, Who Am I?, I Don’t Want to Hear Any More, Love in the Nick of Time and Eyes of Blue.
And he gave us hits he had written for others, such as Love Will Keep Us Alive, and for himself: If I Didn’t Love You, Just For Tonight, Silent Running, Another Cup of Coffee, Over My Shoulder, Everybody Gets a Second Chance.
Carrack sings of love. Highlight was the classic, lump-in-the-throat regret-lament of what a man wished he’d said to his father when he was alive: The Living Years.
When he returns, don’t wish you’d seen him: go and enjoy.
Filed under: Reviews