Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 August 2008

Wait Until Dark

All the best suspense thrillers play out in the darkness both of the area around you and in your mind. This masterfully crafted thriller is an electrifying example.

Centred round a mysterious doll (which is hidimg some heroin) it features a sinister conman, two ex-convicts, a rather naive man and his blind wife.

Murders and a deadly cat-and-mouse game build to a terrific climax.

That is the plot and it demands strong acting and powerful direction.

The Maddermarket do just that; the brilliantly intriguing plot and realistic characters develop with compelling tension.

Richard Mann sustains Kray-like menace and his two side-kicks, Russell Turner and Max Rudd, play it with just the right amount of conman plausibility.

Jo Sessions as the blind woman is outstanding, balancing our natural sympathy at her situation with always knowing more than she lets on.

Megan Bond as a 12-year old girl is delightfully spooky.

Rhett Davies directs, making excellent use of the cramped stage and dim lighting in a basement to build the claustrophobia.

Acknowledging the Hitchcock influence, the whole hangs on superb timing, a variety of threats and terrors and in the end a satisfying sense of sheer horror.

The finale performed in absolute blackness is one of the most effective stage thrills in a long time. You will not want to miss it

Reduced Shakespeare Company at The Playhouse, Norwich

Review published 20 October 2008

The Reduced Bible

The Reduced Shakespeare Company built a formidable reputation paraphrasing all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays into comic lunacy lasting 90 minutes.

They are at it again. This time taking the entire Bible! Three American guys keep the gags coming, a never-ending surreal angle on the key stories, all well rehearsed but riven through with adlibs and current affairs.

The basic comic technique is one idiot and two straight men. One moment they are reminiscent of a sixth form sketch, the next they are making a serious lecture. It is powerfully funny.

The selection of stories to send up is as varied as the treatment each receives.

Eve is a puppet emerging from Adam’s front. Abraham is Old Abe Lincoln. The second half is the New Testament. It finishes with Revelation – the Musical. In no way is it bad taste – it is refreshing fun.

The Playhouse, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 22 December 2008

Axis of Evil

Take three students – a pair of Brits (Tom Butterworth and Andy Bennett) and a Yank (Will Averill), plus hours dossing about in student squalor watching films and TV, together with a bunch of willing friends and a host of whacky, anarchic comedy ideas and we have Axis of Evil Productions.

The Coalition – Tales of the Uninvited was their latest instalment of a couple of episodes of a continuous staged soap opera.

Episode 9: Attack of the Yank’s Kid Sister and Episode 10: Horsemen of the Multipocolypse were served up, drawing freely on – and making fun of – Star Wars.

Other influences, ranging from The Goodies, Benny Hill, The Young Ones to Punk’d, were clearly visible as some very funny  lines dropped like debris from their kamikaze approach to physical, comedy theatre.

They also showed a film shot around Norwich – The Tominator, which was a very effective spoof of Arnie Schwarzenegger and the whole genre of futuristic stories.

Some social issues were touched upon – the environment and the economy – and a wide knowledge of movies and current affairs helped to make some sense of this style of amusing sarcasm.

They have built up quite a local following and are admired for their refreshing approach to traditions and conventions. They will be back.

George Piper Dancers at Theatre Royal, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 19 July 2004

The George Piper Dancers/Ballet Boyz

Traditional ballet, it wasn’t. But with all the classical precision, technically demanding moves, came a range of boundary-pushing dance discoveries that made for a stunning evening.

A unique feature of this company is that they do not have to appeal to an established dance audience. They convince general performance enthusiasts that modern dance is accessible, intelligent and huge fun.

The Ballet Boyz, Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, recently gave us a documentary series on Channel 4 demystifying the creative dance process.

But it’s the rehearsal and tour footage that accompanies the dances on stage which is particularly novel. Indeed, some video links were applauded.

The talented team gave us a feast of challenging spectacle and dazzling, gymnastic artistry.

For starters, Approximate Sonata set the challenging tone.

Then, the main course was Mesmerics, using the full company in a haunting piece set to Philip Glass’ string quartets in pools of changing lights.

Dessert was the award-winning Broken Fall in which a dark journey through dense atmosphere was conjured in dance dialogue.

It was breathtaking and hinted how far dance can go now. Nobody had to understand every nuance of the narrative thread to enjoy it. But to enjoy it was a revelation.

Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 20 August 2004

Black Coffee

This Agatha Christie tale is an acquired tatste. So is the elegant Hercule Poirot, solving the mystery with his little grey cells, his deliciously old-fashioned sidekick Hastings and hapless Inspector Japp.

However, in the confident hands of the Maddermarket company under Tim Seely’s deft direction the familiar came alive

The intimacy of the theatre draws us into the country house library and the plot – albeit dated, resting on dinner jackets, poison, blackmail, a stolen formula for a new weapon and copious red herrings – was strangely comforting.

The denouement is vintage Christie, bringing the strands and twists together in a satisfying way.

Humour in both script and direction plays to the full, ranging from the stylish self-deprecation of the characters to the running jokes about foreigners from a 1930s’ perspective.

“intelligent, you know, some of these foreigners,” contrasts with the hero’s cry, “I am everywhere taken for an Englishman.”

John Mangan as Poirot makes the famous mannerisms his own, while the company sparkles in polished support to make a riveting evening, a modern interpretation of a period piece seven decades old.

The packed house loved it, and warmed especially to Dawn Brindle and Hugh Roberts, while Natasha Purwin brought an alluring presence to the stage.

Saltmine Theatre Company at the Playhouse, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 23 June 2004

The Screwtape Letters

The power of love, the love of God, is the heart of this very triumphant Christian message through pure theatre.

CS Lewis was one of the most powerful Christian voices writing in the 20th century. The letters – epistolary – between  experienced devil Screwtape and his novices Wormwood and Flubgob are classics of popular theology.

They have been assigned to secure the damnation of a new young Christian. To portray this dialogue as a piece of gripping theatre is a challenge well met by Saltmine Theatre Company on its 18th anniversary tour.

A mainly Christian audience responded warmly to a wake up call on the human weaknesses of us all laid bare and to the humour that laced the entire piece.

An inability to pronounce Christian “hell and damnation, customer care department” and “it doesn’t matter what distracts men, even football will do”, were all highly apt.

We see the battle through the eyes of the devils, from whispering in ears, to suggestions and seductions, from a war ops room to a church, a doomed journey by evil.

In the end, the echoing horror of the last scenes as a broken Screwtape lamely convinces himself that one day the enemy (God) will not win was ringing in my ears. The victory over death and darkness by Christ is absolute.

Theatre Royal, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 15 June 2004

My Boy Jack

Expecting nostalgia about first world war sons and daughters, I was touched deeply by Rudyard Kipling’s confused emotions in putting his obligation ahead of family and breaking rules to send his myopic teenage son to the trenches in the name of King, country and empire.

The pointlessness of the boy’s sacrifice (half of the 250,000 under-age soldiers died) at Loos after a few months resonates in a broken Kipling’s subsequent writing and his own death as the second world war looms, inevitable after The War to End All Wars didn’t.

The dilemma of a devastated patriot questioning his fundamental beliefs is the tragedy mirrored in the lives of millions, echoed in the strain on wife and marriage and made poignant in our terrorist-troubled times.

Excellent performing of effective writing makes this a harrowing and amusing evening. David Haig – The Thin Blue Line – spent years researching and writing it.

He has captured a sense of loyalties and relative simplicity of the period, so cruelly ripped aside by waste and death.

He is partnered by Belinda Lang from TV’s comedy Two Point Four Children as his wife, supported by a strong cast.

I was glad of some distance between me and them – in a more intimate space, it may have been too much to bear.

Marina Theatre, Lowestoft

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 3 May 2004

The 40th Anniversary Tour of the Animals and Friends

1964 was a different age. But if you were a teenager then, you can relive the excitement. We’ve replaced records with CDs, but to share the Animals and friends’ 40th anniversary tour is to spend an evening with living old friends.

True, only two of the original Animals played, but there was a founder Kink and the others are talented survivors of other groups. All looked as lived in as most of the audience. Eric Burdon and the deceased were missed.

Songs from a new album interspersed classics in  their rhythm and blues style including I’m Crying, Don’t Bring Me Down, Bring It On Home to Me, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, Baby, Let Me Take You Home. They protested We Gotta Get Outta This Place before bewailing the ruin of many a poor boy in The House of the Rising Sun.

The support band was more than a mere warm-up.

Class of 64 are formerly of The Hollies, The Kinks and The Tremeloes, and with jokey, blokey, groupie pleasing links they dipped into their past catalogues.

Silence is Golden, Suddenly You Love Me, You Really Got Me, Tired of Waiting, Lola, Bus Stop, The Air That I Breathe had us singing along or mouthing words still indelibly part of our youth.

Northern Theatre Company at the Playhouse, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 26 April 2004

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

While some classic comedy is genuinely timeless, much of what we see of it today hopelessly obscure or out of fashion.

However, this revue of songs by America satirist Tom Lehrer by the Northern Theatre Company shows material still funny. Songs were drawn from the 50s and 60s and showed him as a political folk musician commenting freely on social and cultural life.

Drawing from dozens of musical styles via pastiche and mimicry, they ranged from the amusingly eponymous Poisoning Pigeons in the Park to the biting ‘satire is taking things to extremes” Masochism Tango.

College days and Harvard featured, but when NBS broadcast an Americanised version of That Was The Week That Was in 1964, Lehrer saw an outlet for his sometimes controversial, always perceptive lyrical journeys across the face of life.

National Brotherhood Week won the biggest appluase, while the Hunting Song touched a nerve – the right to bear arms.

Political correctness has not blunted enjoyment of satire from that era. Lehrer boldly tackled race, the Catholic Church, Oedipus, the old dope peddlar, the Irish, ageing and Christmas, motherhood and apple pie.

The revue format was sung and amusingly linked by Iain Thompson, Daniel Sproats, Katy Burgess and Paula Hudson and they were excellently served by musical director Jonathon Holtby on keyboards.