Trestle Theatre Company at The Cut, Halesworth

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 20 September 2004

The Smallest Person

An audience suspends disbelief and gasps as the skeleton of a nineteen and a half inch child moves in her glass case – tribute to the dark power of masks, music and puppets.

Trestle’s unique style grippingly serves this play about the death and burial versus dissection of Caroline Crachami in Georgian England. We are left uneasy at the treatment of the sick and deformed.

Masks limit expression, yet on the faces of the talented company, there is more emotion in a simple gesture or muted cry than would seem possible. The child is a tiny puppet operated by  a performer in clear view – yet the pathos still says more than words.

Rich in humour, the piece is enthralling. King George IV is lampooned as gross in a pig mask. Yet his loneliness is apparent as his kiss reduces a child to tears.

The delightful ex-maltings are the perfect setting for an intimate mask company taking physical theatre to new heights.

Norwich Theatre Royal Actors’ Company at The Forum, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 20 June 2009

Three Pinter Plays

Rehearsed readings of three of Harold Pinter’s political pieces in support of Refugee Week is not everybody’s cup of tea. Pinter’s anger against injustice, corruption, power and torture rings out.

It’s Norwich Theatre Royal Actors’ Company with the Norwich Writers’ Centre and the excellent Roger Lloyd Pack in the lead roles and Kirsty Bushell and Patrick Kennedy in fine form.

One for the Road is a terrifying dance of the powerful around helpless victims. Owen Mustard is the boy whose parents are arrested to be tortured. Ashes to Ashes is a questioning into her past between a man and a woman he presses for details. It’s uncomfortable. It has a sparse harshness with a human coating.

Press Conference is a sketch of a minister from a corrupt regime at the podium defending policy. It has a comic resonance today.

An evening of profound thought.

Festival Chorus and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 4 May 2009

A successful orchestral and choral concert hangs on many strands – fine music played outstandingly, a chorus with a range of quality voices, a rapt audience and a setting that allows it to soar to inspire listeners’ spirits.

St Andrew’s Hall was the ideal location. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra opened the evening with Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 3 in A minor, “The Scottish”. Their professionalism, versatility and virtuosity never cease to impress and make listening a joy.

Inspired by a walking tour of Scotland, particularly the ruined Holyrood Chapel, Mendelssohn captures the lightness and the dark Celtic broodiness building to the thrill of the fourth movement. This speaks of clan warfare – very accessible to a mixed-aged audience.

After the interval, the Festival Chorus, the Hewett School Choir, the Broadland Youth Choir and two professionals, soprano Mary Plazas and tenor Toby Spence, combined their contrasting voices with the Orchestra to premiere a new joint Festival and Orchestra commission, There Was a Child.

Commemorating the life of a 19-year old boy who drowned, it is an experiment in music making, a joyful piece rather than a requiem. Composer Jonathan Dove exploits the possibilities of massed voices in children and older people. He combines the practical extremes of musical styles from modern minimalist to operatic while conductor David Parry coaxes, co-ordinates and demands the full emotional gamut.

It draws on snippets from poems by Charles Causley, Wordsworth, Keats, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Whitman and Tennyson. One minute we are In Memoriam, as at a funeral; the next we are remembering affectionately naughty boys climbing fences, leaping over the moon. From birth through childhood to the mother’s grief, the story is told, a life is recalled and shared, the heart is touched. All in all, it’s an inspiring triumph.

Great Hall Theatre Company at the Assembly House, Norwich

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 25 March 2009

Blood Brothers

Yes, it’s Blood Brothers, the story of twins separated at birth, in love with the same girl, by Willy Russell.

Yes, it’s the Great Hall Theatre Company performing in the round.

No, it’s not the musical version in its long-running West End guise; but it’s very good all the same.

It rattles along at a cracking pace, partly through the narrative and tight writing, but equally by the direction from Vic Young, using the arena staging to real effect.

Debbie Dance creates the mother, Mrs Johnstone, who gives away one twin, with a convincing, moving emotion mixed with Liverpudlian earthy humour.

The twins, Myles Hague and Tom Girvin, are superbly cast, with their different upbringings highlighted well.

They convey the gradual realisation of why they are drawn to each other with perfection.

A small supporting cast reinforces the action and helps tell the tale that resonates with anyone who has wondered about nature and nurture, breeding and destiny.

Beth Davies is the shared love interest and Liz Patient the unstable other mother. Both are strong.

Dark comedy is never far from the surface and is rich among the social commentary.

The final tragedy of human jealousy plays to its inevitable climax. It’s a quality night all round.

Sewell Barn Theatre, Norwich

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 25 April 2009

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Oh the games people play! Many will remember the the 1960s’ Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton shock film of the relationship between a long married couple and their ‘son’.

This stage version in the audience-proximity of the Sewell Barn puts us right in among the tension as dialogue overlaps, tempers fray and the very edge of tolerance is reached.

George (Noel Jones) and Martha (Cassie Tillett) torment each other like cat and mouse and include their younger visitors, Honey (Louise Humphrey) and Nick (Andy Cowan).

It’s all cruel, verbal, personal and generational sparring through merciless games as the long night wears on, fuelled by alcohol and weariness.

It’s powerful stuff, not only directed superbly by Jenny Hobson, but acted outstandingly by all four protagonists who sustain tension, rip bandages from each others’ wounds, exposing raw nerves and weaknesses.

It’s a masterpiece of the disappointed optimism of youth, the cynicism of middle age and the fantasies we weave to cope. It’s very funny in places with a dark, gallows humour.

Theatre Paradisum at the Playhouse Theatre, Norwich

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 22 January 2009

The Threepenny Opera

Fans of Brecht’s theatrical ideas, novices in the art of ‘making strange’ (verfremdungseffekt) and those who enjoy a classic parody with music should catch The Threepenny Opera.

The bare walls of the stripped Playhouse stage are ideal for great racks of costumes to serve as scenery. Actors, ‘presenters’, change in view and pull off that difficult trick of separating emotion from their demonstrations of their roles.

Theatre Paradisum are a mainly local group. From the opening of the much-abused Mac the Knife, the audience is in safe hands.

Weill’s music is interpreted with flair, songs punctuate narrative and the whole achieves Brecht’s aim of provoking thought, yet is highly entertaining.

It’s a commentary of corruption endemic to law and the criminal world where the bandit Macheath (Ed Birch) and Tiger Brown, chief of police (Pat Cahill) are best friends.

Some lines resonate today – ‘I’m going into banking, it’s safer, more profitable’.

Jokes work and director Peter Beck builds a seedy world of beggars and prostitutes through strong performances from all, especially Evan Ryder as Peachum, Sally Campion-Jones as his wife and Alma Fournier-Carballo and Louise Humphrey as the women fighting over the anti-hero.

The rather disappointing finale reprieve on the gallows is down to Brecht, but this show could be trimmed a little and still be first class.

Black Ram Theatre at The Cut, Halesworth

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 9 September 2009.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Some straight plays from earlier periods can seem irrelevant to now. This from the Sixties is about sanity and madness and resonates well with how things are today.

Set in a mental institution, it shows how people are not necessarily insane if they don’t fit into the system or society. It’s about being independent and free.

New inmate McMurphy (Russell Turner), an instinctive rebel feigning lunacy, comes into immediate conflict with the rule-bound rigidity of Nurse Ratched (Claire Bibby). Other stock, crazy characters include the elective deaf-mute Indian Chief (Thomas Renshaw) who finally releases McMurphy from earthly life, after he’s been lobotomised to conformity.

After a hesitant start, it builds well, with supportive, well judged contributions from all patients individually and collectively and medical staff, who could have been more menacing.

Director Ross McGregor puts them on a claustrophobic set and gets the best from darkly humorous lines amidst the psychiatric jargon and human emotion.

It’s moving material, and not for the faint-hearted.

Thalia Theatre Company at the Playhouse, Norwich

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 20 November 2008.

Nature’s Force and Fury

It was a welcome return to the Playhouse in their fifth annual show for local group Thalia who incorporate the work of differently abled people in the performing arts.

Nature’s Force and Fury was a timely exploration of climate change and the power of the elements with social comment through performance arts. It was a powerful message through a vibrant medium, a series of devised ideas and interpretations using movement skills.

The first half was a hypnotic and moving rendition of a storm using moving tableau and dramatic still images, with some accomplished rhythmic marching. The discipline and training that the arts demand was fully realised throughout.

The second half had its scene set by video footage of time-lapsed Norwich – a study of frantic life. Then it was wind farms, then rain, then trees, then wind-blown paper. Images, sound and movement in harmony.

Mention must be made of the sheer inventiveness of the music created by Yoghurt Collective which led, twisted and inspired the movement.

Impressive was how everyone devised, rehearsed and performed and supported each other. Thanks to whoever played us the Leonard Cohen album as we took our seats and in the interval. All part of a delightful and worthwhile evening.

Thalia Theatre Company at the Playhouse, Norwich

Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 21 November 2007.

Step Into The Light

Thalia is a theatre company for disabled adults and young people with a range of impairments and difficulties.

They describe themselves as a registered charity and social enterprise. They should add talented performance and physical theatre ensemble to their banner.

Their latest work was a series of explorations of our senses. A stylised masked comedy opened the show devised from workshops by Garlic Theatre. The mask may define us or we can hide behind one.

The second item by the youth section was about light – a single pool can mesmerise, blind or illuminate. It was a thoughtful piece punctuated by oriental music which was intriguing and highly atmospheric. A dance medley was fun and excellently executed.

But it was the second half that took the breath away. An ambitious and totally original creation called Kaleidoscope of Colour, it took shapes, colours and deep meanings, moods and images distilled from members’ own sketches.

In eight contrasting and beautifully choreographed movements, a spellbinding illusion was brought to life by music from Yoghurt Collective.

They also launched a DVD to fund their dream of a home of their own. This show, their fourth at the Playhouse, showed that with willpower, dedication and belief, dreams can become reality.