Separate Tables
Open Space Theatre’s Separate Tables at the Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 20 November 2014
Open Space Theatre’s annual autumn tour arrived at Lowestoft’s Seagull Theatre with a fine example of stage writing, surefire acting and direction.
Separate Tables is a pair of interconnected plays set in a 1950s’ south coast hotel, a rather sad place peopled by lost characters, past their prime or inadequate in some way.
April Secrett and Roy Goodwin were the once-married couple facing their shared past as it cleverly unfolded. Eileen Ryan’s hotel manager showed skill and empathy, Tim Hall embodied the hapless, pretend retired major and Geoff Cadman the former schoolmaster.
Yves Green was outstanding as the superior, resident matriarch with the excellent Emma Martin as her downtrodden daughter who found her own voice.
Other guests (Annie Chapman, Anne McClarnon, Jake Kubala and Becky Martin) explored the nuances of their characters with skill and attention to detail. Waitresses Emma Owen-Jackson and Alison Dumbell were well drawn.
Scene changes were swift and fun – an added touch from the creative mind of director David Green who once again proved that Open Space is one of the best of our local, touring groups.
Filed under: Reviews
The Addams Family
The Addams Family
Norfolk Youth Music Theatre, Maddermarket, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 7 November 2014
You don’t have to remember the TV or film series about the ‘creepy and kooky’ family from the dark side created by cartoonist Charles Addams about his nearest and dearest to enjoy this comical musical, a fun journey into the macabre.
Daughter Wednesday (Megan Artherton) falls in love with ‘normal’ Lucas (Felix Revel) who arrives with his respectable parents (Tom Coath and Nicola Myers) at Addams’ bizarre mansion. Father Gomez (Aidan Parsons) and his wife Morticia (the outstanding Molly Cutter) fall out over it.
Delightfully created family members appear with madnesses and neuroses – Uncle Fester (Archie Brown) is in love with the moon; crazy Grandma (Lauren Bryant) wheels a drug trolley like a demented nurse.
Austin Tanner is Wednesday’s strange little brother and Joseph Reed is a totally bizarre and hilarious Lurch, the zombie butler. The delightful chorus of ever-present dead ancestors are perfectly performed.
Clever songs and often discordant music interludes are provided by a superb band conducted by Mark Sharp. The whole works together seamlessly to present a funny yet thought-provoking evening displaying some extremely high quality young local talent.
Filed under: Reviews
The Country Wife
The Country Wife
The Hostry, Norwich Cathedral
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 30 October 2014
Restoration Comedy is a somewhat neglected genre, yet its place in the historical journey from Shakespeare to farce is significant.
So this is an inspired choice by the Hostry Festival team led by Stash Kirkbride and director Peter Beck. Presented by a cast of professionals and amateurs The Country Wife is a rude, lewd and fun piece that was shocking in the 17th Century.
The story revolves round lustful Mr Horner (Evan Ryder) pretending he’s been made a eunuch in order to reassure husbands he is safe while he seduces their wives and makes cuckolds of them.
The central wife herself (Jo Reil) and Alithea (Rebecca Aldred) are but two happy participants, while the twists and turns of deceit, lies, dissemination poke witty fun at marriage, possessiveness, a form of free love and the constraints of respectable society swirl around.
Mr Pinchwife (Peter Barrow) is the miserable, tortured man with the young wife, Robin Watson a would-be lover and Jonathan Massey is a wonderful, exaggerated fop who ends up with nothing.
It’s an unexpected romp in an usual setting – an ideal festival event.
Filed under: Reviews
The Importance of Being Earnest
Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 25 October 2014
It is always something of a challenge to present a well known and much loved play in a way that is familiar yet fresh.
This classic of mannered comedy is embraced by the Maddermarket cast with energy and good timing, allowing the comedy of Wilde’s witty, often-barbed one-liners and situational humour full rein.
The young would-be Earnests, Algernon (Alexander Cowley) and John/Jack (Rob Tiffin) are well matched and suitably preposterous.
The young women who must each have an Earnest, Gwendolen (Camilla Webster) and Cecily (Ellie Kidd) are excellent, especially in their speedy shallow ‘friendship’ in the tea scene.
Watching over it all with her fearfully splendid matronly glare is the notorious Lady Bracknell (Clare Howard) with Miss Prism (Jane Dickerson) and Canon Chasuble (John Hare) in support. The handbag denouement moment is nicely judged.
There are three superb sets, swiftly changed in the two intervals. Jeffrey Davies directs an evening that shares some quintessentially English social and historical scandal, class concerns, secrets and duplicitous pretences.
A pleasing performance not to be missed.
Filed under: Reviews
Green Forms
Green Forms
Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 14 October 2014
Play about bureaucracy is funny and bitter-sweet
Special lunchtime performances at the Maddermarket are a great idea. Green Forms is a clever, funny, bitter-sweet hour’s comedy from the mighty pen and sharp wit of Alan Bennett.
Add in the combined acting talents of Dawn Brindle, Judi Daykin and John Mangan and there is all we need for a wonderful piece of fun to enliven a wet day in the city.
It is a satire on offices, managements, bureaucracies, redundancies and mindsets of the 1980s, before computers took over the world and manual typewriters became history.
The verbal sparring between the two perfectly matched women was masterful, the pace relentless. He is the one-armed caretaker-cum factotum with a possibly unintentional cruelty in his flippancy.
The pointed humour lies in both setting and accurately observed characters wearing their baggage and neuroses like clothes. Neither a single word word nor a gesture are wasted.
The little digs at each other, the vulnerabilities and sick dread of being sacked from an organisation that is almost as incomprehensible as something from Kafka are tangible, real, credible and resonant. Warmly recommended.
Filed under: Reviews
The Hollies
The Hollies at Theatre Royal, Norwich
Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 14 October 2014
60s’ pop legends bring back memories
One of those rare 60s’ bands that never officially broke up, The Hollies, named after Christmas and/or in memory of Buddy Holly, are celebrating half a century since their first album.
Drawing from a rich back catalogue with two newer songs, they played hits like Just One Look and Stay as originally recorded – three guitars, drums and singer. Other classics were updated in interpretation to make a thumping good evening.
It was impossible not to sing along with Here I Go Again, You Got Me Going, Sorry Suzanne, We’re Thru, Listen to Me and after an interval to change clothes, Jennifer Eccles, Bus Stop, I’m Alive, The Baby, Sandy (4th July), Stop Stop Stop, The Air That I Breathe, He Ain’t Heavy …
From the original hit line up drummer Bobby Elliott and virtuoso guitarist Tony Hicks played with the energy of youngsters, loving the memories they brought back in such style. This band stood out for catchy lyrics, brilliant harmonies and melodies. They still do.
They drew a sell-out crowd to the Theatre Royal, but will be back in our region next spring in Lowestoft.
Filed under: Reviews
That Is All You Need to Know
That Is All You Need to Know
Idle Motion at Norwich Playhouse
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 30 September 2014
With strong visual staging, young theatre group Idle Motion brought a tribute to the secrets of the wartime Code and Cipher unit at Bletchley Park to Norwich.
Using physicality, clever projections to move events and multiroling, the cast explored the significance of the ground-breaking thinking which helped end the war.
That Is All You Need to Know summed up the philosophy that ‘careless talk costs lives’ which stayed with many Bletchley workers for decades after. In our instant click-and-share world that seems astonishing.
The considered and thoughtful piece told the story in Brecht-influenced docu-drama style of how code-breaking teams were put together, including Gordon Welchman whose book was later frowned upon by the security world and tragic genius Alan Turing, now acknowledged as the father of modern computer science.
That tale was juxtaposed with how the decaying buildings were saved for the nation in the 1990s in a neat closing of the circular lesson in life that in order to move forward, we first must look back.
Filed under: Reviews
Aspects of Love
Aspects of Love
The Lowestoft Players at the Bethel
Review published in Eastern Daily Press 6 September 2014 and Lowestoft Journal 12 September 2014
Always pushing boundaries, the Lowestoft Players have excelled themselves with this Andrew Lloyd Webber gem. They are staging the Suffolk premiere at their own Bethel theatre, harnessing some of the finest talent in the region.
Stephen Wilson and Louise Clarke direct masterfully. Far from a classic love story, it’s a triangle of relationships which expand to include others in a tale very much of the late 1980s, yet timeless in its treatment of the hopes, yearnings and uncertainties of love.
Love Changes Everything is the show-stopper and the motif that underpins the score. Matthew Hardy does a tremendous job on piano and the music is seamless.
Craig Loxton as the romantic soldier, Polly Woodward as the actress at the heart of men’s passions and John Marjoram as the older man who loves her and their daughter unconditionally, are just superb.
Dayna Williams is captivating and Emily Fox as the daughter is a star in the making. The ensemble were stunning, especially in the dark circus scene. You’d be mad to miss it.
Filed under: Reviews
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 rich with mutual respect and that unique, dry, local deadpan humour best appreciated by those who can remember phone boxes, pounds, shillings and pence and a slower pace of life.
Parochial, old-fashioned, hilarious, poignant yet with serious undertones about life as it has become in equal measure, this show in aid of the EDP We Care Appeal took up where the former Press Gang sadly left off.
Filed under: Reviews