Olivia Evershed as Andy

“Tap isn’t easy to master, so respect must go to the whole cast for giving it a very good shot, as well delivering a solid comedic acting display.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Nae Bad

Stepping Out is a comedy about a group of mismatched characters in the 80s who are all in the same recreational tap dance class. And yes, they do actually dance. If that doesn’t sound funny already, Lorna Treen’s performance as ancient, grouchy pianist Mrs Fraser in the opening scene, delivering witty one-liners in brilliant dead pan style, sets the show off to a very good start.

As the play progresses, we get to learn more about each character and their relationships with each other, some of which aren’t as rosy as they might initially seem. Although a bit of a slow burner in terms of narrative in the first half, when the class is offered the chance to put on a real show to a paying audience the tension is raised a notch and it picks up some of the pace it had been lacking.

The script posed some difficulties with staging, largely due to its ensemble nature (most of the cast were on stage a majority of the time) and the structure of the dialogue into small snippets rather than full scenes. This had the effect of it all feeling a bit fragmented and having a stilted sense of flow, but director Zoe Most and the cast did well to keep action on stage alive from every angle despite this.

Interspersed with the comedy were some very touching moments, particularly between Andy and Geoffrey. However these got a little bit lost among the more active, ensemble scenes, and could have been more impactful with a bit more contrast in pace and dynamics.

The dancing itself was very enjoyable and was well choreographed to show progression in the class’s ability from the beginning to the end of the play. Tap isn’t easy to master, so respect must go to the whole cast for giving it a very good shot, as well delivering a solid comedic acting display.

The stand out performer (for me) was Isabella Rogers as the outspoken, middle class Vera. Her facial expressions, comic timing and perfect delivery of the line “I used to be fat, you know” had the whole audience giggling with glee. She drew attention whenever she was on stage and delivered a captivating and comical performance. Olivia Evershed, playing the browbeaten Andy, showed great depth in a complex character and was also compelling to watch.

For the opening night of a student production, one can forgive it being a little rough around the edges. The heart and soul of the piece were definitely intact and it delivered laughs a plenty. Overall, a very enjoyable evening, well worth stepping out to.

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Reviewer: Steve Griffin  (Seen 25 March)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

“That was a damn plucky sparrow. Did you hear it chirping away, all through the final artillery bombardment?”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Nae Bad

Recent findings, reported in The Journal of Rhetorical Geology, suggest that the best seams of theatrical pathos (the awakening of emotion) are to be found in the scarred and sacred landscape of the Great War. There pathos in its purest form can be located, under layer upon layer of cultural sediment laid down by successive generations struggling to comprehend the bloodshed.

Extracting pathos is relatively simple. Pop down to Armstrongs, buy a few green jackets, then sit around on stage acting out various combinations of maudlin, keen, world-weary and surprisingly chipper. Refining said pathos, into something worthy of the sacrifice of the young men who actually lived and suffered through the realities of trench warfare is, however a much taller order.

We enter to find one of the best sets ever seen at Bedlam. The officers’ dugout is constructed of little more than canvas and suggestion. Somehow it’s both claustrophobic and snugly, a shelter against Gerry’s wizzbangs, a petri dish for festering resentments. Here a mixed cast will achieve mixed results unraveling the social nuance and dark humour of R. C. Sherriff’s classic script.

Based on the writer’s own experience as a Captain on the Western Front, Journey’s End has been revised time and again. It first opened in 1928, starring Laurence Olivier as Stanhope, the company commander stretched passed the limits of mental and physical endurance. It’s the story of men living among the wreckage of their youth, uncertain of their future, certain that nothing can be as it was before.

EUTC’s Ben Schofield steps confidently into the breech focusing his fire on Stanhope’s relationship with the recently posted 2nd Lieutenant Raleigh, a greenhorn from his pre-war past. Tom Trower captures Raleigh’s hero worship of Stanhope without neglecting his own dramatic narrative. A fine bromance disintegrates before our eyes. It’s the one theme signed, sealed, and delivered enough to satisfy even the most finickity marker of an English Lit paper.

Ross Baillie as Osbourne, Stanhope’s second in command, brings Jovian gravity to the picture. His coupling of calm self-possession to undertones of physical menace are reminiscent of those Scottish Green Party political broadcasts featuring The Hound from Game of Thrones. Alex Andrassy provides equally strong character work, catching the comic value of Private Mason, the Baldrickian mess cook, with a bittersweet distillation of timing and physicality.

Jari Fowkes, as Lt. Trotter, bowls the social googly. Trotter isn’t one of the chaps, he’s come up through the ranks. Despite baiting the hook with almost every non-RP middle-class accent variation from the Thames estuary to West Yorkshire, none of the other actors bite and a trick is missed. Ciara Chapman, as the unaccountably poshest Sergeant-Major in British military history, underscores a glaring oversight – yes, the play is set in France, but it’s about a changing Britain.

There are moments when this production is utterly captivating, the acting sharp, the discipline, focus and effort obvious. Equally there are times – such as when a sparrow continues to sing through the final bombardment (rather than poignantly waiting for peace to break out like how John Lloyd had it) – that you find yourself wishing for something informed by more than Blackadder Goes Forth. You start to wish that this had been a production referencing more broadly the artistic expression, across every medium, which the Western Front continues to inspire.

Then the ending reveal happens, the set transforms, and it’s magnificent.

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 5 February)

Visit the Assembly Roxy Bedlam Church Hill Theatre Festival Theatre King’s Theatre Other Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot Summerhall The Lyceum The Stand Traverse archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED