Category Archives: Theatre

Reviews of theatre work.

Kickstarting the Edinburgh Fringe pt.5

Posted in Features, Music, Previews, Theatre by

In the run up to this year’s Fringe Edinburgh49 is showcasing companies looking to crowdfund their shows using Kickstarter. If you haven’t figured out the format yet, check back through our previous 4 installments here; here; here and here.

Journies Beyond

Drawing on myths and legends from Britain, Japan, Mexico, Greece as well as the Caribbean, and performed by an all-female cast hailing from 5 continents, veteran Fringer Cavell O’Sullivan’s Journies Beyond promises a comic/tragic integration of dance, song, text and physical theatre exploring a variety of differing cultural takes on the afterlife.

If you are looking to spot a star in the making Wac Arts is a sure starting point. From its hub based at the Old Town Hall in London’s Belsize Park, the company has helped launched the careers of, amongst others, 1996 Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), 2004 Oscar nominee Sophie Okenedo (Hotel Rwanda), world famous jazz musicians Courtney Pine and Julian Joseph and four Mercury and Mobo Award winners including Ms. Dynamite and Zoe Rahman.

This Is Where We Live

Bristol-based Paperbark Theatre Company aim to bring contemporary Australian scripts on the international stage. The company’s founders, Shaelee Rooke and Oliver de Rohan are Australian actors and theatre-makers who met while training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Their aim is to bring Vivienne Walshe’s Griffin Award-winning play, This Is Where We Live, to Edinburgh and New York.

The script follows two outback high-school students, Chris and Chloe. He’s a middle-class, wannabe poet; she’s from the wrong side of the tracks. Together, they discover the possibility of escape from their dead-end small town hell.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/789071376/paperbark-presents-this-is-where-we-live-by-vivien?ref=discovery

A Collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Transforum Theatre is drawn from the students and alumni of the Kent State School of Theatre and Dance, Ohio. Their goal is to provide opportunities for students to pursue their passions and explore their creativity while developing new works of art in theater, dance, poetry, script writing and more.

A Collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales is a collaborative piece of theatre that combines and expands upon a handful of the classic tales. Transforum’s ensemble promise to employ a unique multitude of theatrical muses such as shadow puppetry and magic to speak to the imaginations of all ages.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1028443110/a-collection-of-grimms-fairy-tales?ref=discovery

Have a look at the other potential shows we’ve previewed: Kat Woods’ Belfast Boy; Finn Anderson’s Alba; A Scottish Musical; The Wrong Shoes Theatre Company’s The Anima Project; Apphia Campbell’s Black is the Color of My Voice; Ian Harvey Stone’s The Devil Without; The Red Oak Theatre Company’s Funny Girl; Luc Valvona’s The Improvised Improv Show; Dogstar Theatre’s Factor 9; and Unprescribed by almuni of the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama.

Note: The Kickstarter videos embedded in this post don’t show up in the email notification sent out to those of you following us through WordPress (but they are on the website, promise).

‘Wendy Hoose’ (Studio at the Festival Theatre: 29 March ’14)

Posted in Festival Theatre, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

Photo: Eamonn McGoldrick

Photo: Eamonn McGoldrick

‘a comedy of lack of manners, or of mannered people’s cringe-worthy attempts to misbehave’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

Wendy Hoose is by Johnny McKnight and is A Birds of Paradise Theatre Company and Random Accomplice production. Directed by Robert Softley Gale & Johnny McKnight.

If you’re the sort of person who reads the small-print of theatre programmes, you’ll know all about audio description. Sitting at the back of selected performances, audio describers explain – for the benefit of those who can’t see the action themselves – exactly what’s happening on stage. lt’s normally done using headphones. But Julie Brown, Wendy Hoouse’s audio describer, wants to share her thoughts with all of us … so they’ve ditched the technology, and just let her speak over the PA.

Which, put like that, sounds suspiciously right-on. But Wendy Hoose is all about messing with expectations – and this particular subversion proves truly inspired. Like the opinionated narrator of a Victorian novel, Brown seemingly can’t keep her thoughts to herself, and colours her commentary with a hilarious blend of upper-crust unshockability and deadpan disdain. ”Jake touches Laura’s breasts. She doesn’t seem to mind,” Brown’s disembodied voice observes primly. And then, a moment later: “Which I guess is what makes her different from me.”

Wendy Hoose has been called a “comedy of manners”, but it’s more a comedy of lack of manners, or of mannered people’s cringe-worthy attempts to misbehave. Paisley man Jake meets the confident, sassy Laura on the internet, and turns up at her flat in Cumbernauld with casual sex on both their minds. But neither of them’s particularly good at it — and Jake, in particular, proves comically bad at actually getting the job done. You’ll have gathered that this isn’t a play for the easily-offended, but the whole thing’s played with a crucial measure of restraint; it’s explicit enough to draw squeals of shock from the audience, yet it somehow never quite lapses into being crude.

James Young is sweetly engaging as the nervous, restless Jake, deftly capturing a veneer of confidence disguising insecurity and confusion. Amy Canachan, playing the bold-as-brass Laura, mocks Jake’s Paisley tones – as do the captions above the stage, which also feature cheery cartoons and other unexpected visual flourishes. The two actors share a deft comic timing, and they carry the audience effortlessly into the few more serious scenes.

The story takes a thought-provoking turn part-way through, but it’s only at the end that it hints at its true message – a comment on isolation in our seemingly connected world, with resonance even for those completely unlike Jake or Laura. Perhaps there’s more to draw from that concept; the ending feels distinctly abrupt. And the pace drops a little around the twenty-minute mark, though the gasps of laughter soon start coming again.

When all’s said and done, though, the plot of Wendy Hoose was always going to be upstaged by its design. lt takes the tools of accessibility — the narration, the surtitles, the sign-language interpreter — and rather than letting them divide the audience, turns them into an entertaining treat which everyone in the room can enjoy. So you should try to see Wendy Hoose; not because it’s commendable or inclusive (though it’s surely those things), but just because it’s clever, and tremedously good fun.

 

nae bad_blue

Reviewer: Richard Stamp (Seen 29 March)

Visit Wendy Hoose homepage here.

Kickstarting the Edinburgh Fringe pt.4

Posted in Features, Music, Previews, Theatre by

In the run up to this year’s Fringe Edinburgh49 is showcasing companies looking to crowdfund their shows using Kickstarter.

For many companies selling tickets at Edinburgh Fringe is something of a bonus. Their primary aim is to showcase their work to national and international venue managers for the sake of future bookings. They spend their time honing their work, getting it just right.

Edinburgh in August truly is the world’s greatest incubator of live theatre. Listen into my interviews with former undercover policeman James Bannon about his 2013 show Running With The Firm, or read my extended take on our partner site FringeReview to see what I mean.

The Improvised Improv Show

Last year Luc Valvona established a format in which anyone who wants to can perform, whether experienced improv veteran or enthusiastic newcomer. The Improvised Improv Show may or may not have an overall theme, and will be run by a host who will get the performers to play a selection of games or scenes based on audience suggestion.

Billed as the perfect improv networking event, this year The Show will be taking place at 2pm daily from 31 July to 24 August in the Aerie room of the Jeckyl and Hyde on Hanover Street.

Factor 9

In Factor 9 Rab and Bruce are both haemophiliacs, living with life-threatening diseases contracted through the prescription of contaminated blood products. Thousands of others across the world have not survived. Both these men, lovers of the great outdoors, have, with the support of their families and fellow haemophiliacs, battle with the medical and political establishments to give themselves and the many thousands of other victims a voice.

Dogstar Theatre, the team behind The Baroness, will be presenting their take on the tragedy before the Fringe, from 24 – 26 April at the Traverse and (naturally) Edinburgh49 will be reviewing. [Read that ‘Outstanding’ review here.]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1995513326/factor-9-how-could-this-disaster-happen?ref=discovery

Unprescribed

Dana Etgar, Justina Kaminskaite, Sarah Kenney, and Katherine Vince created Unprescribed during their MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in 2013. To create Unprescribed, they began by exploring their own experiences of stress, anxiety, and societal expectations. The result is billed as both sinister and funny, sexy and absurd.

Unprescribed premièred at Chelsea Theatre, London, last August. Now they are looking to reach a larger audience. As an emerging theatre company, they are asking for contributions to help launch their show at the Fringe, and to establish themselves professionally.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thesunapparatus/unprescribed-goes-to-the-edinburgh-festival-fringe?ref=discovery

Have a look at the other potential shows we’ve previewed: Kat Woods’ Belfast Boy; Finn Anderson’s Alba; A Scottish Musical; The Wrong Shoes Theatre Company’s The Anima Project; Apphia Campbell’s Black is the Color of My Voice; Ian Harvey Stone’s The Devil Without; and The Red Oak Theatre Company’s Funny Girl.

Note: The Kickstarter videos embedded in this post don’t show up in the email notification sent out to those of you following us through WordPress (but they are on the website, promise).

‘This May Hurt A Bit’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by

ThisMayHurtABit_0743

‘The Grim Reaper cannot wait for the good times to roll.’

Editorial Rating:Nae Bad

NHS England and not NHS Scotland is examined in Stella Feehily’s agile new work, which is mildly or wildly reassuring depending on the state of your health and where you live. This May Hurt a Bit is still a jag of a play, needle sharp where it matters and good for you. It will also, with luck, get stuck into government.

There is no squirming away from the political point of Feehily’s writing or from Max Stafford-Clark’s expert direction. The National Health Service is sixty-six years old, is in a High Dependency Unit, and needs your support before it is wheeled off as a terminal case. Here is an acute and tender understatement of a critical condition.

The play begins deep in the vein, if you will, of Ken Loach’s new film, the documentary The Spirit of ’45 when in his words ‘generosity, mutual support and co-operation were the watch words of the age.’ Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health in the post-war Labour government, is on stage and brings the attention of the House to the extraordinary fact that ‘we are still able to do the most civilised thing in the world – put the welfare of the sick in front of every other consideration.’

That was in 1948, as indicated by the LED display. Move straight on to 2011 and then to the here and now but not before I, poor sap, thought that the medical staff were ‘serving’ customer/patient No.1948. Rather like those long waits in the East Coast advance booking hall at Edinburgh Waverley or, come to think of it, my time in A&E at the new ERI when a low-flying discus cracked my head.

The set of This May Hurt a Bit actually looks like an interior of the Old Royal before the PFI op. You cannot see it but there’s blood on the ceiling. Long and narrow gothic windows and grubby whitewashed brickwork and a screened treatment area centre stage with a disconcertingly large EXIT sign suspended above it. By scene 17, of 18, The Grim Reaper cannot wait for the good times to roll.

Nicholas James (66) is being treated for a prostate the size of a space hopper but has the good manners not to worry anyone but himself. His mother, Iris (91), suffers a fall and is admitted to the local District General for investigation. Fond but limited daughter Mariel is visiting from New York where all-American husband, Hank, is an orthopaedic surgeon. In Hank’s professional opinion – because you die in city hospitals – Iris should be treated privately where she’ll enjoy a lovely view of the Thames. Iris, bless her, swears (profanely) by NHS care, and refuses to move. Nicholas is with his mother all the way.

On the wards, or more accurately on the corridors, there is near bedlam. As well as Iris, Nurse Gina has to look after incontinent stroke patient Rev. John and dementing, bonkers, Dinah. Paramedics, porters, and police dispense black humour. There is a corpse in the screened cubicle, left.

Deadpan funny is rarely in remission but neither is the rolling political script. There is no positive narrative behind NHS reform, Prime Minister, so you just go out there and spiel away; and Feehily provides a wacky retinue – from within the cast of eight – of singing nurses, advisors, strategists, a board of directors, Churchill, a weather girl, and Maggie Thatcher on her perch. I have mentioned Death.

Stephanie Cole and Natalie Klamar

Stephanie Cole and Natalie Klamar

Iris is at the play’s selfless heart. Her absolute, principled, and dear refusal to leave NHS care means she is immune to what afflicts it. Peerless Stephanie Cole cannot be touched in the role. Similarly, Natalie Klamar as Nurse Gina from God knows where – possibly Poland, maybe Serbia – has an angelic part, made all the sweeter when she explodes in effing fury at the specious ‘Culture’ of shitty spending cuts.

It is a bit too easy, I think, to import Hank as the big bad US example – not one reference to French or German systems of social health insurance for instance – but that goes with the staked out territory of this continuing debate, which as Freehily palpably demonstrates gets far too close for comfort to the cynical truths of ‘Yes, Minister’.

This May Hurt a Bit has deft feel and touch all over it but it is also an invigorating shot in the arm for the campaign to keep the NHS safe and in public hands. Scotland, I propose, is reminded to keep its resistance up.

nae bad_blue

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 9 April)

Visit Traverse, This May Hurt  A Bit  homepage here.

Kickstarting the Edinburgh Fringe pt.3

Posted in Features, Music, Previews, Theatre by

In the run up to this year’s Fringe Edinburgh49 is showcasing companies looking to crowdfund their shows using Kickstarter.

So far we’ve looked at: Kat Woods’ Belfast Boy; Finn Anderson’s Alba; A Scottish Musical; The Wrong Shoes Theatre Company’s The Anima Project and Apphia Campbell’s Black is the Color of My Voice. It’s clear from the preview videos that each of these shows has bags of potential.

Producing creative work takes time, talent and heart. For everyone who loves this city, nestled at the centre of the theatrical world map, Kickstarter allows us a taste of what’s to come in August as well as the chance to help make dreams happen for the dedicated people behind each show.

Now You Know, the Southport-based company formed of 18-25 year-olds, has already achieved 169% funding from 28 backers for their show I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. The second-longest running Off-Broadway musical, with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts, will be playing at The Space, North Bridge from 1 – 16 August.

The Devil Without

Did Faust really have a choice? Ian Harvey Stone presents a sequel to the Marlowe classic based on the premise that Faust survived being dragged off to hell and is still among us. But every now and again, on Manifest Night, the Devil gets a chance to snatch him back and Faust must go to ground. In The Devil Without Faust uses the psychic energy of his audience to hide, providing a moment for him to tell his story.

What makes this show so exciting is the team Harvey Stone has assembled. The performance will feature an original score by Daniel Sarstedt, son of Ivor Novello, award winner Peter Sarstedt and member of Danish electronica band Det Sejler I Effekter including a ‘silent score’ using infrasound designed to be felt rather than heard.

If you only click on one of these projects make sure you check out The Devil Without‘s poster by Glenn Fabry (of Marvel, DC and 2000AD fame).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/304951461/the-devil-without-an-immersive-theatre-experience?ref=discovery

Funny Girl

Bristol University based The Red Oak Theatre Company are hoping to bring their latest show to the new Greenside venue in Nicolson Square from 11 – 24 August.

Lucy Harrison, the Fundraising Manager, is so far keeping many of the project’s details under-wraps.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1389661019/red-oak-theatre-company-presents-funny-girl?ref=discovery

Note: The Kickstarter videos embedded in this post don’t show up in the email notification sent out to those of you following us through WordPress (but they are on the website, promise).

‘A Perfect Stroke’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April ’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by
Anita Vettesse and Scott Reid. Photo: Lesley Black

Anita Vettesse and Scott Reid. Photo: Lesley Black

‘The superbly cast Scott Reid (Thomas) proves he’s still very much in-touch with his inner 16-year-old gobshite.’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

We enter to find a typical classroom. The learning environment consists of teacher’s desk set before a blue background wall. The audience are in the round. Between me (on the far left, as ever) and the performance space is the actors’ door onto the stage. Beside the door are two clear boxes of universal props. These, together with the drama studies posters, tell us that we’re at the heart of Spud Control.

That pejorative is how the other teachers, them what teach grammar and sciences, describe Ms. Stone’s Drama department. It’s where the kids not unique enough to be special go to pass the day. Despite the condescension of the foreign language teachers, Ms. Stone hasn’t given up hope. She gives as much of herself to releasing the potential of pupils like Thomas as she once gave to her on-screen parts in Casualty, etc – ‘those who can, teach’ and all that.

Thomas has an important audition coming up and Ms. Stone is forgoing her Friday evening to coach him. As she teases out his inner Romeo the teacher/pupil relationship blossoms into a thorn-bush.

Johnny McKnight’s script is as packed with sweet and sour flavours as one of the Warhead Candies me and the other school spanners shared behind the bikesheds. At first you’re watching the introductory moments of a Naughty America porno – young guy being beguiled by a sexy older teacher – then the tables are turned, you can’t remember who’s exploiting who, and by the end everyone feels nice and dirty.

“No teacher would allow such a situation”, cluck a gaggle of mortar-boarded, Easter-happy schoolmarms within earshot. Despite the suspension of professional realities, McKnight insists we must experience the unfolding emotional manipulation as prescribed. Society’s moral certainties are not up for discussion. Unlike Glen Chandler’s Fringe ’13 landmark adaptation of Sandel, and more like A Play For September of the same year, McKnight’s script closes off the audience’s options for moral self-determination.

Even so, director Amanda Gaughan gets serious mileage out of the railroading. You could cut the tension with a metaphor. It’s been ratcheted up as though for a tyre change on a fleet of Hummers. Anita Vettesse (Ms. Stone) compellingly combines sensitive charm with dramatic flair. She is so real and really something. The superbly cast Scott Reid (Thomas) proves he’s still very much in-touch with his inner 16-year-old gobshite. Reid’s genius is to hint at the man Thomas is becoming as much as to lampoon the boy he is. Vettesse and Reid demonstrate active and reactive character work of the highest order.

Dani Heron’s finely carved cameo as Carly, Thomas’ girl, replete in skimpy schoolgirl outfit, allegorically illustrates that this cast is overdeveloped for the limited material allowed in the time available. Until Heron bursts in, you might be forgiven for worrying you’re stuck watching theatre about theatre – isn’t the Alexander Technique hilarious?

‘Actors only exist to serve the script’ agrees everyone when only I am allowed to speak. But there are times when the script must play supernumerary to stellar performances, and this is one such. Yet there’s no doubt McKnight knows how to bring the funny; the three-way with Heron especially could teach Catherine Tate a thing or two.

In the hands of this cast and director this script deserves a second half. Presently Ms. Stone’s crisis point is absent. It’s not clear where she eventually found her courage. Could it have been from imagining Thomas’ true treatment of Carly, with whom she might have more in common that she’d care to admit? There isn’t time to tell.

nae bad_blue

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 9 April)

Visit A Perfect Stroke‘s homepage here.

‘7 Billion Others and Me’ (Lyceum Youth Theatre: 28 March & 4 April’14)

Posted in Rated: Unrated, The Lyceum, Theatre by

7 Billion Others and Me

“It is Andy Murray’s Will He – Won’t He? victory at the All England Club last year that ends the roll-call “

Editorial Rating: Unrated

Directed by Christie O’Carroll and devised by the Company.

It is a fun, effective, image. The kilt, Royal Stewart tartan no less, the plain sock, the half-tied All Star Converse resting on a slightly squashed globe. Some photoshopping might just have had the heel depressing England but, no, that would not have been right.

7 Billion Others and Me had two performances, both prior to evening performances of Union. That too made sense, as did the three Perspex voting boxes at the Exit doors: ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Don’t Knows’. When I saw them the piles of votes were evenly distributed. This LYT show might influence your views on the independence referendum but that is not its intention. This engaging piece of youth theatre is much more to do with proposing community and friendship as the proper platform for whatever we stand for – or on.

The islands of St Kilda are used to tell a shared story. To begin with there is island history: a nasty but comic severed hand, puffin catching, puffed-up ‘Morning Manly Meetings’, and mention of May 1918 when a German submarine blew apart the island’s signal station. In August 1930 the remaining thirty-six inhabitants leave for the mainland at their own request. There follow scenes of modern and popular Scottish history – highly selective but of near legendary proportions, if you are 15 – the amalgamation of proud regiments; The Bay City Rollers; Lockerbie; Dunblane (sensitively not named); wicked Mrs Thatcher and her poll tax; and almost to top them all, CBBC’s Raven, 2002 – 10; but it is Andy Murray’s Will He – Won’t He? victory at the All England Club last year that ends the roll-call and brings us to the ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ seesaw of the referendum debate.

7 Billion Raven

The confident young cast (? S3-S4) embodied a sense of their history being made. The repacking of the belongings of the Lockerbie victims is especially sad and evocative. Courtney and Keir carry their romancing and their love through from the earliest times to the present day. Ironic and familiar ‘sides’ of latte, jaffa cakes and sushi accompany the main narrative that employs voice, song and movement to keep it fresh and memorable.

Raven (and improbably, magnificiently, Mrs T) appear in fine costume but otherwise all is kept plain and unaffected. The message is plainly voiced that even if you are one in seven billion you still count and that, again on the plus side, there are lots of people around to join hands with.

“Are you ready? Then let the challenge… begin.”

 

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 4 April)

Visit LYT homepage here.

Kickstarting the Edinburgh Fringe pt.2

Posted in Features, Music, Previews, Theatre by

Note: The Kickstarter videos embedded in this post don’t show up in the email notification sent out to those of you following us through WordPress (but they are on the website, promise).

In the run up to this year’s Fringe Edinburgh49 is showcasing companies looking to crowdfund their shows using Kickstarter. In the last post we looked at Kat Woods’ Belfast Boy and Finn Anderson’s Alba; A Scottish Musical.

Toronto-born author Jason Hall has already achieved 116% funding from 93 backers for his show 21 Things You Should Know About Toronto’s Crack-Smoking Mayor. Hall has promised not to spend any of it on beer, but I’ll be offering to stand him a pint in August to get his take on who would win in a fight between Rob Ford and an Edinburgh tram.

The Anima Project

The Wrong Shoes Theatre Company’s The Anima Project is set in the future, where genetic screening is used determine a person’s place in society. The show uses experiential therapy to cure those with unfavourable genetic personality traits. Those who would otherwise be condemned to death or work-camps.

The Anima Project is an experiential promenade piece of theatre, which features music, dark comedy and horror.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1836863289/bring-the-anima-project-to-edinburgh-fringe?ref=discovery

Black is the Color of My Voice

Shanghi-based Apphia Campbell hopes to bring the life of Mena Bordeaux to Edinburgh. A successful jazz singer Bordeaux is seeking redemption after the untimely death of her father. During a three-day period of isolation without cigarettes, alcohol, or access to the outside world, she reflects on the journey that took her from a young piano prodigy destined for a life in the service of the church to a renowned jazz vocalist at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

Black Is the Color of My Voice has had three successful runs, two in Shanghai and one at New York City’s Midtown International Theatre Festival.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playthespotlight/edinburgh-fringe-debut-of-black-is-the-color-of-my?ref=discovery

Click on the ‘K’ in the top left corner of each video to visit each show’s Kickstarter page.

‘Under the Mulberry Tree’ (Studio at the Festival Theatre: 3 – 12 April’14)

Posted in Festival Theatre, Rated: Unrated, Theatre by

Vincent van Gogh, Mulberry Tree. 1889. Post-Impressionism. Oil on canvas. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA.

‘There are wrap-around melodies for solo voice and piano. Cicadas are heard’

Editorial Rating: Unrated

Writer Timothy Jones’s first stage play bears the bruised fruit of sadness. Vincent van Gogh’s painting of ‘The Mulberry Tree’ is the cause; its vigorous combination of colours prompting a testing story of entangled character and circumstance.

This mulberry is in the garden of a small hotel – a guest house really – just outside Eze, on the Mediterranean coast, between Nice and Monaco. The Daily Telegraph describes Eze as the ‘perfect Springtime break’.

Only, Not.

Certainly not after you have seen Under the Mulberry Tree. Yes, we’re in the 1950s, when 95,000 old francs could buy you a villa a few minutes’ drive from the beach; but this is not Private Lives modestly revisited and downsized. No, this play broods with concern.

 

Clockwise: Joanna Bending, Jeremy Todd, Adam Slynn, Roger Ringrose.

Clockwise: Joanna Bending, Jeremy Todd, Adam Slynn, Roger Ringrose.

 

Jack and Connie Boothroyd, married 20 years, hot and bothered, happen upon Monsieur Guillaume’s hotel. Connie is vulnerable, sensitive, and has a lot of pills in her bag to help her cope. Joanna Bending is in this demanding part and – to her considerable credit – has to act her stockings off. She, at least, is looking for a good holiday. Husband, Jack, did not enjoy the long drive down to the Côte d’Azur. He did not speak for the four hours between Paris and Lyons. More of a Scarborough man is Jack. Solid Jeremy Todd does North Yorkshire in no-nonsense, ill-tempered spades, but you nevertheless feel his discomfort – and pain at the end.

Jack complains of endless warning signs of ‘Chaussée déformée’ and to speak plainly, as he does, Under the Mulberry Tree feels like that. The script is pot holed (made for Edinburgh!). It is uneven, fraught with jarring and uncomfortable issues, but at the same time you just wonder why the characters are not on a different and easier road.

Pretty scenery though. A broad terrace with a couple of café tables and chairs, a comfortable chaise longue, an upright piano with gramophone on top, and drinks to hand. Light wood blinds in (shaky) arched doorways. The bare mulberry tree, of course. The stage suffused, it seemed, with shuttered evening light. There are wrap-around mélodies for solo voice and piano from Poulenc. Cicadas are heard but not for long. The tree is in bud at the end of the play but that’s Miracle-Gro playing false.

Jack is hard on Connie and rude to just about everyone else. Connie, bravely, wants more than a husband. She particularly wants to be a mother. Enter obliging virile Julian, 21-ish, in bathing shorts, who has a thing for the older woman because his mother corrupted him. He is also Guillaume’s lover. Adam Slynn, as Julian, has to be both parasite and lost boy, which is not easy. There’s Guillaume’s rich sister, elegant and rather silly Gilberte (Annabel Capper) to stroke his vanity as well.

Roger Ringrose plays Guillaume. It is a sympathetic, mellow, part and Ringrose does perceptive insouciance very well. He has, as he puts it (with a nod to the writer’s fondness for Apollinaire) ‘found his lost time’ and will not give it up lightly, especially to the neurotic English. He could be funny but is careful to stick to kind and amusing.

Director Hannah Eidinow may have been drawn to Under the Mulberry Tree because it is – at a stretch – not too dissimilar from the four-hander Playing with Grown Ups by Hannah Patterson that she directed with Theatre 503 last year. Unfortunately Timothy Jones’ play is more of a strain.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 3 April)

Visit Festival Theatres Trust, Under the Mulberry Tree homepage here.

Kickstarting the Edinburgh Fringe pt.1

Posted in Features, Music, Previews, Theatre by

Edinburgh49 won’t be operating during the festivals (the hint is in the name, 52 weeks of the year minus 3 weeks of the Fringe), but that’s not because we follow the tiresome Edinbugger affectation of being tired by the Fringe.

Every year the greatest show on Earth rolls into town, bringing in its wake the most creative and determined talent imaginable. A popular saying of one of the City’s most famous literary sons rather sums up what the besuited burgher should remember when he’s done with his daily round of toil.

“A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.”

– Walter Scott –

But what to see? It’s a fair question given the thousands of shows on offer.

One of the most interesting Fringe-related developments of recent years is the rise of Kickstarter. The crowdfunding platform allows independent producers to finance their play about corrupt micro-financing practices in the Adriatic region without ending up like the Merchant of Venice.

Kickstarter’s use of video trailers means that audiences are able to preview as never before, AND can even put their hand in their pocket to support a show which takes their fancy. Click on the ‘K’ in the top left corner of each video to visit each show’s Kickstarter page.

There can be no doubt that Kickstarter works and is already highlighting some fantastic fringe theatre.

A case in point is Something There’s That Missing, Anh Chu’s very personal account of a first-generation Chinese-Canadian, who moves to London to write her first play. The reviewers (especially me) loved it. Click here to find out why.

Belfast Boy

Over the coming weeks we will be helping to highlight some of the shows looking for a Kickstart. We begin with 2 projects.

In Kat Woods’ Belfast Boy Martin flees Belfast for England, where he discovers his sexuality, parties, drugs, love and tragedy.

Woods’ first piece Skintown was placed on the longlist for the Bruntwood Royal Exchange award and successfully premiered at The White Bear Theatre in Kennington. Her second play Dirty Flirty Thirty has had sell out runs in London’s off west end Theatre scene and across Northern Ireland. Belfast Boy is her third piece of writing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1205301251/belfast-boy-needs-a-cash-injection-for-the-edinbur?ref=discovery

Alba; A Scottish Musical

Writer and producer Finn Anderson bills Alba as an exhilarating, heartwarming story of a young man whose reluctant return to rural Scotland sparks an emotional roller-coaster of adventure and self discovery, triggering him to rekindle his love for his home country.

Anderson’s recent work includes Streets (with Interval Productions), which transferred to the Hackney Empire and was nominated for two Off West End Awards including Best New Musical and a Broadway Word Award for Best New Musical in Fringe or Regional Theatres.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/finnanderson/get-alba-a-scottish-musical-to-the-edinburgh-fring?ref=discovery

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