Category Archives: Theatre

Reviews of theatre work.

‘The Actress’ (Underbelly Bristo Square – Dairy Room, until 29th AUG)

Posted in EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“…superbly captures the debauched revelry of Restoration London. “

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

In the London of 1660, the restoration of King Charles II heralds an arts renaissance, a keynote of which is the reopening of theatres and most controversially, women being allowed on an English stage for the very first time. The King’s Company of players invite two actresses to join them, but only one can be the first ever to play a major role: that of Desdemona in Othello. Who will it be?

Written and directed by Andrew Pearson-Wright, this production by the Long Lane Theatre Company (based on a true story) superbly captures the debauched revelry of Restoration London, and as the programme warnings of some occasional nudity and content of a sexual nature suggest, there is much roister-doistering afoot! Charlotte Price plays the hopeful outsider Anne Marshall, a provincial ingenue in search of her big break into acting. The competition comes in the shape of the glamorous Eve Pearson-Wright, playing the worldly and experienced front-runner Margaret Hughes. Naturally, we root for the virtuous Anne, sympathetically and convincingly played by Price, but Pearson-Wright as Margaret is very easy on the eye and easily wraps the two men on the stage – Matthew Hebden and Andrew Loudon as men about town and the theatre manager – around her manipulative fingers. A third actress in this five-piece cast is Hattie Chapman, who plays a number of smaller characters, including Anne’s best friend. Chapman is a highly effective foil to the main characters, her strikingly engaging facial expressions and electro-magnetic eyes enhancing the humour and emotion of every scene she was in.

As may be expected in a play about theatre, there is much wry self-referential humour about life on the stage: “Audiences? Since when have they been able to judge what’s good and what isn’t?”. But a dark counterpoint to this is shown in the portrayal of a time when men could pay to watch the actresses changing into their costumes backstage before a play, and female performers could be subject to vicious attacks by religious fundamentalists who saw them as little more than “devil’s whores”. The enduring feminine struggle to find one’s way in the world was reflected in a frisson of recognition from women around me in the audience when Margaret wearily remarks to the naïve Anne: “You’re a woman: adapt or die”.

Enacted on a small stage with a basic set in a plain black-box auditorium, the show drew well-deserved whoops of rapturous applause at the end from the near-capacity 100-plus audience. I left the building imagining how this magical little gem of theatre would make a good Netflix costume drama.

 

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‘The Wonder Games with Maddie and Greg’ (Underbelly George Square, until AUG 13)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“My youngsters asked if they could recreate an experiment at home and watch more of Maddie and Greg’s videos. Result.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

If you don’t have children under the age of 10 you may never have heard of Maddie and Greg. They are though to the CBeebies generation rockstars. Their popular science videos on YouTube were enormous hits during lockdown and helped inspire a generation of youngsters to stay curious.

We arrived early at the big purple cow to see a queue already snaking off towards the Meadows. Many children (and some adults) in Maddie and Greg t-shirts. There was a genuine hubbub. Maybe even a hullaballoo.

And then Maddie and Greg bounded on stage. They explained the Wonder Games: a series of games – with full audience participation – which would bring science to life.

The duo are exceptionally skilled pros. Working with kids and parents wearing comedy Sou’Westers isn’t easy. Experiments can go wrong.

They make it look easy as they guide the audience through the science. Youngsters cheering, clapping and desperately hoping to be picked. From the first minute to the last they hold their young audience in the palm of their hands. Youngsters nearby shouted out for particular games or experiments they’d tried at home and wanted to see in the flesh (I suppose a bit like those middle aged dads shouting ‘’Do more Beatles’’ stuff when McCartney was playing Glastonbury)

Over the course of four games – all involving the audience, all built around learning about science in a fun way – Maddie and Greg compete with each other. We were resolutely Team Maddie. There’s vortexes, intros to gravity, Irn Bru, and a genuinely hilarious game called Fact Bombs. Our girls – and two friends they bumped into – thought this was hilarious and were properly belly laughing. Maddie was doing her best to corpse Greg but he was just about fly enough to get through it.

It is a highly polished, inventive, enjoyable show. It makes you want to learn more about science. My youngsters asked if they could recreate an experiment at home and watch more of Maddie and Greg’s videos. Result.

 

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Splash Test Dummies (Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows – The Lafayette, until AUG 27)

Posted in Theatre by

“Adults were grinning. Kids were grinning. Isn’t that what you want from a show?. Stars of the Fringe”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars  Outstanding

The last proper Fringe was 2019 – Gosh that seems a lifetime ago. That was the first Fringe my eldest daughter (now 8) really remembers. Since that carefree summer – the last summer we all enjoyed without worrying about the chap coughing behind us at a show – she has consistently talked about one show: Splash Test Dummies. My youngest who was too young last time round has been desperate to see what the fuss was (and remains) about.

I trotted off with the whole Marrs troop to revisit the Dummies. Would they be as good? Could they be as good? Would the youngest daughter (now 5) be similarly besotted?

Resounding yeses all round. Slapstick, silly, skilled, puerile, the works. Both of the girls were in hysterics at points, both whooping and hollering at points. Their highlight was me having a net thrown over me by one of the Dummies and called a ‘’pretty man’’.

For seasoned Dummies fans (we are in that ballpark), there are elements you’ve seen before: the ping pong ball scene, the smell travelling round the room and being thrown hither and thither. That isn’t a criticism! These are classics that kids love. And of course there is always the capacity to surprise. The act with the huge ring showed the gymnastic capacity of the Dummies – I’ve never seen anything like it before. I still don’t know how the Dummy manages it. The swimming hat gag is everything you’d want from clowns: silly, clever, and you never know quite where it will finish.

If you can’t enjoy a show where three men dressed up as lifeguards run around with the audience and spray each other (and you) with supersoakers then you probably need to re-evaluate your life.

The three dummies are seriously talented: acrobatics, gymnasts, smashing through the fourth wall atwill, physical humour, clowning, juggling and much more besides. There are moments where they lift each other in seemingly impossible ways. It might look funny but there is real skill there. To make it look effortless as these three do is quite something.

One minor quibble: the show seemed to start late. I think that was perhaps a technical issue. Nothing major but kids shows probably do need to start on time – simply because exasperated parents can only answer ‘’I don’t know when it is starting’ so often.

This is a show for kids but one adults will enjoy to. Under 10s will enjoy it enormously. Both of mine thought it fantastic. The younger said I should give it a ‘’googleplex’’ when I asked what the score should be. I had to look that up. The other a resounding 10 out of 10. Neither are compliant with our scoring system.

Adults were grinning, Kids were grinning. Isn’t that what we want from shows? The Dummies know their audience and deliver precisely what the audience wants. Joyous, wholesome stuff from the minute you meet the Dummies at the entrance through to chatting with them for photos afterwards. Stars of the Fringe and I’d guess it will be a sell-out run.

 

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Shannon Matthews: The Musical (Just the Tonic at the Caves – Just up the Road, until AUG 27)

Posted in Theatre by

“You’ll feel awful as you cackle throughout.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

A common complaint of seasoned Fringe goers is the gentrification of the event: Aperol spritzes, padded seats, expensive tickets. All a bit prawn sandwiches.

It is refreshing then to find the old Fringe, the real fringe: a small, sweaty venue, shock value, plastic pints and the general feeling that you are seeing something naughty and exhilarating.

And that is what I found in the Caves: ‘’Shannon Matthews: The Musical’’ has made headlines with various blowhard MPs calling for the show to be banned given the subject matter. It was banned from a number of venues in Leeds recently but has managed – for now – to escape the wrath of the Whitehouses here in Scotland.

For those who don’t know the background: it revolves around a staged abduction of a child – in the wake of Maddie McCann’s disappearance – with the aim of making her dysfunctional family famous and rich. Is a child abduction fit for comic purposes? That is for personal taste. There’s nothing more unpalatable here than you’d find at a Gervais or Boyle gig. It isn’t as if Kunt and the Gang hide it. The clue is in the name of the show after all. If you don’t think it is appropriate don’t go. It is your loss,

But… never mind the should it be allowed discussion. Is it funny? Yes. Is it good? Yes.

I was doubled over laughing often ashamed of myself for doing so admittedly. Thee sheer outrage of the jokes forced the audience to whoop, applaud and cackle. It may seem blunt or base but it is more than that. There is cleverness here and a deft touch. It is relentless: Shows hitting 90 minutes and with pretty much constant gags are as hard to find as Prince Andrew’s used sweatbands. Those who have seen Kunt before know what they are getting: electro pop, 80s nods, hilarious songs, gags that would make the Profanisaurus blush and a deep understanding of a certain sort of British life.

More Shameless than Downton Abbey but as British as looting cultural treasures. Some of the songs will stick in your head. That may cause issues or funny looks. I found myself singing ‘ Can’t work, won’t work’, ‘Shannon ain’t dead (she’s under my bed), and ‘I’ve got a plan – based on Maddie McCann’ walking through the Cowgate. Perhaps ones to sing under your breath. Hilarious, shocking, catchy tunes. Well worth a watch.

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‘Love, Loss, and Chianti’ (Assembly Rooms – Music Hall, until 28th Aug)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“Johnson’s blazingly thunderous denunciation will almost certainly ring true with any woman who’s had to endure sharing a table with some whining piss-artist of a boyfriend.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

This one-hour, two-handed bittersweet drama consists of consecutive playlets, based on two poems by Christopher Reid. The first, A Scattering (which won the Costa Prize in 2009) is based on the author’s reaction to the death of his wife. A widower, who looks back over his marriage and his late wife’s life and death as he sorts through boxes of mementoes, is played with his trademark line in wistfully crumpled charm by Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet, Toast of London, Downton Abbey). Rebecca Johnson (Call the Midwife, Fleabag, Casualty) strikingly evokes his late wife, who comes back to walk hand-in-hand with him as he remembers past holidays on Crete and the discovery of the cancer that would kill her. Whilst a lyrical piece of verse drama at heart, with soaring glimpses of poetry amidst the pithy dialogue, the panache and erudition of the performers delivers all the pace, light and shade required of a tear-jerking drama. Some of the most poignant grief-stricken lines come in Bathurst’s monologues, when he is left alone again with his memories and keepsakes, soliloquising in the solitary nights upon his status as a ghost in his own house.

For the second half of the show, we quickly and seamlessly segue into The Song of Lunch, a light-hearted romp portraying a boozy midday date between a washed-up poet and an old flame who meet in a seedy Italian restaurant in Soho. Bathurst’s poet gleefully evokes the literary London of his youth as he makes his way to the venue, only to find it in sad decline – rather like the publishing industry to which he has devoted his life. His early apprehension about meeting his old lady friend evaporates as she (Johnson) arrives in all her confident and glamorous glory as the wife of an old – and far more successful – literary friend. Bathurst’s portrayal of the poet’s glass-by-glass decline into a self-pitying alcoholic stupor is a joy to behold. As a result, Johnson’s blazingly thunderous denunciation of him – and his awful poetry – will almost certainly ring true with any woman who’s had to endure sharing a table with some whining piss-artist of a boyfriend.

Whilst the thoughtfully introspective first half of the show might perhaps lend itself more naturally to a smaller and more intimate venue, the actors easily fill the gilded classical splendor of the Assembly Room Music Hall. The sparsely furnished set is unobtrusively enhanced by back-projected and lightly animated sketches by Charles Peattie. Originally two hours in length when it premiered in London in 2020, this one-hour Fringe version loses none of the impact in Jason Morrell’s tightly-staged production.

 

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EdFringe Talk: The Stones

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022, Theatre by

“We were meant to be presenting “The Stones” in 2020, but, well, we all know what happened!”

WHO: Kit Brookman: Writer/director

WHAT: “In the aftermath of a terrible break-up, Nick takes a job out of town as a private tutor to two young children. The job seems perfect, the family too good to be true. But then the stones begin to arrive. The Stones is a darkly comic gothic mystery about guilt, delusion and the responsibility we share for the next generation of people who have to live on this planet.”

WHERE: Assembly Roxy – Downstairs (Venue 139) 

WHEN: 12:30 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Yes, this my first time in Edinburgh both as someone presenting work and as a punter. We were meant to be presenting “The Stones” in 2020, but, well, we all know what happened! But I have a lot of mates who’ve brought shows to the Fringe in the past and they’ve all talked about what a particular experience it is – fun, full on, often exciting, occasionally maddening, probably exhausting. And I thought: I could do with a bit of that in August.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I think the big thing I’ve learned over the past couple of years is the utter fragility of so much about our lives that we take for granted. To give an obvious example, I live in London but I’m from Australia, and that distance has always felt manageable because in my mind I was only ever a flight away. But actually, 17,016 kilometres is not a short distance! And suddenly when you can’t fly you’re confronted with how unsustainable that choice is on a number of levels. Or in terms of working in theatre, you always assume you’ll be able to be in a room with other people, until suddenly you can’t. I think this lesson of fragility is something that all of us are probably going to have to keep learning in different ways in the future.

Tell us about your show.

“The Stones” is a solo show, a contemporary riff on the gothic mystery genre. It’s a funny and frightening deep-dive into guilt and delusion with a persuasive, unreliable narrator. I wrote it specifically for Luke Mullins, who’s an extraordinary performer from Australia. Luke’s created a number of massively acclaimed solo shows in the past like “Lake Disappointment” and “Autobiography of Red”, and with this show we wanted to create something that was radically distilled, that used the barest elements of theatre in the most effective way we could imagine. We did a brief 1-week tryout of the show in London in 2019 and the responses were really great, so we decided to keep developing it and bring it to Edinburgh.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

OK – I have a long list but I’ll try to be brief! See David Finnigan’s “You’re Safe Til 2024” – David makes amazing work at the intersection of science and theatre, and this show brings an urgent perspective to the climate emergency. In terms of comedy, I’m sure everyone already knows they should go and see Rhys Nicholson at Underbelly, but I’m telling you anyway. In terms of theatre, I’m very keen to see Antler’s show, “Civilization”. A newer company whose work I’m going to check out is Alien Jefferson, a young company out of East 15’s excellent Theatre and Contemporary Performance course. I taught them for a unit in their second year and they’re smart and inventive and have created a genuinely odd and moving show with “Enter Mr. Citrus Man”. And if you see one thing in the international festival, make it Belvoir St Theatre’s “Counting and Cracking”, an extraordinary multi-generational story spanning Sri Lanka and Australia.

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‘The Bobby Kennedy Experience’ (Town and Gown, 7-8 April)

Posted in 3*, The Town and Gown, Theatre by

“…the biggest, boldest, and most successful choice – to revel unashamedly in the chaos and frantic pace of RFK’s final days.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars (Nae Bad)

The chroniclers of other people’s lives set out on their journeys to answer one question – who was so and so? Who was Robert F Kennedy, for example? There are several plausible answers. Politician. Younger brother. Junior partner. Unlikely folk hero. Trailblazer. True believer. Martyr.

In ‘The Bobby Kennedy Experience’ Russell Lucas (directed by Sarah-Louise Young) brings together (some of) these threads which made up the life of the most famous man not to be elected US President. The threads of Robert Kennedy’s life were violently cut short by an assassin in June 1968, a low watermark in that decade of high profile murder.

We enter to find the disorderly detritus of a campaign stop. The floor is scattered with red, white, and blue balloons. Quotations about the man himself -from luminaries including Bono, Carlin, and Obama – are projected onto the back wall. It’s been nine years since Russell Lucas played RFK in the National Geographic documentary, ‘JFK: Seven Days That Made a President.’ The look is there. The stump speaker in shirtsleeves. The slight figure struggling to fill big shoes. The occasional glimpse of a perfectly tailored US Naval Reservist echoing the pomp and circumstance which immediately followed the President’s death in Dallas.

This is still a very raw production, or rather preview of the production possibly to come. The big and little choices are still stark and unrefined. The slips into freeform dancing, for instance, do not work. RFK was in the sixties but he was arguably not of the sixties as remembered by the people who, ip so facto, could not have been there. It detracts from the biggest, boldest, and most successful choice – to revel unashamedly in the chaos and frantic pace of RFK’s final days. To see the good the bad and the ugly from inside the subject’s head as a cacophony of noise and motion.

Sometimes the presentation meanders, other times it skips. It skips over RFK the hater of LBJ, over Robert Francis Kennedy the devout Roman Catholic, past Bobby Kennedy the one-time thorn in Jimmy Hoffa’s side. Lucas, as a paid-up Kennedy nerd, needs to slaughter a few more sacred cows and beef up the content to match his insight and commentary.

In these pages, when interviewing authors of biographies, I often ask “when” a hero or villain was to be found in their lifespan. When did the individual most resemble our lasting impression of them? No person lives entirely static. We experience life as a series of transitions from being one thing to being another. ‘The Bobby Kennedy Experience’ breaks the mould of one-person shows to be more Plutarchian than Suetonian. It is as much an inquiry into the internal mind as it is a portrait of the external man.

Get your coats on. Come for the honest homage to a great man. Stay for the drama. Come away with a sense of the possibilities.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Delivered’ (Town and Gown, 15-17 November)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Nae Bad, The Town and Gown, Theatre by

“Melia’s choices are excellent, she is an Alice through whom we experience this strange and skewed reality.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

Tabitha has received a liver transplant. She writes to thank her donor family, but her letters go unanswered. So she takes matters into her own hands, creating an algorithm that will allow her to independently track down the family who saved her life. Will Tim return the letters to sender, or is he ready to be delivered?

We enter to find the audience divided, like a chocolate bourbon, with the filling in the middle also divided between the realm of Tabitha on one side and that of Tim on the other. This is an ultra Fringy set, one that could quickly be taken down under the gaze of the most time-conscious festival venue manager. It speaks to the future ambitions the writer has for this most ambitious script. First workshopped at the Arcadia theatre all those eons ago in 2019, ‘Delivered’ is the debut play from the Town and Gown’s own Lisa MacGregor, inspired by her own family’s liver transplant journey.

As Tabitha, Jessica Melia breathes life into a role that provides numerous potential avenues, a rabbit warren of persona, personality, passion, and pain. Melia’s choices are excellent, she is an Alice through whom we experience this strange and skewed reality. Together with Adam Boyle (as Tim) MacGregor’s material is stretched out but not frayed or torn. The standing ovation and the tears of the audience speak to MacGregor’s skill as an authentic storyteller who really does make us laugh and cry.

This production is a young wine which could (and should) mature into a premier vintage in the right conditions. Whereas Melia’s performance as Tabitha is a skillfully placed shotgun to the heart, Boyle needs to improve his more shadowy sharpshooting. We know what Tabitha is thinking and feeling. Tim is a darker horse, a grieving widower as well as a young father with the parent’s job to do alone. Last night, Boyle seemed hesitant to fully illuminate the emotional rollercoaster his character is on. He hit all the right notes, but not as hard as he might have. Hopefully this will change as the number of live performances under his belt sharpen Boyle’s focus.

Get your coats on and go see this debut play from an author in the early days of a long and illustrious career. Come for a script that is deeply personal and darkly funny. Stay for two performances which are sharp and which will (hopefully) get sharper as the nights roll on.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Bonny and Clyde’ (Town and Gown, 3-6 November)

Posted in *Written Interviews, The Town and Gown, Theatre by

“Edge does authenticity like Sir Francis Chichester did knots. He’s intricate, solid, reliable – as perfect a pairing with Tapako-Brown as when gin met tonic.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

Go big or go home. Karl Steele’s gone big. Two tons big. Two tons of building sand delivered to central Cambridge and then wheelbarrowed, personalmente di persona, by The Town and Gown’s in-house director up, up, and up to the black box in which he has framed Adam Peck’s #notthemusical portraits of Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (b. 1 October, 1910 – d. 23 May, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow (b. 24 March, 1909 – d. 23 May, 1934).

Bonnie and Clyde are so famous that you know who they are even if you know nothing about them. You won’t have learned very much more as you exit this show. Peck’s script is thinner than what they fed to Oliver Twist while he was still at the orphanage. Least said soonest mended. So in brief, Bonnie and her beau are (presumably) in their hideout, (presumably) recovering from a recentish gun battle, (definitely) a bit nuts, (definitely) squabbling like only people in love can.

We enter to find Steele’s sand as the stage on which the drama will play out. It brings a depth and physicality to the piece that must be seen to be believed. Actors Sharni Tapako-Brown and James Edge are toe-deep in the stuff. Brooding. Bickering. Bullshitting. Tapako-Brown brings a Black Annis, banshee-ite energy that is ferocious, frightening, and full on. She walks softly while never letting go of the big crazy stick. Tapako-Brown glides across the sand more elegant than Audrey Hepburn juggling bottles of Chanel °5. Yet she’ll turn on a sixpence, 0 to 60 faster than a Bugatti Chiron. It’s a hell hath no fury performance that’s not to be missed by anyone who’s ever wondered what it might be like to watch a Hollywood star of the old school live on stage.

At the crease, batman James Edge must play over after over with (seemingly) no idea of what kind of ball will be bowled at him next. Bouncers, inswingers, yorkers, and then the deadly slower paced deliveries that really show off Tapako-Brown’s range and skill. Edge might have played defensively, given up the sandy ground to let his colleague strut her stuff. Instead he gives as good as he gets modulating his performance from sleepy lion to buzzed-up fox. Edge does authenticity like Sir Francis Chichester did knots. He’s intricate, solid, reliable – as perfect a pairing with Tapako-Brown as when gin met tonic.

Get your coats on. Come for the set. Stay for the performances. Despite the script, you won’t be disappointed.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Ordinary Days’ (Town and Gown, 13-17 October)

Posted in The Town and Gown, Theatre by

“Lisa MacGregor utterly steals the show, stuffs it, mounts it, and hangs it in pride of place.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Four ordinary lives experienced through the inner lives of four typical New Yorkers. We enter to find one of them, Warren, hard at work distributing fliers like it’s the Royal Mile in August. His fliers are pop art. They feature words of wisdom and insight which (almost inevitably) go entirely unnoticed by Manhattan’s madding crowd. It’s an epically subtle hint that the dramas that are about to be played out occur in a time before Facebook walls and Twitter timelines.

The show’s lyricist/composer, Adam Gwon, is a Bostonian by birth but a New Yorker by choice. In his four person sung through musical, first performed in 2008, Gwon captures and distills the essence of what it is to be alone in the big city. It’s a powerfully big, yet graciously small, set of stories requiring strong, yet subtle, hands. Jason and Claire are alone in a relationship together, unable to break through an unseen wall between them. Meanwhile, the uptight grad student Deb is alone without the notes for her thesis which she has left on the subway. Warren is alone running menial errands for a much better known artist. 

Warren is not yet everything he could be – and that’s putting it charitably. He’s going with the flow rather than rising to his full potential. A character who might so easily have been played as comically trivial is given an authenticity, gravity, and dignity by Duncan Burt who brings to the happy go lucky Warren a pitch-perfect balance of the playful and the soulful.

As Deb, Dora Gee wryly captures most of the on stage laughs some of which are definitely at the expense of her highly strung, yet flaky character, her many, many hang ups and occasional pretensions. It is said that opposites attract, but to bring two such divergent individuals into alignment in a manner so captivating and real is a remarkable feat of theatrical artistry. Any producers out there scouting for talent with which to people the next hit TV sitcom should look no further than Burt and Gee for the leads.

As Jason and Claire, James Edge and Lisa MacGregor breathe life into two seemingly stuffy characters (is ‘basic’ too harsh a description?). Here are a couple entirely without the quirkiness of Deb and Warren. Many surprises – good, bad, Earth shattering – come out of a clear blue sky. But the final twist of the narrative, the moment at which Lisa MacGregor utterly steals the show, stuffs it, mounts it, and hangs it in pride of place – that moment is the result of a steady clouding over of the dramatic horizon in collusion with Edge. They’ve spent their time in the spotlight carefully laying down a thick fog that blankets us until we can see no further than the taxi cab in which we are stuck, snarled in traffic, and snarling at each other. Then everything changes.

This production is produced and directed by the Town and Gown’s own Karl Steele who first brought these four heavy lifting stars and this weighty script together at the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham. Though minimal, the staging and the lighting are a fringe theatre nerd’s wet dream. Simple yet essential. Maximising the minimal. Always a help, never a hindrance to the storytelling. If this is what we can expect from inhouse Town and Gown productions then the tickets will be hotter property than the contents of Colonel Thomas Blood’s overnight bag circa 9 May 1671.

Perhaps it was Nick Allen on piano who worked the hardest for the longest to make the magic happen. After what we’ve all been through in the past couple of years it’s easy to forget how much sheer bloody talent is required to do every aspect of great theatre well. Get your coats on and go see this show. If you can, try and sit near Allen. When there’s a lull in the action, watch him tickle the ivories without hesitation, repetition or deviation and thank Dionysus that it’s him working so hard and not you.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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