Category Archives: Venues

Right Now (Traverse: 19 April – 7 May ’16)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Unrated, Theatre, Traverse by
Photos: Helen Murray

Photos: Helen Murray

“Funny and clever, disturbing and salacious”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

A Traverse Theatre Company, Theatre Royal Bath Ustinov Studio and Bush Theatre co-production.

Ben is a junior doctor. He and Alice have been together for seven years and their work/life balance is screwed. As it happens, so far so familiar. Right now they’ve been in their new flat for six months, have just got the baby’s room to do, and things will get better. Only they don’t. Instead neighbours Juliette and Gilles and their son François come right on in from across the hall ….. Meet the Fockers from Quebec, everyone: with a ‘u’, inappropriate, out of order and way, way, out of bounds.

You watch your step in this pressing and uncomfortable comedy. You’re never too sure what’s underfoot or where it’s going. There’s a godawful squeaky toy behind the sofa and half a glass of red on the floor. ‘Beware’ should travel around the set like LED advertising at a sports ground. Beware Juliette with her penchant for flashing her knickers; beware Gilles’ prurient touch and tongue; beware François’s lacerating commentary. “They’re a bit odd” is Alice’s bang on estimate. “I like them” is Ben’s disastrous opinion. It’s funny and clever, disturbing and salacious, and very well performed.

Michael Boyd directs this production, which is a cracking compliment to French-Canadian writer Catherine-Anne Toupin. It looks clean, like a Farrow and Ball paint job by designer Madeleine Girling where the quality of the finish should never be in question. All the more effective, then, when a kind of moral distemper takes hold and it all gets corrupted, goes off-colour and becomes dubious. Guy Williams as Gilles is absolutely loathsome because his seduction of Alice is like a pet research project. He also, incidentally, proves that a black roll neck jumper and brown jacket are about as louche as it gets. Maureen Beattie, ever the mistress of the bewitching voice, is Juliette the mother temptress, against whom all resistance is futile. Just sticking a plaster on Dr. Ben’s hand makes him go weak at the knees. François – jittery and wacky by Dyfan Dwfor – may be appalled by his parents’ behaviour but is just as complicit.

Lindsey Campbell as Alice

Lindsey Campbell as Alice

If Toupin isolates a character, it’s Alice. The plot would push her under but she won’t go. Listen up in scene 5 for the psycho pairing of Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) and ‘Benny’ (that would be Biggerstaff too) but Alice stays there, screaming for help really. Lindsey Campbell has to do grieving and dirty dancing and horribly vulnerable all at once, which is why the sex is so desperate. It’s a class act and I think is what the show’s flier describes as traumatic, ‘teasing and thrilling’.

Right Now is as billed. It’s edgy, imminent, and contemporary, which makes it kind of Shakespearean: François as Feste maybe, Alice as the abused and distraught Ophelia; Juliette becomes Lady Macbeth, who has given suck, etc. Weird.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 19 April)

See Right Now at the Traverse

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Ring Road (Traverse: 12 – 16 April ’16)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Traverse by

Martin Donaghy as Mark and Angela Darcy as Lisa. Photo. Traverse theatre.

Martin Donaghy as Mark and Angela Darcy as Lisa.
Photo. Traverse theatre.

“Both actors perform brilliantly in a small space (and on a narrow bed)”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars Outstanding

Fifth and last in this Spring season of A Play, A Pie and a Pint.

It was the prickly cactus that did it, that brought to mind Love’s Labour’s Lost and fun puns on pricks, butts and horns. Mark notices it by the Reception desk of the hotel that’s just off the ring road. He reckons he’s there for sex (oh, not the archery then) and he’s right. Lisa does want him but it’s more his sperm than his good self that she’s targeting. She desires a baby while Mark just fancies the pants off his teacher sister-in-law. Ouch!

Anita Vettesse has written a painfully entertaining comedy and director Johnny McKnight does indeed make the pants fly off the bed. Ring Road is frisky, certainly, but it is also sensitive to what Lisa is feeling. She is 40 years old, has ‘grown to love’ her husband, but is still without a child. The pressure is on big time.

A late afternoon’s delight via Dayuse.com might be all very well but Lisa (Angela Darcy) sees Mark (Martin Donaghy) more as a ‘facilitator’, which he’s not best pleased about. He is even less keen on the idea when brother Paul (a wry, downcast voice-over from Robbie Jack), Lisa’s husband, joins them by being put ‘on speaker’. The two brothers are plumbers, sharing the same van, rather than the same women but it’s still odds-on that the dismissive reference to Screwfix is deliberate.

Mark’s spattered overalls and rigger boots look strange in the tidy, unexciting hotel room and he knows that the whole situation is just not right. Twin beds are bad enough – and that ‘art’ on the wall!- but the twitchy tension is the real passion killer. Lisa, in particular and unsurprisingly, is a bundle of nerves. At worst Mark is confused, but she is probably more conflicted at the end than at the beginning, which is touching and sadly credible.

Both actors perform brilliantly in a small space (and on a narrow bed). Donaghy does “For fuck’s sake” as baffled, happy, hurt and kind all at once, while Darcy is no less expressive, just more couth and desperate. The fact that Ring Road is also very funny is down to the quality of Vettesse’s writing.

 

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 12 April)

Go to Ring Road at the Traverse.

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The Silent Treatment (Traverse: 7 – 9 April ’16)

Posted in 3*, Theatre, Traverse by
Photo: Lung Ha Theatre

Photo: Lung Ha Theatre

“A lot of barmy mischief making”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars

Lung Ha Theatre Company is a leading theatre company for people with learning disabiities, in Scotland and internationally.

Shout it out: Lung Ha bucks trend! By the latest UK stats worker output per hour is down; well, not when you put 21 actors on stage and keep them acting all the while. All the more testing, when there’s little to no dialogue in Douglas Maxwell’s script of stage directions.

The Silent Treatment subjects its cast to keeping shtum – and alert. For the most part it is full on music and sound (by M J McCarthy) that cues the action. After Lung Ha’s Thingummy Bob with Cliff and The Shadows I had my old money on ‘Silence is Golden’ for some signature backing; but, no, that was 1967 and this play needs mobiles, scratchcards, emoticons and a chainsaw. Still, The Tremeloes’ lyrics have something relevant to say: here’s the second verse,

Talkin’ is cheap …
How could she tell? He deceived her so well.
Pity she’ll be the last one to know.

Billie (Nicola Tuxworth) thinks she has the secret to end all secrets. In fact, it’s her boyfriend (Stephan Tait) who’s got it and she won’t find it out until the end, when she will be speechless. In the meantime Billie goes with her little secret and sets out to try and wreck the sponsored silence that is being held to raise money for her mum, who’s in and out of hospital. Why would she do such a thing? That’s her secret and she’s not telling.

And, of course, no-one else is saying anything. The writing on the blackboard spells it out: SPONSORED SILENCE. No Phones (ignored), No Sleeping (impossible), No Eating (not when there’s a packet of Penguin biscuits around), No Knitting (didn’t see any), wheel noises and body noises don’t count (fair enough). It is the irrepressible Kenneth Ainslie as Toby who has real trouble with the rules but even he doesn’t speak.

Billie finds a helper in Stacey (Emma Clark) and the two of them, in and out of disguises and of the windows, do a lot of barmy mischief making under the stern nose of dominie Kitty (Kay Ann Jacobs); but it’s the four strong building crew (with foreman Mark Howie unmistakeably in charge) in high-vis vests and bowlers who do the heavy lifting, paying no attention whatsoever to Kitty’s gong.

The audience did not want to break the silence either. Hearty laughter seemed somehow disrespectful to Maria Oller’s close direction and the disciplined work of the performers on stage. With one great, if unholy, exception, the ingenious visual gags were met with appreciative chuckles rather than guffaws , and so when the end came – when it blossomed is actually more accurate – the applause was for hard study and successful work rather than for easy laughs.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 7 April)

Go to The Silent Treatment and to Lung Ha Theatre Company

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Neither God Nor Angel (Traverse 5 – 9 April ’16)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Unrated, Theatre, Traverse by
Jimmy Chisholm as James VI and Gavin Wright as William. Photo: Leslie Black

Jimmy Chisholm as James VI and Gavin Wright as William.
Photo: Leslie Black

“To an eloquent vocabulary!”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

4th in this Spring’s season of a Play, a Pie and a Pint.

Union (2014), Tim Barrow’s second play, was full of the joys of the Referendum campaign – vigorous, disputatious, even romantic. Neither God Nor Angel, his third, is not ‘Union the prequel’ (by a century), but more of a light amuse-bouche to that earlier rich and hearty fare. This is a waggish two-hander, chummier, a pawky chamber piece.

It is an entertaining fact that James VI, King of Scotland, must have spent some part of the night of April 4th 1603 in Holyrood wondering what it was going to be like to be James I of England (& Ireland) to boot. He was away to London the following morning. Did he blow hot and cold about the whole enterprise? The Incarnation probably sprang to the mind of this godly, seriously literate and absolute monarch who, in 1598 and blessedly free of irony, wrote of ‘the Reciprock and Mutuall Dutie betwixt a free King and his naturall Subiectes’. Let there then steal upon the scene, for the purposes of comic wrangling over glasses of good Rhenish wine, one such subject.

Levity, clearly, is heaven-sent. Enter gawky William (Gavin Wright) to cheek and cheer his King, who has been in peevish sorts. James (Jimmy Chisholm) welcomes – and would embrace in all innocence – the impertinent company of a serving man. Better William, any day, than those ‘devious bastards, the bankers, with their velvet draped bollocks’; and so the toast, raised by His Majesty, ‘To an eloquent vocabulary!’

William speaks Leith and James, crowned at thirteen months, speaks privilege with moments of dainty Morningside. “Would you ken where yon bottle is hid?” might well be an habitual question in Hermitage Gardens but the interesting parts, in amidst the humour, is the forgotten or unfamiliar history: Royal pal Esmé Stewart is pined for; recall of Gowrie and the Ruthven raid shakes the King; his wife, Anne of Denmark, is cherished; and William is sacked for spilling wine on John Ramsay’s silk doublet, which could have happened. I liked all this, almost as much as the use of quill on paper.

It’s a good title, Neither God Nor Angel, provided you can accept that the king’s a man for a’ that, which he ain’t really. Director Ryan Dewar and his two actors do very well with this pithy play of make-believe.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown  (Seen 5 April )

Go to Neither God Nor Angel at the Traverse

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1984 (Festival: 31 March – 2 April ’16)

Posted in 5*, Dance, Festival Theatre, Rated: Outstanding by
Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt as Winston and Julia in 1984. Photo Emma Kauldhar.

Tobias Batley and Martha Leebolt as Winston and Julia in 1984. Photo Emma Kauldhar.

“A spine-tingling masterpiece”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars: Outstanding

To this day, Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen on a stage, so I was excited and intrigued to see what the company would do with another classic novel, albeit a completely different genre and tone. What they’ve created is another spine-tingling masterpiece.

Jonathan Watkins’ choreography is created with all the intricacy and intelligence necessary to portray the complex ideas and changing moods within Orwell’s book. The workers’ unison sections are very crisp and powerful, with many recurring motifs of straight lines and triangles, both in individual movements and formation, which cleverly reflect the “all seeing eye”. Canon variations are used throughout for interest, which work very well to create production line style sequences, again very relevant to the era. In contrast, the Proles’ movements are easily identified through curves, contact improvisation and individuality of style. The lovers’ duet captures all the breath-taking beauty one might expect from a traditional ballet, while the fight scene towards the end is both graceful and gutting, as we see Winston fall and give in to the higher power.

Alex Baronowski’s score is full of accented beats and staccato rhythms which perfectly translate to the repeated motifs of the workers under the control of Big Brother, while the more romantic elements are brought out with strings and flowing, rousing melodies. Much like experimental music of the time, the orchestra uses an assortment of non-traditional instruments to create clashing tinny sounds and altogether this results in an authentic, haunting and sympathetic accompaniment to the action on stage.

Northern Ballet dancers in 1984. Photo Emma Kauldhar.

Northern Ballet dancers in 1984. Photo Emma Kauldhar.

While the relationship between music and movement are clearly intertwined, the design of this production seems equally balanced with the other elements. Chris Davey’s lighting is stark and structural, creating yet more triangles and straight lines for the dancers to follow and stay within, and Simon Daw’s set of moving walls and simple blank spaces adds to the feeling of isolation and hopelessness. Use of colour is also very powerful, from the traditional blue of the workers uniforms, to the bright yellow of hate to the oranges and browns of the Proles, this is clearly a production that pays high regard to many details, making it a joy to watch.

As can be expected in such an interpretation, not every nuance of the book is covered on stage, and sacrifices have to be made to adapt the work for this new form. It’s a shame that some sections aren’t made more of – the final quarter in particular seems a little rushed – but overall the piece strikes a fine balance between narrative progression and beauty of form. For those unfamiliar with the story this production may be somewhat difficult to follow, but even then, the artistry on display is of such high quality that it almost doesn’t matter.

outstanding

StarStarStarStarStar

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 1 April)

Go to Northern Ballet’s  1984

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Uncanny Valley (Summerhall: 29 – 31 March) – part of Edinburgh International Science Festival

Posted in 3*, Rated: Nae Bad, Summerhall, Theatre by
Photo:.Borderline Theatre

Photo:.Borderline Theatre

“Educational and entertaining, well-worth taking the kids to”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Nae Bad

As a child I was never particularly into science. At school the lessons were boring and didn’t challenge me to think creatively or engage with it in real life situations. Uncanny Valley, however, does both, placing today’s children at the heart of a situation we may well find ourselves in 30 years’ time.

Essentially it’s a show about humans and robots, and the difference between the two. With the world becoming ever more robotic, the subject matter is engaging for audiences of all ages and I certainly learned a thing or two about artificial intelligence and the Turing Test during the performance. While I imagine 9-year-old me might have struggled with some of the concepts and sitting still through some of the longer “lesson” parts, many of the younger audience members seemed to grasp it fairly well and engage in the interactive elements.

As a children’s piece, one can forgive a certain amount of ridiculousness and be able to suspend disbelief to still be able to enjoy the action. Credit goes to the actors for keeping the performance engaging, with boundless energy creating big, bold characters that are instantly relatable. Kirsty Stuart in particular shines as the cut-throat Mayor who’ll stop at nothing to eliminate robots in her town.

I would have liked closer attention paid to the narrative to keep it seamless all the way through: there were quite a few unexplained jumps in time and location in the story, and I never quite believed Ada’s relationship with her adopted parents. In saying that, some of the theatrical elements are very well done: the Turing Test at the end of the show is funny and gripping; the open moral discussion about whether to swerve a car off road and kill a group of chickens to save yourself is very thought-provoking, and I was even able to feel emotional connection with the robot characters of OKAY and SARA, which adds a really nice dimension.

The beginning is a little confusing – I feel that Rob Drummond as facilitator perhaps tries too hard to convey a lot of factual information early on and doesn’t seem as comfortable in parts of audience interaction as I would expect from an experienced TIE professional. These are only small moments throughout the piece though, as on the whole it’s quite slick and professional.

Overall, Uncanny Valley is educational and entertaining, and well-worth taking the kids to, as long as you’re ready for a bit of thinking! Theatrically it is a bit rough around the edges but still full of heart.

nae bad_blue

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 31 March)

Visit the Summerhall archive.

International Waters (Traverse: 30 March – 3 April ’16)

Posted in 3*, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Traverse by
International Waters 1

Photos: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

“Almost edifying”

Editorial Rating:3 Stars Outstanding

You have to wonder. Fifty minutes into the heaving swell of International Waters when we’re all dramatically well and truly cast off, the fire alarm lights flash red and the theatre is evacuated. It has to be a Fire Exit production. And the prime minister announces that there will be no fire sale of the UK’s steel industry but it could still all go down the pan; which is pretty much where David Leddy’s new play takes us. It’s gut-churning with intent, from programme-as-origami downwards. This is theatre in the raw; its passage probably indigestible without great work by Becky Minto (Design), Nich Smith (Lighting) and Danny Krass (Sound).

For the U-bend see a cabin suite for the super-rich in the bowels of a super-tanker, complete with champagne buffet and karaoke machine. Cheaper accommodation is in assorted containers where you might be stacked next to a tiger or two. It is all rather make-do, rather urgent, for this is the last ship out of London where the banks have really, really, done their mucky worst. It’s safe to assume that the ATMs are empty and that the poor are on the streets and burning porsches. Still, if you have shedloads of ready money you can look good in white linen, enjoy the Moët, do a line of coke, and singalong to doomsday. Unfortunately it turns out that Sarah, Ben, Sophia, and Arian are in the Caliban suite for a less than delightful reason and that their ‘escape’ will end wretchedly. There’s no mage on the bridge to save them or to get them away from each other’s throats … or crotches.

International Waters 2

Down below, gripped by burning cabin fever and flushing itself out, is the fabled 1%: powerful and greedy, vulnerable and unhappy. Sarah (Claire Dargo), Ben (Robin Laing), Sophia (Selina Boyack), and Arian (Lesley Hart) go at it with astonishing abandon, pulling each other’s chains – just to stay with the scatological – and soiling themselves and their values in the process. It’s abject, messy, and ridiculous and yet the acutely angled and allusive content is almost edifying.

Leddy unships a bulk load of issues: rogue algorithms, flagrant wealth, economic migrants, drowned refugees; the paranoid survivalist versus the self-obsessed, #Blessed; Twitter storms, Old Testament retribution and the gospel strains of New Testament promise. This is one crowded ark of a stage, freighted with ideas, that spills more than it holds, deliberately upset by intemperate behaviour, bad language, and scary discordant sound. If the play is dead in the water at its conclusion, it’s not rudderless or overblown, but simply exhausted.

FYI. The show continued after the fire alarm, which says a lot about the quality of the performance and the unlikely integrity of the piece. It is preposterous and explicitly farcical, yet Leddy goes in behind the theatrical facade. He says (see programme note) that he’s also after the romantic sublime. Well, here’s Adele on a comparable course from Rolling in the Deep: “Go ‘head and sell me out and I’ll lay your shit bare.” Nice!

 

outstanding

StarStarStar

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 30 March)

Go to International Waters at the Traverse and at Fire Exit .

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I Am Thomas (Lyceum: 23 March – 9 April ’16)

Posted in 4*, Musical Theatre, Rated: Unrated, The Lyceum by
'Our God above is a God of Love' with Dominic Marsh, Hannah McPake (back), Amanda Hadingue, Charlie Folorunsho (back), Myra McFadyen, John Cobb, Iain Johnstone.

‘Our God above is a God of Love’ with Dominic Marsh, Hannah McPake (back), Amanda Hadingue, Charlie Folorunsho (back), Myra McFadyen, John Cobb, Iain Johnstone (back).

“Fiercely well executed”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars

I suppose that it is justifiable that Edinburgh’s Gallow Lee was half a mile down Leith Walk and not on East(er) Road. You don’t want too much of the promise of the resurrection to hang about the gibbet. And what do atheists care anyway? Let the foul mouthed blasphemer swing. Or maybe not. It depends on the law, on the Kirk, on freedom of expression, on private conscience, on your reception of I Am Thomas.

Here’s an examination in popular, not judicial, terms of ‘Extreme Justice’ in its unholy alliance with the Scottish Presbytery of 1696. Did Thomas Aikenhead, a gobby twenty year old student at Edinburgh Uni., deserve to be put to death for railing and cursing against his God? Well, no, not in the opinion of this fiercely well executed (Ha!) piece of musical theatre.

There was just the one Thomas A. but there are several red T shirts with his name on it; one in French with ‘Je suis Thomas’ delivering its contemporary message of defiance in the face of intolerance, inhumanity and murder. Thomas might be Everyman but there is an Archie Gemmill shirt too and Match of the Day, for there’s the entertaining conceit – if you like football – of Thomas as a player who is beginning to make a name for himself. Archie Macpherson analyses his game while Thomas sets about committing offences. A short story by author James Robertson is credited as providing inspiration for this ‘brutal comedy with songs’; just possibly his ‘Portugal 5, Scotland 0’.

The songs are intense, all the more so when set against wicked ensemble work and vivid backcloths. Consequential lyrics, expertly crafted, are by Oxford Professor of Poetry Simon Armitage and musical direction is by composer Iain Johnstone, who is also on stage and does his ‘turn’ as Thomas and as penitent John Fraser, who picks up a yellow. There are eight performers and there is a lot of music making, if it’s only a moaning wind from a piano accordion. Listen up for Thomas’ ‘Rhapsody of Nonsense’ sung by Hannah McPake that really puts the boot into the Divinity – and gets him red-carded. As for Charlie Folorunsho’s ‘Our God above is a God of Love’, that is a LOL belter to grimace at.

Charlie Folorunsho and Dominic Marsh. Photos. Manuel Harlan

Charlie Folorunsho and Dominic Marsh.
Photos. Manuel Harlan

The referee plays a blinding, prosecuting role that shouldn’t be his to play, of course; but then Thomas is monumentally unlucky with officialdom. It is bad enough that the chief witness against him is his friend Mungo Craig but to have the Lord Advocate James Stewart (Dominic Marsh) in charge is one hell of a sad joke. Stewart, himself indicted and condemned for treason and author of ‘The People’s Right to Defend Themselves’, characterises himself as the ‘rat catcher’ and is a problem for writers Told by an Idiot. The company excels in creating theatre that is larger than life but wily Jamie has an outsize history all of his own and it is his story, rather than poor young Thomas’s, that often starts to claim the audience’s attention. Still, the result of chronicling the two lives is an inventive, fluid and colourful montage that – you could say – is nearly always on the ball. Only in the second ‘half’, when Aikenhead moves onto exalted ground, with Messiah status and personal glitterball, does it get stuck in an heroic, almost self-regarding mode. There’s a call to freedom in there in an African strain that director Paul Hunter is obviously keen to liberate but I found it more distracting than helpful.

And there you have it: in I Am Thomas the lauded Scottish Enlightenment (not Harry Lauder) stays in the dressing room. What’s on stage is uglier, funnier and shockingly legitimate.

 

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 24 March)

Go to the Lyceum theatre, to the National Theatre of Scotland and to Told By An Idiot

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Endgame (Bedlam: 22-26 March ’16)

Posted in 4*, Bedlam, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
Thomas Noble as Hamm

Thomas Noble as Hamm

“The best student production I’ve seen in quite some time”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

One certainly cannot fault the courage of the students at Edinburgh University this year for taking on so many challenging productions, and to even attempt Beckett – whose works so often have age and world-weariness as themes – is admirable. I was lucky enough to spend an entire term studying Beckett at university, under the tutorship of a renowned expert on his works, but even then I worried that my final performance would be a tragic, naïve offering compared to what had gone before.

Beckett certainly isn’t for everyone, and Endgame is a one-act play with a running time of close to 90 minutes that has very little narrative development or real “action”. What is most satisfying about this production is the group’s sensitivity to Beckett’s text. The great man is notoriously particular about how his work should be performed, and Edinburgh University Theatre Company don’t try any tricks or fancy interpretations to make it new or innovative, but instead use subtlety to let the text speak for itself. Finlay McAfee’s masterful direction teases out various interesting repetitions in the dialogue and hints at some of the political undertones, but never makes bold statements or suggestions.

In saying that, this production also doesn’t take itself too seriously – it’s littered with comedic moments, just as Beckett intended, and is a very well-rounded and watchable show. Sarah Brown’s set is simple yet effective, using black and white as a nod to the “game” element, while all other creative elements are in sync to present a cohesive and professional mise-en-scene.

Thomas Noble as Hamm is the centrepiece of the actors – always on stage, centre stage, he commands attention with charisma and gusto. His moments of anger when flinging props aside are powerful, while he shows great contrast in more intimate conversations with Clov. In turn Clov (Michael Hajiantonis) is excellent as the down-trodden servant, whose development in confidence towards the end, extreme physicality and impressive Irish accent all contribute to a commendable performance.

Jennifer Jones is compelling to watch as Nag, with fantastic control over the small movements and expressions she makes inside the bin. Her physicality is exquisite, and her delivery of the tailor story is achingly on point. Antonia Weir is equally captivating and convincing as long-suffering wife Nell.

To me the only thing lacking from this production is a deeper sense of age and timelessness. The action all seemed a little too fresh and perhaps a touch too “performed” for it to be believable as a snapshot of continual drudgery. In saying that, I’d much rather a slight tip in this direction to keep it energetic and engaging rather than veering down the road of self-indulgent dawdling. In all other respects this show is hard to fault, it’s certainly the best student production I’ve seen in quite some time.

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 23 March)

Go to Endgame at Bedlam Theatre

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A Play, A Pie and A Pint – Billy (The Days of Howling) (Traverse: 22 – 26 March, ’16)

Posted in 5*, Theatre, Traverse by

“A dark, eye-opening fable of flawed humans and why they do what they do”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars

On the surface, this could so easily be “Mumsnet: the play”: a tale of a mother passing judgement on the parents of another child that attends the same nursery as her daughter, juxtaposed with an admin worker whose main priorities are arranging for a pinboard to be put up in her office and responding to radio phone-in competitions. But scrape away that layer of shallow prejudice and what lies beneath is a dark, eye-opening fable of flawed humans and why they do what they do.

The play is written almost exclusively as three intertwining monologues, allowing us to understand multiple viewpoints, with rare yet powerful instances of dialogue when the characters’ paths cross. Director Rosie Kellagher shrewdly opts for simple staging throughout, with each character in their own part of the stage, and keeps the action slick, resulting in an engaging performance I couldn’t take my eyes off.

The writing in this piece is very clever, and quite understandably of award-winning quality, in how it teases and develops action throughout. Early on we are led to be on the side of Alice’s Mum in her mission to ensure a child is properly looked after, while Billy’s Dad comes across as the kind of lout we all love to hate. The tensions are clear, but as the action unwinds and we learn more about who’s who and what has led them to where they are, perspectives slowly change, and at the play’s chilling denouement I was left unsure as to who I should feel most sorry for and whether they really had it coming.

Rosalind Sydney displays great depth, power and fragility as the do-goody Alice’s Mum, from her cutting judgements to her exquisite intonation as a heard-it-all-before call centre operative. It’s hard to believe that Anthony Strachan is anything other than the foul-mouthed, donut-eating, wrestling fanatic Billy’s Dad given the integrity of his performance, while Hilary Lyon is a master of deadpan comedy as the Admin Lady. The acting is controlled, consistent and utterly believable from all three.

In saying that, there were a couple of moments when the action didn’t quite ring true and seemed a little far-fetched (an anecdote of spending 20 hours waiting in A&E being one example), while the weight of action seemed to leave one character a little redundant for the second half of this performance. However, on the great scale of things, these are very minor idiosyncrasies to what is on the whole a compelling production.

For a show that’s this energetic, chopping and changing between three stories with such rapidity, you do have to be on your toes to keep up, but it’s absolutely worth it. Get in there quick.

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

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Reviewer: Steve Griffin (Seen 22 March)

Visit the Traverse archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED