Category Archives: Uni of Northampton Student Productions

Review – Something Human, Incubus Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 25th April 2018

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Mens sana in corpore sano, said Juvenal (apparently). The best you can hope for as a human being is to have a healthy mind in a healthy body; one’s not that much good without the other. Incubus Theatre’s Something Human introduces us to four people whose lives are interwoven by an office – a manager, a personal assistant, a cleaner and a woman who lives nearby whose daughter has gone missing. But something’s not right. The cleaner is playing too significant a role in the company for her status. When the mother comes to distribute leaflets about the missing girl, it’s to the cleaner that she asks permission – which isn’t granted, and with very bad grace. When the PA finds she’s been seconded to work alongside the manager, it’s to the cleaner that she asks not to be given that role. (Why are you asking me, I’m only the cleaner comes the undeniably fair response). Meanwhile, on the phone at home, the cleaner makes aggressive assignations with random men; whilst the manager is exposed as a sexually predatory domination fetishist, the PA (female) is a paedophile, and the mother has murdered her daughter. In an evening’s entertainment that goes too far, the manager slaughters the PA; after all that, the cleaner is charged with the murder of three men. Something Human is the title – but there’s not much in the way of mens sana or corpore sano going on here.

But that’s the intriguing web of deceit that this play sets up. The final scene shows the cleaner talking through Munchausen Syndrome with a psychologist. This is a mental disorder in which a person repeatedly and deliberately acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when he or she is not really sick. But what are the actual repercussions of that fact on the case? One thing’s for sure; the cleaner is mentally unstable. My own interpretation is that the mother, the manager and the PA are all real people, who wander in and out of the cleaner’s life at the office,but that a) they don’t have the mental illnesses or sexual perversions that the cleaner has attributed to them and that b) nor are they dead. Or murderers. I could be wrong here. All’s not as it seems at any rate. And it’s enormous fun to pick up the jigsaw puzzle pieces of the plot and try to place them in a pattern that makes sense! If you’ve seen it, do you agree with my interpretation?

There are some very good performances caught up in the machinations of this play! Jason Pile plays the manager with just the right touch of sleazy middle-management arrogance, on the sneaky lookout for a bit of skirt. He identifies all the areas of the text where he can create just a bit of humour to help fill out his character and you warm to him, even if his character is largely loathsome! A perfect foil for this character is Anya Gallagher’s PA, anxiously expecting a tough interview, tentatively finding her feet in the new role, working out how and when she can start to assert herself in the job. I love her range of facial expressions,you know full well when she’s genuinely interested and when she’s humouring those around her. There was one extremely funny and beautifully played scene between all four actors when the manager and the PA are texting each other during a meeting and the other staff are all too polite to mention it. And there’s also the Grand Guignol scene where Mr Pile emerges covered in blood and Ms Gallagher doesn’t emerge at all; it was a very powerful visual effect.

Emilia Owen brings a good degree of motherly warmth to her role and is very moving in the scene where she begs forgiveness in the church. I didn’t really believe that someone as kind-hearted as her would be capable of killing their own child – and I think, on reflection, I was right! At the other end of the scale, Lori Heather’s tough talking, aggressive cleaner is the stuff of nightmares and it’s a great characterisation of someone who’s lost sight of anything human about themselves. My only slight criticism would be that at times of high anxiety and near hysteria, some of her verbal clarity got lost. I could tell she was furious, but I couldn’t always make out the words that expressed it!

Very nice ensemble work and a great star coupling with Mr Pile and Ms Gallagher. And a thought-provoking play that’s still intriguing me several days later! Congratulations on an enjoyable and challenging production.

Review – Drained, Open Eye Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 25th April 2018

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Families, eh, who’d have them? The one set of people you should always be able to rely on in times of need. The people who should pull together when the times are rough. The people who have always got your back. But it isn’t always the case. Take Laura, for instance. She’s at the heart of the family trying to keep everyone together. After their mum had died things were difficult. Older brother Jamie was hardly ever seen. Now that dad’s gone too, he couldn’t even bother coming to his funeral – just the wake, in the hope of a few free pints. Younger brother Will is more reliable, and he does give Laura some support, although he’s got boyfriend trouble of his own, and of course relationships always have to come before relations, don’t they?

If there’s one thing this absolutely brilliant gem of a little play tells you, it’s that when someone reaches out to you for help, don’t turn your back. Yes, they may be that annoying sibling. Yes, you may well think that they’ve caused their own problems. Yes, your time is precious and you have other commitments. But if they’re ringing you, constantly, leaving messages, getting more and more desperate, surely there’s a time when you bury whatever hatchets there were and be a listening ear. One day it may be too late.

Beautifully structured over the course of a year – nicely conveyed by the change of the seasonal pub notices from Valentine’s to Summer BBQ – Laura returns again and again to the same pub table and knocks back more and more cheap rosé as her life gradually disintegrates. Friendly barkeeper Dan is there with his listening ear, but he’s got his own life to lead too. Jamie would far sooner spend time with his buffoon of a workmate Steve than his brother or sister; he’s homophobic anyway, so why should he and Will want to have anything to do with each other? And all the time, neither of them realise quite how alone Laura feels.

It’s eloquently written, with a naturally evolving story and a simple but effective staging, with three fantastic performances that live on in your mind many days later. Bryony Ditchburn is compelling as Laura, continually disappointed with her warring brothers but relying on them for support; making a fool of herself in front of Dan, tearing herself apart in front of us. A superb performance. Robert Charles is also brilliant as Will, a very effective mix of self-obsessed petulant and selfless kindly. Jake Wyatt completes the threesome as the erratic and grumpy Jamie, never willing to put himself out for anyone else. The scene where Mr Wyatt confronts Mr Charles with a homophobic outburst of abuse was absolutely stunning, and an acting masterclass from both; you could hear the proverbial pin drop at the surprise shock and venom. Mr Wyatt was also very convincing as Dan, and Mr Charles hilarious as Steve, putting his foot in it with every opportunity.

This would be a brilliant play to take to the Edinburgh Festival. Funny; tragic; enormously emotional; and with first class performances. If Carlsberg made Flash Festival shows…?

Review – Beneath It All, Balance Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, 25th April 2018

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It’s traditional to say that the best years of our lives are when we are kids; and with that they tend to mean from our earliest memories up till the teenage years. Once you hit the terrible teens, your hormones start throbbing, your face comes out in spots, you’re working out who you fancy, and schoolwork becomes harder and harder. No thanks, I wouldn’t want to go through that again. Balance Theatre’s Beneath It All examines the lives of three young people, one of whom has had it tough but for whom life seems to be getting better; another who seems to have had too much responsibility too young and for whom life is getting tougher; and a third who seems to be totally unaffected by all those teenage angsts and is merrily sailing through life. As this play makes clear, we’re all different.

Charlie is first seen in a wheelchair; he has a backstory of problems that are hinted at but never explicitly stated, which helps create a fascinating character. Say the wrong thing to him and it can really cause him anguish. He’s clearly a fish out of water in Big School, with no one to help him find the right classroom for the next lesson. He relies heavily on older sister Natalie, who tries to boost his confidence and keep him on the right track, although as he develops he resents being mothered. Natalie, too, relies heavily on him, as she’s been looking after him rather than finding the time to develop her own identity. So when he gains independence – and a girlfriend – she’s left alone, with an unwanted pregnancy and a reliance on the bottle. Meanwhile her friend Cecily, with her bright humour and gentle kindness, becomes the link between the two. The company is called Balance Theatre and it is Cecily who is the pivot – imagine her at the centre of the see-saw with Charlie and Natalie at the ends, one up in the air, the other down on the ground, then vice versa; only she could provide the balance for all three.

This is a beautiful portrayal of the awakening of young love. Oliver Franks as Charlie vividly captures all those anxieties and confusions, from his first secret sexy dream to those early bashful looks and tentative touches and the mixture of horror and delight that is the awkward school dance. It’s a superb performance that makes you laugh and makes you shudder with your own embarrassed memories. He also strongly suggests Charlie’s mental instability without ever making the nature of it obvious, which intrigues us and makes us want to know more. His reaction when Elizabeth Ferreira’s Cecily jokingly wonders if his sexy dream involved him raping her was quite shocking; you can’t tell if he’s just feeling guilty about the dream, or indeed whether there was some suggestion of some scandal in his past that we don’t know about. All very intriguing.

Mr Franks and Ms Ferreira have great chemistry together and their physical closeness for the dream sequence was very touching and emotional. She conveyed splendidly her character’s self-confidence with a very assured performance; she too is learning about sexual attraction, but takes it in her stride with giggly joy. Alexandra Pienaru is very effective in showing Natalie’s ability to placate and comfort her brother whilst needing reassurance herself, which he’s not mature enough to provide. For me, the vision of her nursing her bottle of wine in tears was the most emotionally outstanding moment of what is a very emotional play.

If I have a small criticism, it would be that, as the audio dynamics in the church can be unreliable, sometimes the intimate conversations between the two women were a little too quiet to be fully heard a few rows back. But overall it was a very well performed, and very engrossing play and I really enjoyed it. Congratulations all!

Review – (His) Sheep, Control Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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St. Peter’s Church is the perfect setting for a play that’s set in a church, and when you enter the building you’re met with bucketfuls of haze and atmosphere – and plenty of jazz too, which felt perhaps a little incongruous! Pastor Stanley is sitting there welcoming you, and once the play gets underway he takes up the microphone and affirms that God is good, with all that credible zeal of a TV evangelical minister. Hidden in a corner of the choirstalls loafs Kevin, a homeless guy, very much down on his luck, but who is hoping that Stanley’s charity will be able to house him – he’s top of the list, apparently, so the chances are looking good. Enter Victoria, Kevin’s sister, a hard-nosed journalist with a suspicious mind. She and her brother have been estranged for some time, but she reckons she’s on to Stanley. Does she have evidence to suggest that his charity work is a cover up for something more devious and sinister? And just where do Thomas and the others who have already been rehoused actually live?

What sets this production apart from the other Flash Festival shows I’ve seen so far this year is that they have been relatively simplistic and naturalistic in their staging, but this is a much more elaborate show. The smoke effects, the jazz; the physical theatre mime routines that interrupt the flow of the story to represent (I think) the emotions of the protagonists; the sea of torn up newspapers thrown like confetti, representing (maybe) journalists’ stories of the past that no longer have currency. There are some elements here that deliberately unsettle and complicate things for the audience; done carelessly that could annoy us, but this is intriguing and strangely beguiling.

It is a perplexing story, that builds to an eerie and unexpected climax; and the final tableau rather suggests the triumph of evil over good, which feels unsettling in a church. Mo Samuels takes the role of Stanley, smart in his shiny steely grey jacket, and looking every inch the respectable, and definitely not impoverished, cleric. He’s great addressing the audience with his semi-sermons, getting under our skin and making us believe he’s a good man… isn’t he? When we find out about the real Stanley – or is it Cyrus – Mr Samuels gives us a chilling unhinged characterisation that makes you feel vulnerable sitting in the front row! A very disturbing (and excellent) performance.

Terell Oswald is the homeless Kevin, humiliated to stand before us with his ragged sleeping bag, just looking for 30p from anyone who’ll give it. What I really enjoy about Mr Oswald’s performance is that, for a relatively big bloke, he’s enormously nimble – he gives all us chunkier chaps hope! It’s a very enjoyable physical performance, with some very nice flashes of humour despite the darkness of Kevin’s life.

Chloe Hoffmeister plays journalist Victoria, a smart portrayal of a confident woman in a tough world who knows what she wants and how to get it; she’s also great at showing us her panic-stricken fears when she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Again, another excellent performance.

As for the play itself, I felt it could have been a little tighter in construction and felt just a tad long, but I really enjoyed the performances and the shock ending certainly leaves you wondering!

Review – Eight Pounds Sixty, TaBoo Productions, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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Depression, mental illness, suicide. We see the words every day and, fortunately, for most of us that’s as close as we get to understanding them. But as more and more people are becoming diagnosed with mental illnesses, and the consumption of drugs like citalopram are steadily on the rise, TaBoo Productions’ Eight Pounds Sixty is a timely reminder of what it can be like to suffer with depression and have suicidal thoughts. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in this country; it’s thought to affect men more than women because women find it easier to talk, although other studies suggest that women are more successful (if that’s the right word) at committing suicide than men – men have more failed suicide attempts. Such statistics are gruesome.

This short play introduces us to two characters, 23-year-old Annie, doing well, with her own two-bedroomed flat in the best part of Buckinghamshire; and 17-year-old Rosie, a garrulous, excitable young lady with the world at her feet, or so you’d think. But Annie’s messy floordrobe is a symptom of her messed up mind, and as for Rosie – well we’ll come to her in a short while. Annie presents well. She’s happy at work (relatively – we all have idiot colleagues from time to time, but her recollections of their coffee orders are very amusing); she’s having counselling but she likes her counsellor, and citalopram gets her through the day – the Eight Pounds Sixty of the title, by the way, is the cost of a prescription. She bemoans the idiotic questions that she is required to answer for the well-meaning but overstretched NHS. But then there was the day she had to ring 111, and we hear the conversation between her and switchboard, and it’s clear she’s in trouble.

Naomi Ell gives a stunning solo performance, winning us over instantly with her quirky observations about her daily routines, the nicely impertinent asides about her colleagues, and her chatty reflections on her medical treatment. So it comes as a tremendous shock when the painful truth of Annie’s condition can no longer be hidden, and the tears begin to fall – not only from Ms Ell’s eyes but from the majority of the audience.

She deftly changes into a summer dress to become Rosie, cheekily exchanging niceties with a chap in the front row; 17 years old, but still attached to her pets. And just when you think all’s well, she opens a piece of paper simply entitled Mum and Dad, and she reads out loud what she has written. And that’s the starting point for fresh tears, a liberally opened packet of paracetamol, and the inevitable result of too much teenage pressure.

It’s an incredibly moving piece, performed as an absolute tour de force. If you’ve been affected by thoughts of suicide, either by yourself or loved ones, you may want to think twice about seeing this play because it pulls no punches. It’s so beautifully done, but with some truly hard moments. At just over 20 minutes, this must be one of the shortest plays around, but quality beats quantity and its impact surely outweighs the time spent watching it. Unforgettable.

Review – Deciding What to do with Dad, Blue Shift Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Castle Hill, Northampton, 24th April 2018

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Dementia is an issue which always merits dramatic examination because, let’s face it, we’re all getting older, it’s getting bigger, and it’s probably going to see most of us off if we’re lucky enough to live that long. Having witnessed the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous vascular dementia over a period of nine years, and her brother before her, I know this is a very personal and very tricky problem – and there’s really no right or wrong way to deal with it apart from ensuring they get the best possible care you can offer. But parents can be very difficult, can’t they? No matter the good times you shared, how they looked after you, how they even risked their lives for you, they can become a nuisance at times. Danny DeVito’s bright idea was to Throw Momma From The Train, but Mommas have a habit of bouncing back.

Blue Shift Theatre’s Deciding What to do with Dad considers the plight of three brothers whose father has succumbed to dementia. But if you’re expecting a po-faced, searing exploration of the nature of dementia, or even worse, looking for advice as to how to help look after a parent with dementia, you’ve come to the wrong place. This brilliant, subversive, fast-paced surreal comedy breaks all the rules with its proposed solution to the brothers’ problem, whilst still twinging at the heartstrings in its emotional moments; I confess, when the brothers were reading aloud their father’s wishes that he had written when he was still compos mentis, I experienced that strange wetness in the eye that can sometimes take you by surprise.

The three brothers are beautifully characterised. Charlie, the youngest and most sensible, takes a practical approach; Ryan, the returning prodigal, takes a traditional approach; Archie, the weird one, takes a weird approach. The structure of the show enables the cast to break the fourth wall on an almost continuous basis, which gives it both flexibility and a dangerous edge; it creates a delicious bond with the audience, so we know we’re not only watching three awkwardly matched brothers taking the rise out of each other (as brothers do), but also three likeable young actors creating some theatrical magic apparently on the hoof (although I’m sure it’s very well prepared).

It would be invidious to pick out the individual performance of any one of Jac Burbidge, Jake Statham or Hal Gallagher because they gelled together so well to create a really convincing ensemble. But I did like Mr Burbidge’s song, which starts with quirky humour but ends with true pathos; Mr Statham’s energy and enthusiasm in the flashbacks, whilst keeping one foot in the door of reality; and Mr Gallagher’s dour, self-pitying daft sod of a clown – I really loved his phone call with an 8 year old client.

It reminded me a little of Peter Nichols’ Day in the Death of Joe Egg, where the parents of a severely disabled child manage to survive everyday life by turning their whole existence into pastiche and pantomime. Creating subversive, ridiculous humour as a way of coming to terms with dementia strikes me as a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Having seen a few Flash Festival plays over the last three years I’m definitely of the opinion that it’s much harder successfully to carry off comedy in this format than it is tragedy; but these guys made it look easy. I loved this production – I’m only sorry I won’t have time to see it again. Congratulations guys, you did an amazing job. You could take this play, give it a little tightening here and there, add a couple more ideas plus say ten more minutes, and it would be a smash at Edinburgh.

Review – Lay Me Bare, Athena Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd April 2018

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Athena Theatre’s Flash Festival play, Lay Me Bare, is a three-hander that tells the stories of three different women and their experiences of domestic abuse at the hands of three unseen but violent partners. At the beginning of the play they all nurse black eyes as they stare sadly into their mirrors, trying to come to terms with the violence that has been inflicted on them. Applying makeup might make the visual evidence temporarily go away, but there’s no hiding the damage done beneath. Monica is a student, totally under the spell of TJ, in and out of prison; how will he react when he finds out she’s pregnant? Fola is a devout Christian, whose only wish is to be able to conceive a child with her husband; how will he react when he finds out she’s not pregnant? Elsie is a hairdresser, struggling to pay the bills, working hard while her Phil stays out late getting drunk, turning violent when she complains at him over his reckless behaviour. “It won’t happen again” avows his disembodied voice; does he keep his promise?

Here we have three strong characterisations of the three abused women; three similar problems, but with three very different outcomes. I really enjoyed Xara Chisano’s portrayal of Monica, a very quiet, reserved, self-punishing character who has endless excuses for her boyfriend’s terrible behaviour. It’s as though he has taken away her ability to express herself and have her own identity, and you really feel the struggle as Ms Chisano tries to reassert herself and finally pluck up courage to tell TJ about the pregnancy. I have to confess I did sense a little bit of water in the eye as she portrayed his vicious reaction. Very strong stuff – but with Monica there is a small sense of hope in the final scene, which gives the play a (relatively) bright and optimistic ending.

Maddy Ogedengbe gives an emotionally charged performance as Fola; you can really feel her pain by looking at her anguished face. When she meets the doctor who confirms the blood test results, her fear and alarm is palpable. Perhaps it was a little strange that the doctor doesn’t seem to be that sensitive to her position; on the other hand, perhaps it’s no surprise, given how overworked our medical staff are. Her cries of torment are really harrowing. It was another really strong performance.

Farrah Dark is a spiky, hard-working Elsie who gives as good as she gets when arguing with her wretched drunken partner. I didn’t feel as though the role was quite as full or emotionally written as the other two, but her anguish was strongly portrayed and her representation of being the victim of a physical attack was very vivid and tough to watch. I also really liked Ms Dark as Monica’s friend Stacey, an ebullient and funny characterisation that lightened the otherwise tense and oppressive mood.

All three women suffer at the hands of truly objectionable and vicious men: a drunkard, a recidivist, and maybe a religious zealot? We don’t know that much about the men, and the play allows us to fill those gaps ourselves, which appeals to my sense of making the audience work a little to get the most out of the play.

There was one rather unusual aspect to how this play is presented to the audience, and that’s the manner of conducting telephone conversations. On a couple of occasions, the victim and the abuser are on a phone call together and what we the audience hear is both sides of the conversation talking, pre-recorded. Would it not have felt more natural for the victim character to speak live on stage with either pre-recorded responses or indeed, the responses being delivered live, but from off-stage? With the actor just passively listening to both sides of the conversation, stylistically it just looked and felt a bit odd.

Anyway, this is just nit-picking. The play gives us three very strong stories, eloquently told, and powerfully conveyed. Congratulations to all on a memorable production!

Review – Screw You, Sonder Ensemble, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd April 2018

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It only seems a few months ago that I enjoyed (and I really did!) the 2017 Flash Festival but, here it is again, all bright and shiny and ready to entertain for another year. There are twelve shows on offer for 2018, and, with any luck, Mr Smallmind and I will get to see all of them. I’m expecting keyboard arthritis by the end of the week.

First up was Screw You, performed by the Sonder Ensemble in an intimate little studio upstairs at Hazelrigg House. Inspired by last year’s upsetting reports of epidemic sexual harassment in the entertainment industry that centred on the Harvey Weinstein revelations, Ceara Coveney, Gemma Leigh and Katie Lawson have assembled a fascinating, emotional and disturbing piece that takes verbatim accounts from some of the victims and weaves together an exposé of institutionalised harassment.

It’s largely a collection of accounts by women and men approached by sexual predators who can get them just the right job opportunity if they play along with their sordid game. For a time last year we were all reading these accounts in the papers and online every day, and after a while the regularity and frequency of these appalling stories lessened their impact and unfortunately made the subject almost mundane. But the shock of hearing these accounts is far greater when someone is standing in front of you and relating these intimidating and terrifying ordeals in person.

The three actors have created a superb ensemble piece bringing these stories to life through a range of characters. You see how some people cope with these experiences through humour; others are simply so broken by the devastation of what’s happened to them that they can barely string a sentence together. The effect of watching and hearing these accounts at close hand is very powerful.

Technically it was a great performance; all three actors have superbly clear enunciation, so it was a joy to listen to, and I also admired how they created a physically intriguing show from what could otherwise be quite static material. Whilst one person is telling their story the other two might be acting out public reactions, or performing some intimate mime, giving an indication of the physical harassment involved. With the help of some newspaper cuttings on the backdrop, and using only three stools, they gave depth to their shallow stage area and formed creative spatial relationships, which really helped to convey the material to the audience. All three also showed off an excellent command of accents, with some very effective North American and Antipodean voices in there.

At just 25 minutes long it fully endorses the old phrase that brevity is the soul of wit. Punchy, painful and poignant, this drove home the horrors of sexual harassment in both the entertainment industry and also out there in real life. A clear and angry voice in support of the #metoo victims. Great work!

University of Northampton, BA (Hons) Acting & Creative Practice, Graduates 2018 Showcase Programme, 14th February 2018

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I was delighted to receive an invitation to the Dress Rehearsal for this year’s London Showcase for the 2018 Graduates of the University of Northampton, BA (Hons) Acting & Creative Practice course. Last year, when I saw the London Showcase, I had already seen the actors in a number of different roles from their appearances at the Royal and at the Flash Festival. This really helped assess the versatility of the performers, and I was surprised at the range some of them achieved. Because of a change in structure of the courses, I’ve only seen these 2018 Graduates in one previous production, Balm in Gilead. So this was just my second opportunity to see them show off their talents, hopefully to attract the attention of agents and managers and to give their careers a jolly good kickstart.

My friend and co-blogger Mr Smallmind braved the icy cold to trek up to the Maidwell Hall to watch the cast of fourteen assemble a veritable smorgasbord of theatrical delights, either short sketches or extracts from longer works. Some were extremely serious, giving the cast the opportunity to plumb the depths of aggression or bereavement, to create passionate and hard-hitting drama; others were light-hearted and funny, which brings a totally different strength and skillset to the Showcase. It’s human nature to identify with, and moreover like, someone on stage who makes you laugh; so when you’re trying to win the attention of professionals, whom you want to have on your side in the future, personally I think a good dollop of endearing humour can go a long way.

There were some stand-out sketches and performances for me that I thoroughly enjoyed and thought were superbly acted. The best of the more serious fare was a scene featuring James Grayson and Joe Conroy as two antagonistic attendees at a funeral, with Bobbie-Lee Scott caught between them as a grieving mother. All three gave powerful performances, spitting out the venom of their speeches with glee, but I particularly enjoyed Mr Grayson’s ability to convey controlled anger – every insult hit home, each word was deliciously enunciated. Ms Scott also appeared in a very enjoyable sketch with Amber Jade Harrison where she hilariously ridiculed Ms Harrison’s character’s previous choice of boyfriend, outrageously assassinating the poor off-stage chap whilst she herself was horrendously clad in a ghastly sparkly pink shell suit top. Her comic timing was perfect and, despite the brevity of the sketch, we had a very strong understanding of her character.

Another sketch that worked very well featured Dean Adams and Rhiannon Flambard loafing around in the great outdoors whilst he fantasises about being a duck. It’s an immensely silly but strangely touching little scene which both actors delivered perfectly; he stood out for his ability to convey the character’s quite childlike ideas, delivered completely straight-faced, which just made it even more funny. He was also excellent in a rather dark scene with Tiana Thompson, which begins with his amusing self-congratulation on how good a lover he had been the night before, but which gets creepier as you realise that his character probably committed rape. Ms Thompson, too, was very strong as his victim, carefully but powerlessly piecing together her recollections of the night and unable to conclude whether there’s anything she can do to put it right.

There’s a delightfully cringey scene between a painfully awkward Ross Bayliss and a voluptuously forward Freya Mawhinney where she realises, post-party, that she accidentally went off with the wrong bloke; I really liked Mr Bayliss’s self-deprecating persona in both his scenes. Daniel Peace, James Grayson and Jemma Bentley all feature in a part hilarious, part harrowing scene where a menage a trois seems to have gone seriously wrong; and Mr Peace was also excellent in a two-hander (pardon the pun) where he asked Mr Conroy to inspect his undercarriage as he thought he had a lump down there. Both actors really conveyed the awkward humour of that situation superbly.

If I were to be handing out awards for the best performers, then I would say James Grayson, Jemma Bentley, Bobbie-Lee Scott and Dean Adams would probably be jockeying for position with the best chances. But the great thing about this Showcase is that everyone gave a great account of themselves and the standard of performance was very high. The big event is at the Soho Theatre on Friday 16th February and I’m sure the whole group will deliver some outstanding performances!

Review – Canterbury Tales, BA (Hons) Acting Final Year Students, University of Northampton, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 8th February 2018

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I think it’s fair to say that you could describe Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as something of a success story. They’ve been around for more than 600 years and are incredibly adaptable to modern taste – in addition to the original, all-hallowed text, there are modernised versions for children, TV and film adaptations, even a 1960s musical. There’s nothing you can do to the Canterbury Tales to shake their sure foundation.

The Final Year Students have devised a show based on the Tales, where a group of young people are holed up in a church and tell stories to each other to keep their spirits up whilst the world outside falls apart (from the programme – I’m paraphrasing). Now, I have to make two confessions here. One of the ways you can divide up the general population is those who like to have stories read to them, and those who don’t. On the whole, I don’t. I was the child who didn’t enjoy Jackanory. If someone starts reading a story, it isn’t long before my eyes droop, my mind wanders and, once I realise I’ve lost the thread, I give up. I’m much more entertained by acting out a story than having it read to me. So, for story-telling to grab my attention it has to be really electric. Another confession is – I don’t really like Chaucer. Believe me, I tried. I did a whole term at university constantly companioned with a copy of Chaucer’s Complete Works and it was eight weeks of pure headache. I couldn’t get my head around the language, or the characters, or the conventions of the age. And I did really badly on my Chaucer paper. So Chaucer and I are not really mates.

For me, this was a show of two halves: that is, a show of good performances and dull content. At times the staging is also somewhat alienating. At first, when you see the plan of the church and locations marked where each story is told, which helpfully accompanies the programme, I thought we were going to be treated to a performance in promenade, which would have been great. I’d have loved to have followed the actors around the church, Pied Piper-like. Instead, we were seated on one side of the choirstalls for a bit, then the other, and finally asked to move down into the main body of the church. In the choirstalls, the proximity to and view of the action is excellent. But once you’re in the pews, there are considerable areas where the action takes place that are simply too far away, and too obstructed, for you to see. Don’t get me wrong – the use of the space is incredibly inventive; but you can be as inventive as you like but still achieve nothing if your audience can’t see you properly!

I was grateful for the programme because without it I think I would have been totally lost. Some stories get told – or at least represented – more than once, which feels a little odd. Hence we have two prioresses, two millers, three squires and four wives of Bath. No question, each character conveyed the stories differently; indeed, some tale-tellings bore little, if any, resemblance to what we know of the Tales from our English lessons. But repetition is still repetition, and was one of the reasons why – sorry to say – I got bored in this show. Although eleven separate tales are represented in this play, it lacked variety and it lacked oomph.

Despite my moaning about repetition, two definite highlights of the show were the two adaptations of the Miller’s Tale. It’s the one everyone knows because it’s rude, crude and lewd; and that brief moment of recognition when the audience realises oh yes I know this one is one of the reasons the tale stands out. The first rendition, by Anna Gallagher as a super-cool, hyper-trendy, OMG-type was told with great characterisation and some genuine passion for the story; it was also very funny. In the second rendition, Jake Wyatt recounted it in the only other thoroughly convincing manner – that of a foul-mouthed lad sharing his story with his mates, like they were thirteen year olds passing round a porn magazine. Mr Wyatt bellows out his obscenities with utter relish and does a really fine job of it.

Many of the performers assist in the telling of other stories as well as telling their own, and for me, Ceara Coveney, Alexandra Pienaru and Oliver Franks stood out as being great all-rounders. Additionally, I enjoyed Terrell Oswald’s rapport with the audience as the curtailed Cook – clever how he doesn’t finish his tale, just like the original; Chloe Hoffmeister was a very sassy Wife of Bath, and Bryony Ditchburn sang the Franklin’s Tale like an angel. Gemma Leigh, Oliver Franks and Jason Pile told a love triangle version of the Pardoner’s tale very eloquently by mime, and the Samson and Delilah element of the Monk’s Tale was a very dramatic ensemble affair of gouging out the eyes of the menfolk, with the cascades of blood represented by billowing red ribbons; really effective staging.

So, overall, the performances were very good and there were some scenes that entertained, but, sadly, for me, many didn’t and I found a few of the elements of the show rather self-indulgent and overlong. I’m afraid there was no post-show buzz from the audience after the curtain call, and I personally felt like I’d had my energy sapped. But then, I never really liked Chaucer anyway, so what do I know?