Tag Archives: Flash Festival

Review – Erased, Afterlight Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd May 2017

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In the year 2020 – that’s only three years’ time so they’re obviously predicting a rush in scientific research – Clear Laboratories are the go-to supplier of the innovative new technique for depression, anxiety and a whole host of Mental Health issues. Their solution is to implant a “null cell” to prevent a painful memory from recurring. I guess it could work; and I’m sure there would be many customers.

We see three such customers in “Erased” – the sullen, withdrawn kleptomaniac, the recidivist return customer and the girl who lied about her age to get on the programme; and the play is about the interaction between them, trying to find out more about their pasts and why they are here. The scene is broken by one gameshow style interruption – a juxtaposition of lightness and humour with the darkness and seriousness of the main theme.

This performance featured a large amount of video content, perhaps a little out of balance in comparison with the live performance. And, I’m sorry to say it, but I found the play itself rather dull. There was a lot of deep self-examination but not a lot of drama. The characters performed by Helena Fenton and Joseph T Callaghan were very downbeat and didn’t seem to have much variety in them; and it was only the presence of Luke Mortimore that gave the play any real sense of life or movement. The play accentuated the lack of connect between the characters and unfortunately presented the same disconnect to the audience. It’s a shame because all three actors have proven themselves first rate in previous productions, but I’m afraid this really didn’t do it for me.

Review – The Time Travel Tour, Just This Guy Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 23rd May 2017

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The Time Travel Tour advertises itself as one part fast paced, historical sketch comedy, one part love letter to science fiction. Our intrepid hero takes us, Doctor Who-like, to various times in history to shed an oblique light on what was going on, and in so doing involves us in a sci-fi excursion, a day trip of potential disaster. Have you been on the Star Tours ride at Disneyland Paris? This show brought that to mind somewhat – an audience shown into a small and rather claustrophobic environment and then told to watch out for what’s about to happen – oh and this is your operator’s first day in the job. Things go wrong, we’re in for a bumpy ride – and that’s all part of the fun.

I really admire Jay Andrews’ vision for this show, and what he has created is extremely demanding on the performer, rushing on and off-stage, lots of costume changes, countless audio cues, and trying to make the content on the video wall synchronise with what’s happening on stage. He clearly put in loads of research to create an original blend of sci-fi and history; two, I must confess, of my least favourite things on this earth! Nevertheless, that was his challenge to me – to make me more interested in them. Unfortunately, I can’t say he succeeded at that, but he’s certainly not the first to fail at it either. However, even for a non-sci-fi-kinda-guy like myself, I did enjoy trying to spot a few of his references – Also sprach Zarathustra, Max Headroom, Tardis and Back to the Future.

This is a very ambitious show that relies on split-second accuracy between the performer and his tech support. Any fractional delay between the conversational flow or the relationship between him and any sound or video effects only emphasises the artificiality of the show and stops you believing in it. In the performance I saw, the sound level of the video footage was way too quiet. You had to really concentrate hard in order to hear what was being said, and, sadly, that hard work detracted from enjoying the humour and relaxing into the show. It would also have worked better if it had been even funnier – if the punchlines had really hit home, and if the scenes from history could have been snappier and even more intriguing.

Jay is clearly a likeable guy with an engaging personality and natural comic ability. Unfortunately, I think he deserved material with more bite; perhaps fewer scenes would help him to build on his relationship with his audience and develop the ideas more. Nevertheless, congratulations on devising one of the more inventive shows of the festival; with more work and tighter tech this could grow into a very successful one-man-show.

Review – G. M. H., Stalagmite Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 22nd May 2017

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330 years from now, mankind has created Genetically Modified Humans – GMHs for short. If you’re uncomfortable with the thought of Genetically Modified Food – what would you think about the prospect of our genes being played about with so that we can withstand the extreme changes in the Earth’s atmosphere? There’s been a new Ice Age, and the choice was to change, or die… so…? GMHs were used to build a sustainable world for humans to inhabit. But are they also human? Robot? Something halfway between the two?

It’s clear when we meet two black market scavengers at the beginning of the show that they’re part of “traditional” humankind and look on the GMH that they discover as subhuman; “it”, as one of them insists they call the GMH rather than “she”. But does there come a point where the GMH’s abilities supercede the humans’? Has man bitten off more than he can chew?

An inventive and clever play, with three strong characters as well as the looming disembodied voice of the “boss”. Very nice use of video, with the Colossal Incorporated company calling for volunteers to become genetically modified, long before the events of the play were to unfold. Jamal Franklin and Daniel Ambrose-Jones asthe two vagabonds build up a good relationship with banter and argument so you really feel you understand how these guys work together; and the sudden arrival of a GMH in the shape of Jessica Bridge throws them into uncertainty – and not without cause. Miss Bridge is delightfully aloof, misleadingly accommodating and full of surprises.All I can say is, if she ever asks you to give her a shoulder massage, tread carefully.

Smartly performed, clearly delivered – and with more than one surprising twist at the end. Good work and congratulations!

Review – A Matter of Race, Zakiya Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 22nd May 2017

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Two girls, same age; different upbringings in different countries but circumstances force them both to move to England. No knowledge of each other until one day fate joins them together at an interview. What do they notice about each other? Their clothes; their potential as rivals. What don’t they notice about each other? The difference of their skin colour. They recognised their own colour much earlier in their childhood, as part of growing up, as part of acquiring their own identities. These things just are – you don’t choose, you accept them. But the other’s colour only becomes apparent after life takes a turn for the difficult. A party. A shot is fired…

As their story develops you realise how the media report events and people, their motivations and their integrity, differently depending on their skin colour. If responsible for a crime, the white girl will get the benefit of the doubt; the black girl will get automatic assumption of guilt. But their lives run parallel;to all intents and purposes, they are virtually interchangeable. Does innocence have a chance when faced with institutionalised racism?

A simple play with a simple message that you don’t need to me to spell out here. Performed with pinpoint accuracy by Jessica Bichard and Karr Kennedy,this is a superbly well assembled, poetic piece of writing, that both actors bring to life direct from the heart. They build up beautiful speaking rhythms and patterns, speaking in unison, speaking in time, speaking in syncopation, speaking together, speaking apart. Extremely effective and, despite the harshness of the injustice it highlights, extremely enjoyable.

Review – Broken, Out of Mind Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Salvation Army Hall, Northampton, 22nd May 2017

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The description of this production begins: “Billy Milligan is a young man struggling with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) who is accused of crimes that he believes he did not commit. Tormented by 24 different personalities, every day is a struggle to gain control of his life….” Can you imagine that? Having that kind of racket going on inside your head? It’s not something I’d ever considered before seeing this extraordinary production and when it finished, I emerged much better informed… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This was my first time at the Salvation Army venue, and what terrific opportunities it provides for a larger scale production. Entering the auditorium, you are very disoriented by both the overall darkness and also the luminescent blue from the back screens; they create a slightly disturbing and unnerving 3-D effect. Actors in the dark are prowling around, lounging, languishing; you don’t know who any of them are or why they’re here. You can tell from looking at the evidence boards at the back that you’re in the police station. You think at some point that you’ll probably get to scrutinise and understand these boards, to get a better picture of what Billy Milligan did. You don’t. But that is one of the fascinations of this production, the huge effort into detail that has obviously taken place, literally in the background, but that you don’t get to examine. A lot of love has gone into this production.

Focus on Billy Milligan – he’s clearly suffering mental agony. He’s no recollection of doing anything that he’s accused of – but the CCTV shows him, fair and square, assaulting various women in accordance with the accusations against him. He must be lying – or so the detective in charge believes. We see the detective interviewing Billy – but wait – it’s now a different actor playing Billy; Ben Hampton, who had played him in the first scene – and whose photo adorns the crime board on the back wall – is now playing the detective… Was there a last-minute re-casting? What’s going on?

What’s going on is a brilliantly inventive way of showing Billy’s MPD with a variety of actors portraying the characters behind the different voices in Billy’s head. One hears of people saying they heard “voices”; what I’d never thought about (and if this is my lack of imagination, please excuse me) is that these different voices are like different people; a six-year-old Liverpudlian girl, an assertive American guy, a sassy aggressive know-it-all chick, a sullen sulk. Men, women, girls, boys, all races, all ages, they’re all in Billy Milligan, and this superb piece of drama brings that multitude to life with humour, passion, tension and shock. Billy Milligan really existed, incidentally, although this play doesn’t represent him in any kind of factual or documentary way – our Billy was born decades later, is considerably younger, isn’t in America but in the Salvation Army hall in Northampton. This production stamps its own individualism on the story.

It’s a show of so many highlights: Billy’s victims, unable to come to terms with talking about what has happened to them; Ben Hampton silently reciting the words of all the other Billies as they take control of him; Liam Faik’s confused and cornered Billy nearly crumbling under the detective’s questioning; all the brilliant characterisations of the sub-Billies but perhaps most strikingly Victoria Rowlands’ young Elizabeth, and the hard-nosed bitch of a doctor who won’t believe that MPD exists; the meticulous mime scenes,which culminate in the other Billies each passing over one item of clothing to the real Billy, representing how he eventually acquires the other characters as part of himself; and the scene which made me cry, where Billy recounts to the doctor how his childhood was affected by his father – again brilliant use of video in the background that suggests just enough of what happened without having to spell it out.

Fantastic ensemble work, superb characterisations by all the cast; it was shocking, surprising, enlightening; it drew out humour from the most unlikely places; I absolutely loved it. This show should certainly have a life after Flash. Congratulations to you all!

Review – A Sinner Kissed an Angel, Merge Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 22nd May 2017

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It’s that time again when the 3rd Year students of Acting at Northampton University launch their Flash Festival. It’s like a mini-Edinburgh fringe, and each of the productions counts as the dissertation towards the students’ degrees. Last year I saw some Flash Festival plays and I was very impressed. This year I’m hoping to see all fifteen on offer: four on Monday, four on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, two on Thursday and two on Friday. I’m already behind with my blogging, so it might be a while before I write about them all – but bear with me! There are three venues for these plays – St Peter’s Church (evocative and they’ve built the stage platform higher so previous poor sightlines are now much improved), Hazelrigg House (many different sized rooms there offering a variety of acting spaces) and the Salvation Army centre on Tower Street.

To open my Flash Festival experience this year, I started with A Sinner Kissed an Angel performed by the Merge Theatre Company. This is the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, for the murder of her lover, David Blakely, in July 1955. She was 28. I remember hearing from my mother, the Late Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle, how the atmosphere on that day was very sombre. Everyone was quiet and reflective, and there were many who thought this was an inappropriate death sentence; and to this day, Ruth Ellis is a figure of some intrigue and curiosity.

The play starts with the climax, in a sense – the scene just before she murders Blakely; and then goes back to her early life, tracing the relationships, the friendships and her descent into a lawless and immoral environment where murder would seem like a fair option, given the circumstances. Regularly interrupting the progressing story of Ruth’s life, we have three “Good Housekeeping”/”Dear Marje” type ladies, with their infomercial/magazine columns advising women on how to do the best for their men, and how to cope with darker and darker situations. These scenes make for an entertaining juxtaposition with the general sadness of Ruth’s life.

Olivia Sarah Jayne Noyce takes to the role of Ruth like a duck to water, looking every inch the part and strongly conveying the character’s wilfully coquettish nature. Ruth knows what she wants and she’s going to get it. Miss Noyce is great at showing Ruth’s obstinate, manipulative and demanding characteristics, whilst all the time looking like butter wouldn’t melt. A very good performance. I also really enjoyed watching Jennifer Etherington as her friend Vicki; she has a very authoritative vocal delivery which made me absolutely believe her character, and her diction was also very clear which is an attribute I always value.

Connor McCreedy’s Blakely had a very sinister, threatening style; wheedling his way into Ruth’s affections, infuriatingly self-mocking, and, quite frankly, thoroughly deserving to get murdered. He was also the source of some excellent on-stage fisticuffs – very nicely handled. Jenny Watson was a very likeable and believable Muriel, amusingly stomping through the dance to grab her sister and expressing genuine concern for her safety and wellbeing; and admirably tackling the tougher prospect of playing another of Ruth’s paramours, Desmond. All four actors also shared the roles of the “Good Housekeeping” ladies – and their change of tone and style for those scenes was very crisp and funny – even if at times you had to swallow your laugh because the material was so brutal.

Overall, a very good production that told its story clearly and intelligently, performed with precision and wit. Congratulations all!

Review – The End, Phone Box Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, 19th May 2016

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Not inappropriately, The End was the last of the Flash Festival plays I saw this year. Not only the end of my Flash experience – which had been thoroughly enjoyable – but also the end (probably) of everyone’s experience unless we all followed our instructions and made it to the safe zone. Confused? No need. Here’s the science bit: set in the very near future, the government released a vaccination to cure cancer; and though it was successful there was an unfortunate side effect – it killed 140,000 of the people who received it. I say killed; that’s not strictly true. The vaccine went on to cause rapid cell regeneration in the bodies, but the minds and the brains remained destroyed – yes, gentle reader, we have a zombie population half the size of Northampton.

But we, here in the church, are clean. We are healthy. We have undergone considerable scrutiny just to get inside the venue, with the gun-wielding Roach checking our bags (he made me unzip an empty compartment inside my bag, so glad he didn’t find anything suspicious) and the more gentlemanly Scruff doing a physical health check (he asked me if I had any marks on my arms, and was a little concerned at how long I took to answer, but I think I convinced him I was uninfected). Harper, the leader, is waiting for us at the end of the seats, with more questions and a frosty kind of welcome. You certainly feel unsettled, and even if you’re tempted to engage in a little giggle along the way, it doesn’t take long before Roach puts you back in your place with a gruff retort or a shove of his gun. This is not The Romper Room.

The only structural problem with this play is that, if you are one of the first to take your seats, it takes a long time to get going because everyone behind you has to go through the comprehensive security check. It very much adds to a sense of occasion and/or fear; but, in the end, you are sitting around, basically waiting for something to happen – although it does give you an opportunity to share your experience with your fellow zombie survivors. Once it does all get going it’s extremely exciting and thought provoking. Harper has a perfect plan for us all to escape; transport is arranged, and the route double-checked. However, sadly, the driver upon whom we were all relying has died and so we’re left with fewer chances of getting to the safe area. And it’s a helluva long way away too. The first stage is that we have to walk to Birmingham. That’s a big ask.

We meet the fourth member of the group, Faith, whom I’m sure was only given that name so that they could use the terrific joke about losing faith (No! She’s here!) Undercurrents of resentment abound, as Roach doesn’t believe a woman can do the top job, and Scruff resents Roach’s attitude, and Harper fights to retain her superiority, and Faith is offering us biscuits. When it becomes clear that Faith has actually become infected herself, Roach is all for shooting her there and then. But Harper intercedes and we discover that Faith and Harper are more than just friends; nevertheless, Faith remains a health hazard to us all and will die anyway. We’re all expecting Roach to shoot her – but then Harper does it. As far as the overall survival of the group is concerned, it was the only safe thing to do (even though she was so very nice to everyone). The play ends with Roach dismissing us all from the church, hollering at us to leave in no uncertain language, and as we leave the church to rejoin the outside world, we reflect that there is no zombie apocalypse after all (well, not at the moment anyway) and that we’ve basically left the theatre without giving them a round of applause.

The cast of four do a terrific job in keeping the tension and excitement up whilst still allowing for the injection of some humour, primarily through the delightful performance by Caroline Avis as the benign Faith who only wants to help and be supportive. I was really impressed by the no-nonsense attack and thinly disguised brutality of Daniel Gray’s Roach – Mr Gray really does do aggressive well. I was also very impressed by the performance by Connor McAvoy as Scruff; of all the cast I felt he was the one who most appreciated the situation we were all in and ran the gamut of all the appropriate emotions as our predicament worsened. It was a really intelligent performance; and he also provided a lot of the humour too. Matilda Hunt’s Harper was a naturally superior sort, every inch the queen of MI5, just about maintaining the authority she needed despite Roach’s Rottweiler tactics – another thoughtful and solid performance.

A memorable and disturbing piece. It’s hard to forget being chased out of a church by an intimidating maniac with gun telling you to f**k off, that really doesn’t happen every day. And Harper’s shooting of Faith with a deadly almost silent pistol was nerve-judderingly horrific. Now for that long walk to Birmingham – wish me luck.

Review – What If They Were Wrong, Two Funny, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 19th May 2016

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It seems to me that there are a few versions of the title of this play, but we’ll stick with What If They Were Wrong. Not that the title gives you any indication what to expect anyway! Oppression is a dish best served cold says the programme – for that you have to wait until the final scene, and even then I’d say it was served piping hot, but that’s probably a matter of pure semantics.

The performing duo of Benjamin Williams and Cynthia Lebbos call themselves Two Funny and, boy, are they right. This was one of the funniest hours I’ve witnessed in many months. Using the art of clowning, they tell the story of a couple. They meet at adjacent picnics; he takes her to a restaurant; they get married; they live in domestic…bliss?; and finally, fed up with his laziness and untidiness, she sends him to the dungeon. Yes, that’s right, they appear to have a dungeon in the downstairs of their house. Enunciating only a few words but with many communicative grunts and gestures, they tell the story with remarkable clarity and a fabulous appreciation for surreal and slapstick humour. Who knew that stand-alone words like “naughty” or “reduced” could have such hilarious effect when in the right context?

The audience involvement is considerable, which must be a quite a risk for the performers because they cannot know in advance how any one person is going to engage with them – and it really does require them to be fully participative! Audience members become a substantial part of the prop management department; they also become wedding guests, and even the vicar who marries the couple; one young man was required to read out a particularly lascivious extract from 50 Shades of Grey. But if either of these two actors came up to you and told you to make a fool of yourself in public – you’d just have to. They would be impossible to resist, such is the charm of their performance.

Mr Williams, in particular, gives an astonishingly physical performance, leaping up against the walls either side of the stage, doing one of the best banana-skin type pratfalls I have ever seen (particularly in such a tiny acting space), creating landscapes with his malleable facial features. At one stage I was laughing at whatever activity had just occurred, when he sat down on the couch in front of me and fixed me with his glare and just said “what?” – and it cracked me up all over again. But it’s not just clowning for clowning’s sake. Mr Williams wore one of those silly woollen hats with dog ear flaps that come down over your ears. If it came off or went askew he would scream with OCD distress until it was replaced perfectly – an excellent example of revealing a deeper character whilst still clowning. Miss Lebbos also has a brilliant physical comedy style, and I particularly liked her ability to break out of character completely and address the audience in a matter of fact way that you couldn’t quite work out if it was scripted or not. She looks all sweetness and light, so when she turns vindictive it’s a real shock to the system. And I certainly wasn’t expecting her to frog-march us all down to the dungeon.

Yes indeed, gentle reader, we had to get up from our seats in the Hazlerigg studio and troop down two flights of stairs into the dungeon, where she had imprisoned Mr Williams for some ritual abuse. (This is where the oppression bit kicks in). Upstairs she had seemed such a nice young lady, but in the dungeon she battered him maniacally with all forms of weapons of torture. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t going to put up with that and, replacing himself with a member of the audience (who had to sit there, expecting torture, until the end of the play), went off with his chainsaw in order to track down the unfortunate Miss Lebbos backstage and arrange for her final entrance in two black refuse sacks. The piece ends with some spoken words of advice about how to handle anger management issues. A bit late for that methinks.

A thoroughly entertaining hour of loopy comedy. Nothing phased our two performers at all and they carried on the constant repartee with the audience throughout the entire show. A privilege to witness two performances of such great energy and creativity – I really loved it.

Review – The Show Must Go On, Lead Feather Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 18th May 2016

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There’s no escaping the emotion in this tear-jerking examination of cancer sufferers and those who are left behind. If, when you saw the title, The Show Must Go On, you thought of the Queen song fronted by Freddie Mercury, then ten points to you – and it is indeed a highly emotional lyric about survival against all the odds. If, like me, you thought of Leo Sayer, then lie about your age, take a minus mark and go to the back of the class.

Beautifully structured, we are presented with three interweaving scenarios. There is the story of Alice, a perfectly ordinary young woman, who still has to help her useless brother with his tie, and whose best friend wants them to sing (inappropriately) with a thrash metal band; she discovers she has cancer. There is the story of Tracy, kind-hearted and down to earth, married to Bill whom she loves dearly despite all his faults; she receives a ghastly diagnosis and hasn’t long to live. There is the story of Gareth, a feeble stand-up comedian who does his act sitting down, unable to face the future without knocking back too many JDs, telling progressively more upsettingly black jokes about the cancer that is going to kill his wife.

But it’s not all grave, if you’ll pardon the pun. The harsh reality of the subject matter is juxtaposed with several humorous moments – there is always going to be black comedy in such times. For me, the most successful was Jake Rivers’ brilliantly awful stand-up routine, carrying on with these desperately terrible jokes long after the initial humour had subsided, the agony of the character’s personal tragedy staring at us directly through Mr Rivers’ pained eyes. It was superb. All the scenes between Penelope May as Alice and Madeleine Hagerty as her friend Sally also worked extremely well, ranging from the carefree girls’ banter to the much needed loving support as the effects of the disease kick in, all done with great lightness of touch and true sincerity. The only scene which, for me, was not credible, was where two doctors were prevaricating about telling Tracy about her awful diagnosis. I appreciate it was meant to be black comedy, but, in my (reasonably limited) experience, doctors have no time to hum and hah about breaking bad news to someone. They just get on and tell you in your face and if it’s a shock then that’s tough. There was, however, a wonderful antidote to the doctors, in the form of Miss May’s portrayal of the Macmillan nurse, a character who was kindness itself, and which was accurate and believable in every way.

There were a couple of big pathos moments: Gareth’s conversation with the Macmillan nurse, when she hasn’t been informed that his wife has died – sincerely and emotionally performed by both actors; Alice’s possessions being packed away into sad little cardboard boxes whilst Miss Hagerty gave us a strong rendition of the title song. There were also references to both the late David Bowie and Sir Terry Wogan, which brought the continued relevance of how cancer is a part of everyone’s lives into sharp focus.

By the end at least two members of the audience were in tears. This was a play with a power and a passion and a message that addresses us all. It tugged on the heartstrings but I never got the sense of its being mawkish or self-indulgent; it hit just the right note. Three performances of great sensitivity were required to carry this material, and the three actors met that challenge superbly. Congratulations to all concerned!

Review – The Final Cut, La Zénna Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 18th May 2016

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The Final Cut is an astonishing, brave, informative, and emotional one woman show about Female Genital Mutilation. There. There’s no other way of saying it. In the tiny studio at Hazelrigg House, Elizabeth Adejimi conjures up a village in rural Nigeria, where tradition is compulsory and there’s no thought given to altering the practices of generations. Traditional garments hang on the washing line and by taking an item of clothing off the line and putting it on, she becomes some of the different characters in the village. Simple, but amazingly effective.

It’s all about Aminata, a young girl that Miss Adejimi brings to life with such a sense of juvenile fun. We see her in her school uniform, brushing the path, nicking the snacks, dancing to the music of the village. One word from her scary sounding mother and she’s worried that she’s heading for a smack. She gives us such an atmosphere of total innocence. She seems to have no idea what’s coming her way.

We meet her mother. A kind woman, a good woman. A loving mother and a good wife. Very traditional, she has always done what society has required of her and will ensure that she passes that tradition on. We meet her father, the hunter. In this remarkably matriarchal society, he plays no part in deciding how the daughter will be brought up. His job is to provide a home and food. And we meet the cutter – what other word is there to describe her? Again a traditional woman, who believes implicitly in the goodness of her trade, who recognises that her act is steeped in the mysteries of the past, and that she must continue to practice her art – even though she admits she doesn’t really understand why.

And finally we see Aminata again, dressed for the ceremony; scared, embarrassed, desperate for help or support from anywhere but it’s not there. She just has to yield to the tradition, lying on the floor, allowing her pants to be pulled off so the cutter can wield her knife; crying out with the searing pain; in tears of humiliation and abuse; left with as much dignity as she can muster, she has to get on with her childhood. Except that this is now seen as her becoming a woman. Probably at the age of about nine.

As you can imagine, this is an incredibly moving performance – Miss Adejimi takes us through all the emotions, of laughing with Aminata at her childish foolishness, warming to the mother as she offers us in the audience some snack refreshments in creole, fearful yet strangely respectful of the cutter lady; and finally sharing the agony and humiliation of the deed. It’s incredibly effective; she gains an instant rapport with the audience which guarantees that we are with her all the way – we feel her pain just as much as she does. You’d think this was a tough watch; but, actually, not a bit of it. Her characterisation of young Aminata is so delightful that we love spending time with her. It’s only that final, shocking scene that absolutely pulls you up sharp.

A recorded voice at the end provides some factual details about the practice of Female Genital Mutilation; at first, it seemed completely superfluous after the extraordinary emotion of that final scene. But actually it does serve a useful purpose to understand the myths and deceptions that are fed to the local people to make them comply with the barbarism. There was also a questionnaire that we were asked to complete, which did make you think again about the act directly after the play had finished, and was probably helpful in making the whole event educational as well as entertaining. And if it sounds bizarre to say the show was entertaining, then sobeit; I was hugely entertained by all the characters, the beautifully written script, and the whole presentation of the show. Admirable, brave, and superbly constructed, Miss Adejimi gives us a total tour de force. First class from start to finish. This little production deserves a life outside of this festival.