Tag Archives: University

Review – The Crucible, Final Year Actors at the University of Northampton, Jacksons Lane Theatre, Highgate, 7th June 2018

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For the second production of our day seeing all three of the Acting Students’ final plays in London, they gave us their performance of Arthur Miller’s 1952 play, The Crucible. This piece is one of the defining moments in the history of 20th century drama. Perceptive, shrewd, and enormously powerful, it took the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and presented them to its 1950s audience as a reflection of the Macarthyism that was decimating American society at the time. In these current days where, once again, society is being tested on both sides of the pond, there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to revive it.

As it is such a significant play, and almost uniquely amongst the best drama created in the last 100 years, I think there is a tendency to treat The Crucible with great reverence. I’ve seen it a few times now, both on stage and on TV, and it always comes across exactly the same; dark, portentous, gloomy, – a true recreation of the 1690s in all its desolate desperation. There’s a huge temptation to concentrate on the supernatural spookiness of witchcraft as a force for evil and the triumph of darkness over light; to be honest, I’m not sure if it is possible to do it any other way. Certainly, Nadia Papachronopoulou’s production is as traditional as ever.

Sadly it also felt very static; which is no way to describe the escalation of events that happen during the four acts of this play. We go from childish pranks and secret relationships, through the questioning, distrust and imprisonment of various innocent bystanders, to individual acts of heroism and unjustified instances of capital punishment; that hardly sounds like a static play. But I got very little sense of plot progression and I must confess at times I found it very hard to stay focussed.True, it wasn’t helped by the noisy chattering and giggling of a group of students in the audience. It may well have been their first experience of live theatre; no better time then, to learn how to behave when you’re out. But I just felt that the production was a little risk-averse and very predictable; it might have benefited from some big, bold, unexpected statement that never quite happened.

Nevertheless, there were some good performances; I very much enjoyed Farrah Dark’s portrayal of Abigail Williams, a defiant woman although still little more than a child herself, concealing past indiscretions by employing the old tactic that attack as the best form of defence. Oliver Franks also gave a strong performance as the grim Reverend Parris, a man driven by self-interest, way in excess of any Christian love. The main role of John Proctor was given a determined and powerful performance by Alexander Forrester-Coles, bringing out both the character’s nobility and fallibility. His wife, Elizabeth, was played with immaculate sensitivity by Ceara Coveney;D B Gallagher gave a truly menacing performance as the wicked Judge Danforth; and there was a nicely understated performance by Naomi Ell as Ezekiel Cheever, the diligent but essentially kindly court clerk. Surprisingly, a few cast members seemed a little imprisoned by their roles rather than liberated by them – which was unfortunate because I know they’re great actors from their previous performances! There were also a few instances where some lines were garbled and just weren’t delivered in the assured manner that I would have expected.

Not an outright triumph, but nevertheless enjoyable, and it told its story clearly and with some memorable scenes.

Review – DNA, Final Year Actors at the University of Northampton, Jacksons Lane Theatre, Highgate, 7th June 2018

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For the first time, the Final Year Actors at Northampton University have been invited to present their plays in London, at the Jacksons Lane Theatre in Highgate, which is an exciting opportunity to be seen in the Capital City with all its obvious attractions (although performing on the stage of the Royal in Northampton is not to be sneezed at either).

The first of these plays is DNA, a one-act play by Dennis Kelly, that originally saw light of day as part of a National Theatres Connections season. It’s a smart, surprising and rather disturbing play where a group of teenagers commit an act of atrocity on another teenager, with apparently disastrous consequences. How far will they go to cover up their crime, and, after multiple lies and deceits, does there come a time simply to stop digging?

I must be honest, gentle reader; at first, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this. The play started with some artistic movement where all the cast loomed and merged together from different parts of the stage for some significant meaning that totally passed me by. Whilst I appreciate the skill, it didn’t (for me) add to the story-telling or character-understanding in any way. The older I get, the more I feel that life is too precious to waste. Just get on with the play!

And then the early parts of the play itself seemed rather difficult for the audience to get a grip on what was going on, and I was feeling a little frustrated at the rather stagey, unnatural speech patterns. But then, after a short time, everything just clicked into place. The play, through this eloquent and revealing production, offers an alarming insight into pack mentality and the abuse that can exist between friends – both physical and mental.

Running throughout the play is a central storyline of the needy relationship between Leah and Phyl, who’s clearly the boss of the outfit. Leah constantly seeks Phyl’s approval, her input, her recognition; and Phyl delights in refusing to acknowledge her at all. In the end, Leah cannot take this any more and so packs her bags and escapes; and the final scene shows Phyl, sans Leah, still tight-lipped, but no longer through dominance, but through a sad emptiness. Tiffany Mae Rivers gives a stunning performance as the garrulous Leah, burbling and murfling her way through life, filling every silence with needy drivel; and Maddy Ogedengbe is excellent as the stony-faced, insolent Phyl, buttering her waffles with controlling cruelty. The whole play balances on this relationship and it works superbly well.

The whole cast put in a great ensemble effort, but I particularly enjoyed the upstart rivalry to the Phyl regime offered by Zoe Elizabeth as Rikki, the “good girl” frustration of Amelia Renard’s Danni who sees her prospect of dental training going up in smoke, and Georgi McKie’s belligerent Lou. Big credit to Katie Lawson for taking over the role of Bryony at short notice and making the character chillingly unhinged.

This is a play where the characters’ thoughts run away with themselves before their mouths have the chance to catch up with them; as a result there are lots of half-formulated sentences, and phrases left hanging in the air. It’s a tough job to make them sound convincing and natural but the cast did an excellent job of conveying the flow of concentration whilst still making it sound sense.

I thoroughly enjoyed this production and thought everyone did sterling work! Congratulations to all.

Review – Persecuted, United-Force Company, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 27th April 2018

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11th May 2005. The Iraq War at its bloodiest. Tony Blair’s move to topple Saddam Hussein had been initially successful, but the fallout was now telling. In a camp in Basra, British troop commander James Farrell and his Lieutenant, Dan, find themselves with the vital task of interrogating Mohammed bin Osama bin Laden, the son of the Al-Qaeda leader, to ascertain the details of an imminent attack.

There’s more than one way of skinning a cat, as the old saying goes. James favours a Softly, Softly approach, luring the terrorist into a false sense of security, dropping the emotional hot brick of an update on his wife and kids, teasing out the truth as a psychological victory. Dan, on the other hand, favours the threat of violence and punishment, and thinks torture is the only sure way to get what they want. But Dan has his own reasons for revenge; he attributes the death of his father to the terrorists, so this time it’s personal. Together they adopt a kind of nice cop, nasty cop tactic, crossing between each other to unsettle the suspect. But it’s not working, and the terrorist knows he’s winning. When he sees his two interrogators at each other’s throats with despair at their lack of progress, his mind is made up to stay silent. Shoot me and make me a martyr is his goading wish.

This is a very powerful play, with great characterisations and performances from actors whose work I’ve already admired, in The Accused, and The Night Before Christmas. Alexander Forrester-Coles is excellent as James, clearly an officer by birthright, with an innate nobility and natural authority. You can almost see his brain whirring away as he works out the best way to outwit the terrorist, and there’s no mistaking his clipped irritation when things don’t go his way. Chris Tyler is also superb as Dan, with his redoubtable physical presence being put to great use as he dominates the wretched terrorist and tries to dominate his senior officer – who’s having none of it. Radostin Radev makes up the cast as the silently mocking Bin Laden Jnr, sticking to his story of being an honest farmer, singing verses from the Koran, alternating perfectly between innocence and insolence; and being on the receiving end of the most vicious stage combat when Dan can hold back no more.

I say stage combat; there’s a fine line to be drawn between performing this vital and difficult skill perfectly, and getting it wrong. Nothing looks more risible than a stage fight where it’s so obvious that no one’s touching anyone; they may as well be doing ballet. On the other hand, there’s the kind of stage combat where the hits are clearly landing, and landing hard. In the course of the torture, Mr Radev is, inter alia, smashed over the head with a tin tray that buckles with the force and has his head plunged several times into a bucket of water. Not so much stage combat as…, well, combat. Whilst it was incredibly effective to look at, and really brought the tension to a head, I couldn’t help but wondering where acting ended, and assault began. I asked Mr Radev afterwards how much he hurt, and he replied quite a bit! I’m not sure how well received the idea of that kind of physical pain would go down if the cast members weren’t mates too. Just a nagging doubt in the back of my mind – unlike the nagging ache at the top of Mr Radev’s head.

The brutality of the events on stage were echoed by the brutality of some of the images on the accompanying video clips; I know that Iraq is hardly playing doctors and nurses but maybe the selection of some of the video was a little more forceful than it needed to be – at least without some prior warning. If they were trying to shock us, it worked.

A production that maybe lacked just a tiny bit of finesse, but with absolutely no questioning the commitment of the cast or the dramatic intensity of the piece, which was riveting throughout. Great work!

Review – An Error in the Medley, Carousel Theatre Company, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Hazelrigg House, Northampton, 26th April 2018

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There’s a scene in Tom Kempinski’s play Duet For One, loosely based on the life of cellist Jacqueline du Pré, and which I remember reduced me to tears when I saw it back in 1980, when the musician Stephanie, who can no longer play the violin because of her disability, bawls her heart out to her psychotherapist. “Music is the purest expression of humanity there is”, she affirms, and I was strongly reminded of that theory when watching Carousel Theatre Company’s An Error in the Medley, a one-woman play performed by Amelia Renard.

We find ourselves in an exclusive salon, having an audience with a young musical phenomenon, Leonie Owens. Miss Owens is a composer extraordinaire, with (one presumes) a catalogue of great achievements for her young years, and fanning a desire to soothe the fevered brow of the general populace with her amazing skill. Will she play for us? No, rather like Princess Anne said many years ago, she doesn’t do tricks. Maybe she would be so kind as to just pick out a few notes to give an example of how music can soar and bring light to others? (Hence my memory of Duet for One, mentioned above). Just a few then; and she falters at the keyboard. She graciously allows a short Q&A to follow, but is quickly thrown by the preponderance of questions about her parents. Why are they concentrating on them, rather than her? It’s just not fair!

The big question that the promotional text poses is just how far can a dream take you? Leonie’s desire to become a great composer has blinded her to the fact that she can’t actually play. It’s all a fantasy, which falls apart when subjected to the simplest questions. When exposed as a sham, she can only see one noble way out of the mess she’s created for herself.

Ms Renard has devised a fascinating character; pompous, faux-refined, patronising, and with an ugly superiority complex. When the mask slips, she’s just an ordinary young woman with dreams way beyond her ability. It’s a very good performance; I loved the arrogant tone with which she gave voice to Leonie’s pontificating. It was only a shame that there wasn’t something a little more substantial to the play. It wasn’t enough just to see Leonie being Leonie; we needed to observe her actively do something. It starts with a long pause, whilst she’s getting her CDs in order; and there’s another long pause in the middle, between the showdown with the audience’s questions and the confession that it’s all a lie – and these pauses, with her back to the audience so we couldn’t see her facial expressions, unfortunately served to reduce the drama rather than heighten it. The end result was like a tiny two-act play in miniature; fragile, delicate, and like Lady Macbeth’s candle, out too briefly.

There’s the basis of a really good play here, but I think it just needed a little more work and exploration to capture our attention fully.

Review – Out of Shot, Periscope Theatre, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, Castle Hill, Northampton, 26th April 2018

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It goes without saying the domestic abuse is an appalling crime. What is it that can turn a strong, loving husband and wife unit into a minefield of violence and cruelty, both physical and mental. Each partner can accuse the other of all sorts of despicable acts, but if a secret video could be set up, to capture what actually happens between the two of them, that would be proof positive to identify the guilty party. Wouldn’t it? Maybe sometimes it’s what happens out of shot that is the more revealing.

Periscope’s gripping little thriller is an intense and terrifying play involving the investigations of PC Robinson into the allegations of domestic abuse at the home of Siena and Andrew. We see the happy early days, where Andrew’s sister Emily is the unconventional Best Man toasting the married couple good luck on their wedding day. We see them move into their new place and create a home together. But it’s not long till the neighbour can hear the arguments through the walls; the raised voices, the indeterminate threats. The neighbour offers Siena a safe sanctuary where she can escape the terror of domestic abuse.

Except that she’s got it wrong. It’s Siena who’s abusing Andrew; and the moment we see her hurling him on the floor is a fantastic coup de theatre that takes your breath away. It’s she who demands that he gives her all his income, so that he has to beg for a little change to get through the week. It’s she who refuses him permission to see his family or his friends. It’s she who rings in sick for him at work, even though he wants to go. It’s she who humiliates and mentally castrates him. It’s she who delivers the blood curdling screams – not of fear, but of intimidation, as she knocks him out, kicks him in the crotch and leaves him a bloody mess on the floor.

But in interview, she’s all sweetness and light; feigning kindness towards him because he’s stressed at work, or maybe drinks a little too much; and his protestations of innocence just sound way too far-fetched to be believable. Fortunately there’s the video evidence to show exactly what happened….or is that just an elaborate charade, choreographed for the police’s benefit?

Gracia Stewart-Hogg gives a superb and, frankly, terrifying performance as Siena, her steely eyes penetrating her victim’s failing mental stability so that he doesn’t know how to react, her unhinged shrieking used as both an attack and defence mechanism, her vicious assaults creating pain and injury. It’s so easy for the casual onlooker simply to question, why did he put up with it, but Robert Barnes is also brilliant at conveying the reasons why Andrew stayed. Primarily he still loved her and wanted to help her through what he would have hoped to be a temporary mental illness on her part. I have to say, my heart went out to him! Zoe Elizabeth takes the other roles and is particularly impressive in the part of Andrew’s irreverent sister Emily, trying to put her finger on exactly what is wrong with the relationship; and as the firm but not entirely fair police officer.

A scary play that would make you very nervous about committing to a relationship! I hope Mr Barnes wore lots of padding.

Review – Static, Eve Ensemble, Flash Festival, University of Northampton 3rd Year Acting Students, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 26th April 2018

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Ah, the halcyon days of 1990. The Reunification of Germany, and the splitting up of the Eastern bloc. Iraq invades Kuwait – that’s not such a nice memory. Liverpool win the League, Manchester United with the FA Cup and Italy win Eurovision. Meanwhile, in Corby, five girls go on a rave. It’s a sad truth to reflect that in 1990 I was probably already too old to go on a rave, and I would never have been the type to find myself sorted for Es and Wizz. I’d have stood out like the same sore thumb that Emma does, introduced to the rest of the group by her friend Smush, or as she would have known her, Lily. By the way, I thought Smush was an inventively made up nickname until I consulted Urban Dictionary…

Cat hangs out in a church – it’s the only place she feels welcome. She may be all bravado and faux-self-confident, but deep down she’s as vulnerable as hell. She thrives on the company of her mates, and in the pecking order she’s quite high up – maybe not as high as Dani, who rules the roost with a natural authority, but certainly higher than Smush, who’s popular but can be a bit of a liability, and probably higher than Lou, who’s just too cool for school (and I expect never went to school to prove it). And then there’s Emma. What the hell did Smush think she was playing at, bringing in this posh outsider to slum it with the rest of them, with her patronising ways and financial independence?

Dani has a plan to make some money from the rave by doing a bit of dealing. The girls are all up for it; even Emma, because she needs to prove herself to the rest of them. But it doesn’t go to plan, and it sets in motion a sequence of events that ends up destroying the group and the individuals within it. Any romantic notion that their friendship is a testament to girl power is only a fantasy; and it’s really only Emma that survives it fully, doubtless because she has the easy way option of going back to Mummy. Static is a rather ironic title for this play, as it suggests standing still and no progress, which is certainly not the case, although any progress is definitely downhill for at least four of the girls. But if you think of the double meaning – the electricity generated by friction – and you can see that in abundance.

What I really loved about this production was how the cast had fully come to know their own characters. Each had enormous depth, a total understanding of their backstory, even if it wasn’t relevant to the actions of the play itself. As a result, the events of the play flowed organically and with complete credibility, so that it all felt natural and authentic. For example, it enabled that vivid and painful portrayal of how unwelcome an outsider is to a closed group – that was beautifully realised.

This confidence and understanding of their characters and material also led to great interaction with the audience, when the girls were engaging with us, offering us their drug deals and talking about what they had and what we wanted; simply put, it felt real – particularly with Emma’s ham-fisted attempts to sound drugs-savvy when she’s so much more Avenue than Street. It was also an excellent physical performance all round, with very enjoyable and convincing rave sequences, that look humorous in the cold light of day when you’re not part of the action; and also the drug taking sequences were pretty harrowing to watch, and reminded me of the brutal physicality of the current revival of Trainspotting.

The cast gave us five very enjoyable and totally believable characterisations. Kate Morgan-Jones’ Dani was dripping with tough attitude and domination throughout, her facial expressions allowing no quarter when any of the gang get out of line. Georgi McKie’s Smush had an innocent air that blinded her to the dangers of poor judgment, that made me want to shout to her to get out whilst there’s still time! Megan Leask-Walters portrayed Lou as a rather superior bully, attentive to the in-crowd whilst dishing out withering looks to her perceived enemies and jealous of any attention on others; when her fortunes faded it was completely appropriate that she just went silent as she had no more bombast left.

Tiffany Mae Rivers was superb as the brash but vulnerable Cat, desperate to hold on to what she’s got and driven by the need to survive. I confess I did get a lump in my throat when I thought that she had died from the drug overdose. But she is a true survivor, and that scene between her and Ms Morgan-Jones when Dani discovers Cat, was truly emotional. And I loved Ellen Tritton as Emma, a beautiful portrayal of a fish out of water, tapping into the comedy moments with great timing, but, as the play progresses, revealing the character’s inner strength and resilience.

Another very enjoyable Flash Festival production!

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!