Gowned Academics
Blue Stockings
by Jessica Swale
Youth Action Theatre at the Michael Frayn Theatre, Kingston until 27th July
Review by John O’Brien
Books or looks? That is the dilemma facing a pioneering group of young women in Cambridge in 1896. Considering the popularity of Love Island has much changed? The title refers to a dismissive epithet for an educated woman. Like Jane Eyre these women risked social oblivion. Neither marriage material nor real graduates, they occupied a precarious no-woman’s land betwixt and between. Jessica Swale’s accomplished debut play, acted with brio and verve by The Youth Action Theatre, brings vividly to life the struggle of these remarkable heroines. It’s a story that deserves to be known and this play is a fitting homage to that struggle.
The set is minimal but apt. Three bookcases give just the right feel of a Cambridge College – Girton, the first college in the university to admit women – and each scene is signposted via PowerPoint projection. The direction is pacey, short scenes move briskly to hold our attention, and keeps us wanting to know more.
We follow four young undergraduates over the course of one academic year as they try to study and be taken seriously. Jennie Hilliard is superb as Tess Moffat. She gets the balance between determined scholar and vulnerable young woman spot on. She deftly navigates the often absurd double binds the bluestockings find themselves in. For example she wants to ride a bicycle to demonstrate Newton’s Laws of Motion but feels that girls don’t sling their leg over to get on the saddle. She agrees to do so but only after asking her lecturer Mr Banks (Josh Clark) to look away. This dilemma – how to be independent within a patriarchal world – forms the heart of the dramatic drive of the play.
The Mistress of Girton College, Elizabeth Welsh (Jojo Leppink) convinces as she steers the college and the girls through treacherous waters. They must study hard to match the men but they must not let the college down. They must at all times be respectable. And they must not jeopardise the reputation of Girton by any Suffragette nonsense. To enforce this code she employs the fearsome chaperone Miss Bott (brilliantly played by Emily Dixon) to accompany Tess everywhere. When Will Bennett (Ben Buckley) attempts to embrace Tess Miss Bott archly reminds him that he must keep a distance of 30 inches at all times. Will Bennett and Mr Banks are classic New Men. They too face moral dilemmas: to support the Girton Girls even if it means social pariah status?
Blue Stockings is a complex play because it shows the almost impossible double binds the College and the girls where trying to work around. Nowhere was this more poignantly dramatised than in the case of Maeve Sullivan (Meaghan Baxter), the poor scholarship girl from the East End. We watch entranced as she flourishes to become the best student in the year and then, in a devastating peripeteia, her brother Billy (Joseph Evans) comes demanding that she return home to look after her sisters as her mother has died. We see how poverty trumps gender. Miss Welsh agrees with Billy, she has to go home, child care comes before education. Such, such are the hard realities the girls are up against.
But the most implacable opposition comes from the men. In a scene of devastating explosive force, the leader of the Trinity men, Lloyd (Gwithian Evans) mocks the girls as being a joke. He contrast the 800 year history of male power and scholarship and invokes Newton, Marlowe, Milton, Pepys and Byron to ridicule the pretensions of the Bluestockings. It’s a monologue of stunningly grotesque vituperative force. As a coda the shop keeper who has witnessed this shocking abuse demands that he leave her shop. Lloyd reminds her that his father owns all the shop leases. She immediately backs down and agrees to sell him… a pair of blue stockings. It’s a brilliant metaphor.
Blue Stockings is a triumph. It pays homage to a remarkable generation of women who showed courage and resilience in the face of the most daunting hurdles. We owe a debt of gratitude to those Bluestockings. What better way to show our appreciation than by going along to see this truly inspirational show and at the same time encourage our future talent in Youth Action Theatre.
Photography by Jonathan Constant
Fringe on Top
The Edinburgh Fringe
Our reviewers are at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Among their reviews are some by companies known in the Richmond- Twickenham- Kingston area. Watch out for these:
Space Doctor
StraightUp Productions at the Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue No. 14), 1st to 27th August
After forty years out in the wilderness, Britain’s favourite TV time traveller is back… Space Doctor is a riotous and playful sci-fi parody, set at a fan convention, celebrating the fictional 1970s programme Space Doctor. Amidst re-enactments of the show’s most “celebrated” moments, shocking truths are revealed.
Red Peppers
Blue Fire Theatre Company at theSpace on the Mile (Venue No. 39), 3rd to 18th August
Noel Coward gives a glimpse into a day in the life of a husband and wife vaudeville act who are tired of performing the same old song and dance routines and tired of each other. Onstage staggering through their act, offstage bickering and sniping, they come together only to blast the hapless theatre staff: all the un-glamour of showbiz.
Cream Tea and Incest
Benjamin Alborough Productions at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue No. 53), 5th to 25th August
Romance! Adventure! Murder! Learn the meaning of these words and more in this anarchic comedy set in Edwardian England. Delight in their capers, mix-ups and the dead bodies left in their wake. Go with the English aristocrat and his loyal valet, Jeffrey, as a simple matchmaking quest quickly deteriorates into a race against time when Machiavellian forces move to wreak their vengeance.
Fast
Digital Drama at theSpaceTriplex (Venue 38) and theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9), 13th to 25th August
A dark psychological drama based on true events in 1910 in Washington State, USA. “Doctor” Linda Hazzard opens her sanatorium to the public. The public do not always survive… Complex, beguiling and utterly driven, Hazzard advocated a fasting cure that gripped the press and divided a nation. How far would you go to find the perfect cure…?
Romeo and Juliet
The HandleBards at Assembly George Square Gardens (Venue No. 3), 15th to 19th August
Before the world’s first cycling theatre company toured its seriously silly production of Romeo and Juliet around the world, they pedalled it 1,500 miles around the UK by bicycle, with all the necessary set, props and costume in tow. Now, the all-female troupe is back with riotous amounts of energy, a fair old whack of chaos.
Say Something Happened
BCP at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue No. 53), 20th to 25th August
June, a well-meaning but very inexperienced social worker, visits Mam and Dad to offer the council’s help. It transpires that June is probably more in need of Mam and Dad’s help than they are of hers! Alan Bennett’s one act play showcases the humour and pathos of Britain’s best-loved playwright.
Pimms, Power and Piety
Summer Full Choral Evensong
Music by Felix Mendelsshöhn, Henry Purcell, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Jehan Alain
St Mary’s Extended Parish Choir, St Mary’s Church, Hampton, 15th July
Review by Mark Aspen
A Broad Church. Now, there is a term that we often hear applied to the Church of England. However, pop along to St Mary’s at Hampton and you will find that in this case it applies to just one parish church.
The church buildings, together with Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare and Garrick’s Villa nearby, form part of a group of Grade 1 listed buildings. Particularly, with its association with Georgian royalty, St Mary’s Hampton is arguably the most historic of parish churches in the Area and certainly one of the most beautiful. Nevertheless, within all this tradition, St Mary’s late morning service each Sunday is an exuberant modern contemporary service of large and increasing popularity.
During this service, last Sunday morning, the 250-strong congregation processed from the church to the River Thames for the total-immersion baptisms of six adults and the christening of a baby. Back in the church, a service of joyful worship continued.
The measure of the breath of worship tradition at St Mary’s came later in the day, with a traditional Anglican evensong. Choir Director and Organist, David Pimm has gained a reputation amongst music lovers for his occasional series of sacred choral music, requiems and oratorios at St Mary’s. Last Sunday’s service was a traditional choral evensong, where “voices sounding together in harmony is heard at the ‘even’ point between the active day and restful night, allowing listeners time for restful contemplation”. It is a tradition that extends back to 1549 and, as the Vicar, Rev. Ben Lovell, reminded us, evensong has been described as “the jewel in the crown of Anglican worship”.
During the late afternoon, the music of worship had continued by ringing of the changes by an extended team from the Middlesex Bellringers on the St Mary’s Major of eight bells, cast by Thomas Mears in 1831. This formed a prelude to the St Mary’s Summer Evensong, the musical inspiration of which included choral works by Purcell, Stanford and Stainer, plus a number of powerful congregational hymns, parenthesised by remarkable organ solos.
The introductory organ piece was Felix Mendelsshöhn’s Sonata IV for Organ, the last of the six Organ Sonatas to be written in this Opus 65 series. Mendelsshöhn was greatly influenced in his church music by Bach, and the transcendental feel of his Sonata IV illustrates this well. The piece opens with a spritely allegro, which soon develops a more contemplative, pious mood, before returning to a quicker tempo and concluding with an impressively majestic crescendo. When playing the Sonatas, Mendelsshöhn himself demanded a well-pitched organ, with a good standard of touch from the pedalboard as well as the manuals. St Mary’s organ was a gift from King William IV to commemorate his coronation, and was built by J.C.Bishop in 1831. Not only is it a superb instrument, it underwent extensive restoration work in the summer of 2017. So Mendelsshöhn would have been very pleased to play at St Mary’s.
For the introit, the choir entered to the clear Baroque ringing tones of Henry Purcell’s Rejoice in the Lord Alway, singing an extract from this well-known Bell Anthem with its exhortation “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God”, thereby setting the theme of the service.
When the Royal College of Music was founded in 1882, Charles Villiers Stanford was not only one of its founding professors, but also one of the youngest. His pupils included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Sadly, Stanford’s many orchestral and operatic works are now neglected, but he still remains one of Britain’s foremost church composers. Certainly, the choral works of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford are not neglected by Pimm and the St Mary’s choir.
Stanford’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittus settings in C major (Op. 115) were part of the liturgical backbone of St Mary’s Summer Evensong. In Magnificat, the canticle based on Mary’s praise to God following her visitation, Stanford points up the humility of Mary through subtle use of voice and volume. Phrase such as “the lowliness of His handmaiden” are taken pianissimo, whereas “He hath filled the hungry with good things”, as a soprano duet contrasts with the tenor and bass counter-concept of “and the rich He hath sent empty away”. The Nunc Dimittus, elderly Simeon’s touching reaction to seeing the infant Christ, in Stanford’s scoring is soft, peaceful and widely expressive. In the hands of St Mary’s choir, working largely as an ensemble, Stanford’s intentions were given clear emotional insight.
The richness of emotional expression in Stanford’s sacred choral works was amply demonstrated in the anthem, Glorious and Powerful God, one of the three motets of Opus 135 and the choral centre to Summer Evensong. The anthem is an acknowledgement of might of God and mankind’s relationship with God. The measured phrasing, “We understand Thy dwelling is on high, above the starry sky”, where sustained soprano notes almost paint a picture of the Milky Way, forms a vividly descriptive opening. Then God and mankind interact in the supplication to “show us Thy light”, a gentle and quiet episode, before the bold plea comes strongly in, “Arise, O Lord”. The conclusion is bold and decisive, “Thy name be blest, founder and foundation” of the world.
A brief mention must be made of the skill of the bible readers, Nigel Francis, who read from Job, and Didie Bucknall, whose reading from St Paul’s epistle to the Romans sounded just like she had taken Paul’s letter straight from the envelope and was letting us know what he had to say.
Pimm and the St Mary’s choir are exponents of the works of the Victorian composer, Sir John Stainer, and the choral part of the service concluded with Stainer’s Sevenfold Amen. The title speaks for itself, but the exploration of intonation and the complex interweaving of voices restates this time-immemorial single word as a certain conviction of truth and an affirmation of God’s promises.
Jehan Alain came from a family in Paris whose every member seemed to be associated with organs, as organists, organ composers, or organ builders. Jehan Alain was an organist and composer. He was killed in action, aged 29, in June 1940 and posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery. As a skilled motorcyclist in the French Army, he had been reconnoitring the enemy advance on Saumur, when he came across a platoon of German soldiers. He engaged them single-handed, armed only with his rifle, and killed sixteen of the enemy troops before being brought down himself.
Forming the final organ solo for Summer Evensong was Litanies. Composed three years before his death, it is probably one of the best-known of Alain’s works, but is recognised as being fiendishly difficult to play. The piece builds on an intricate melodic concept, which it repeatedly dismantles and reconstructs in a variety of moods, ranging from joyfully soft and reflective to apprehensively troubled and edgy. Alain explained his intent thus: “When the Christian soul in its distress finds no new words with which to implore God’s mercy, it repeats endlessly the same invocation with strong faith. Reason having attained its zenith, Faith alone reaches on high.” The motif itself goes through a remarkable progression, reappearing in overlapping forms. The work’s impressively complex conclusion is hugely powerful and finally resolves in a note-crammed cornucopia.
The Bishop organ, in all its restored glory, was put through its acrobatic paces with great dexterity of hands and pedals by the outstanding visiting organist, Nat Keiller, an award-winning Royal College of Organists graduate, no stranger to the St Mary’s organ. Keiller’s virtuosity, a highlight of the Summer Evensong, was amazing and quite exhausting even just watching and listening.
What better way, then, to round off the evening by decamping into the churchyard for a civilised glass or two of Pimm’s and a cream tea with delicious home-made scones and jam, where we all enjoyed the evening sunshine of the beautiful world this side of the starry sky.
Mark Aspen
July 2018
Photography courtesy of Jenny Winterburn and Thomas Forsythe.
Chill on the Hill
Black Mountain
by Brad Birch
Wild Duck Theatre at OSO Arts Centre until 19th July
Review by Melissa Syversen
A friend once told me that in East Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan, summer is horror-season. The idea is that the chilling sensation that ghosts, horrors and thrillers can illicit down ones’ spine will help counteract the oppressive, humid heat of summer. So, as we continue to endure this remarkable heat wave, Wild Duck Theatre Company’s new play Black Mountain was a good opportunity to test this theory for myself.
Written by Brad Birch, Black Mountain is a one-act psychological thriller in the vein of Gone Girl with a dash of Fatal Attraction. We meet a man named Paul and a woman named Rebecca. Together they have rented an Airbnb in the mountains. It is not immediately clear what their relationship is, but there is an obvious tension between them and they sleep in separate rooms in the house. As the play goes on, we realise that they are a couple going through a hard time following infidelity on the part of Paul. In hopes of a reconciliation, he has taken Rebecca to Black Mountain so that they can talk and work things out together. Rebecca, however, is not as optimistic as her partner as she still struggles to be near him and can’t help but treat him with anger and disdain rooted in the pain he has caused her. An extra wrench is thrown into Paul’s plans however when Helen, the woman with whom he had the affair, shows up in the night to talk. She claims that for her to get closure following their relationship she needs more answers. I do not wish to give away too much of the plot but during Rebecca and Paul’s stay strange things begin to happen in and around the house.
Writer Brad Birch is clearly well versed in the genre he has chosen. The gradual revelation of information is handled very well, and the pacing is slow and steady, building to a very satisfying yet ambiguous conclusion. There is some great and sharp dialogue between Rebecca and Paul. The one thing I did struggle with at times were the characters themselves. Now, I don’t really mind the various ‘crazy/psycho women’ tropes in stories like this, it is something that comes with the genre. What I do struggle with is when it is the female characters one defining character trait. Surely one of the key reasons for Gone Girl success is that the character of Amy is so complex and engaging. She is clearly a disturbed woman, but she is so well realised that you can almost sympathise. In Black Mountain, the women are hard to connect with because all they really do is belittle, nag and harass Paul in various ways. Even moments of vulnerability can feel a bit cold. Apart from some thrown lines about how selfish and cold Paul can be, the audience isn’t given much to hold on to, other than the fact that he cheated. As Rebecca, Fleur de Henrie Pearce feels a bit stiff at times, her expression set in neutral, her body language straight with her arms down her sides. Though it could be a character choice, because in the moments she allows Rebecca’s rage and hurt to bubble to the surface her entire being comes alive. Then, on the other side of the spectrum, Arthur Velarde as Paul is all expression and emotion and played with a straight earnestness. Being the person we see the most, Paul is the most layered and well-written character, but I wish we could see some of his alleged cold and selfish side as well. It would add some more nuance to help elevate the tension and suspense, as the story does sometimes read as sweet, atoning man vs crazy, angry women. I suspect the issue is in part due to the shorter runtime, which is understandable. There is one thing I would suggest altering though, if I may be so bold. One of the characters claims at one point that she had a husband of 40 years. But the actress playing said character is clearly in no way old enough for this to be true. Either the role is intended to be played by an older actor or the character is telling such a bald-faced lie on purpose. Either way, it was a surprisingly jarring statement and looking at my notes I just wrote ‘What? 40?!’
Black Mountain is a well-written thriller and the company succeeded in bringing it to life with good use of props, costume changes and sound. In the end, did I feel the chill down my spine? Not quite, but with Black Mountain Brad Birch makes a solid attempt at a difficult genre that’s not done nearly enough on the stage. Wild Duck Theatre will return to the OSO Community Arts Centre in November with Things I Know To Be True and I am very interested to go and see it.
Melissa Syversen
July 2018
Photography by Marc Pearce Photography ©.
NB. Black Mountain is part of the Barnes Fringe Festival and will play at the OSO Community Arts Centre, 17-19th of July
Strike A Light!
The Matchgirls
by Bill Owen, music by Tony Russell
Teddington Theatre Club, Hampton Hill Theatre until 13th July
Review by Andrew Lawston
A Made in Dagenham for the 19th Century, Bill Owen’s musical The Matchgirls dramatises the 1888 strike at London’s Bryant & May match factory. Throughout this two hour show, Teddington Theatre Company juggle upbeat musical numbers with grim working conditions, grinding poverty, and committee meetings. A largely female cast of “cockney sparrows” give a confident and powerful performance that rattles along at a furious pace.
Following an overture illustrated by an impressive filmed insert, the curtain rises to reveal Fiona Auty’s set consisting mostly of stark scaffolding against a plain backdrop, rendered doubly ominous by a creeping cloud of dry ice. This evocative design keeps the action moving smoothly from scene to scene, with minimal props brought on to denote scenes set away from the factory and “Hope Court”. The vivid costumes from Mags Wrightson, Lesley Alexander, and Margaret Boulton means the Matchgirls themselves provide welcome splashes of colour against their grim backdrop.
The opening song sums up the show’s tone. “Phosphorous” is a jaunty chorus number about Phossy Jaw, a disfiguring occupational hazard in the matchstick industry in the 19th Century. There’s a certain black comedy implicit in the material, which thankfully the cast do not play for laughs.
From initial confrontations with Dave Dadswell’s odious Foreman Mynel, Kate quickly emerges as the de facto leader of the Matchgirls, and Emma Hosier gives a spirited performance throughout a show that requires a huge musical and emotional range from her.
Grumbling over working conditions, fines, and stoppages in the match factory are brought to a head by news that a statue of Gladstone is to be unveiled – and paid for by further deductions from the girls’ meagre wages – Kate undergoes a bewilderingly rapid political education under the tutelage of Annie Besant (an impassioned performance from Sue Reoch).
The ambivalent tone with which Besant is addressed as “Dear Lady” by all the girls throughout the show reflects their suspicions of a middle-class woman acting as a “do-gooder” with little consideration of the probable consequences for the girls’ livelihoods. Interestingly, the girls have a point, as they go without food for the first week of their strike, only to be told blithely by Besant that a strike fund is “coming soon”. It is a shame that the script does not really develop this conflict, which instead focuses on the strike breakers and an emerging love triangle.
While Kate is mentored by Besant, she is also supported by the other Matchgirls, particularly Cath Bryant’s confident Polly, and by Dave Shortland’s cheerful and energetic pigeon-obsessed dock worker, Joe. Conversely, Caroline Steer is electric as Jessie, the group’s troublemaker in a spectacularly scarlet frock. Jessie’s twin interests in mob violence and flirting drive much of the conflict in Act Two.
Rounding out the group, Sandra Mortimer clearly has a wonderful time playing the incorrigible old lush Old Min, while Danielle Thompson’s Winnie runs a whole gamut of emotions throughout the play. Opposite the diverse and fun Matchgirls, the dockers come across as a largely interchangeable group of men, mostly interested in pigeons and “pints at the Anchor”. Joe’s two docker friends, Ben Legard’s Perce, and Bill Compton’s Bert, don’t get a great deal of time to shine individually, but add further energy to the big songs.
Bill Owen’s script is somewhat uneven and disjointed in places, and the director seems to have addressed this by paring down the spoken dialogue in favour of the musical numbers. This results in a breakneck pace to the play, and the decision to include the climactic meeting between Kate, Besant and a shareholder as a mimed piece during a chorus number also adds to the sense of urgency.
If there is one element that risks undermining the production’s relentless pace, it is probably the two scenes featuring George Bernard Shaw. Ben Hansell does a fine job of portraying the firebrand, but it has to be said that the character does little to drive forward the story beyond providing the audience with a fun historical cameo.
While the show’s political and social material is gripping, it tends to be the more upbeat songs that truly shine, from the early “’Atful of ‘ope” led by Zoe Arden’s cheeky Mrs Purkiss, to “La di dah”, and even “Amendment to a motion” – where setting committee protocol to music results in one of the show’s most unlikely but oddly entertaining numbers. Choreographer Lucinda Hennessy and Musical Director Hannah-May Lucas ensure that the songs and movement are constantly fresh and interesting, making the most of the multi-level set and their small but very hard-working band. On the well-attended opening night, many toes were tapping throughout the audience whenever the band struck up.
The Matchgirls is not performed often, but this bold production from Marc Batten and Teddington Theatre Club papers over some of the script’s weaknesses, and more than demonstrates that the show deserves to be much more well known.
Andrew Lawston
July 2018
Photography by JoJo Leppink (Handwritten Photography)
The Doctor Fails
Space Doctor
by Will Dalrymple
Straight Up Productions at OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 7th July, then on tour until 27th August (Edinburgh Preview)
A review by Matthew Grierson.
Last week, a pair of theatregoers were scolded by the cast of Titanic the Musical at the Nottingham Theatre Royal for watching England’s World Cup match against Colombia on their phones and cheering at the Three Lions’ penalty shoot-out win. In order to avoid a similar clash with the national team’s quarter-final encounter with the Swedes, Saturday afternoon’s performance of Space Doctor had an eleventh-hour reschedule to midday.
The enforced time travel is in keeping with the show, both a self-conscious and self-consciously unself-conscious parody of Doctor Who. Among a plethora of gags more miss than hit, the play manages to include an unexpectedly clever time travel sequence; admittedly not as sophisticated as anything Steven Moffatt cooked up, this is still one of the few acknowledgements Space Doctor makes of the modern run of the TV classic.
The premise of Space Doctor is that the audience has been press-ganged into attending a Space Doctor convention by gun-wielding uberfan Nancy Adric (Gemma Edwards), where her other hostages – sorry, guests – will re-enact the first and only broadcast episode of the show from 1978. These guests are Space Doctor’s fictional creator Rex Whittaker (Tom Whelehan), a man with a Seasick Steve beard, silver lamé shirt and a jacket and accent that are alike indescribable, as well as the far less eccentrically dressed Space Doctor himself (Robert Eyers), who turns out not to be an actor but an actual time-travelling alien, professing to have one-and-a-half hearts and three balls. Half-hearted and a load of b******s? I’m saying nothing.
This conventional conceit is doubly appropriate. First because, football or not, it’s a sunny day outside and there are as few people in the audience as several (pre-2003) fan gatherings I’ve attended. Second, as a parody, Space Doctor is entirely conventional: Doctor Who has been spoofable from two episodes in, and thus many of the best jokes have already been told – not only by Crackerjack or Victoria Wood but also by the show itself, self-deprecation being one of the many qualities that make it so appealing. Even among the genre of cult TV spoofs you’re competing with Galaxy Quest, which will take some beating.
So there has to be something distinctive that Space Doctor can offer us, and sadly there is very little in this regard. There are some good one-off jokes – the character of Space Doctor gleefully declares “I done a murder” and “I done a genocide”, a nod to the problematic quality of incidental deaths in a programme whose protagonists pride themselves on non-violence. Elsewhere, the gags not only miss their mark, they also expose the shortcomings of Space Doctor itself. “Are you enjoying it?” we’re asked by the frenetic Nancy waving her prop pistol, and the scant audience grunts its reluctant assent. More tellingly, Space Doctor’s companion Simone (Bibi Lucille) is exhorted not to “ruin the adventure with legitimate questions”. Doctor, if my companion had asked all the questions he’d wanted to ask of this production, we would have ended up missing the football after all.
I go to see Space Doctor with a lot of goodwill, and by the time the production has squandered it, about halfway in, a story is beginning to emerge in the way one of its performers emerges from under the patchwork quilt of a monster costume (the dubiously named “Face Burglar”). Until this point there is a lack of direction in every sense, and as well as laboured jokes about Doctor Who there are also random pot-shots about GDPR, supermarkets and talent shows. Some of this incidental business can be quite entertaining – the robot dancing the Macarena is a highlight, and there’s a nicely constructed gag that culminates in a cheer at the destruction of the White House. But I could never shed the sense that I was watching a baggy, self-indulgent student revue that had hijacked the Space Doctor’s TARDISN’T (OK, I’ll buy that), disguised as a Portaloo (it’s been done), as a vehicle to connect otherwise unrelated skits. You can’t mount a successful pastiche of something as singular as Doctor Who when you’re pulling in so many different directions at once; this should be a team game.
But like a bunch of Premiership primadonnas, each of the cast seem to be inhabiting a different world. We’re told former companion Dodo (Ruby Keane) has spent the four decades since Space Doctor appearing in The Archers, but she stomps around the place spouting dialogue from EastEnders in a Mancunian accent, a lazy conflation of very different soap settings. Meanwhile Stan (the show’s writer Will Dalrymple) is introduced as the convention’s sound technician before being revealed a Britain’s Got Talent wannabe and then, when Henry VIII (Mark Bittlestone) makes a guest appearance, has an unlikely fling with the king. As is the way of these things, His Majesty is killed twice and twice brought back to life, occasioning not only an improbably Shakespearean turn of phrase on the behalf of Stan Boleyn (yes, I know) but some surprisingly ill-judged Catholic jokes. And for most of the show, Dalrymple sports a school tie and cap over an England shirt, as though he would rather have been watching the football … again, I’m saying nothing.
At least with Simone there is a rationale for such dramatic changes in character. Possessed by the Face Burglar, she transforms from peppy sidekick to preening villain, and playing her, Lucille capably and convincingly makes the switch between goodie and baddie, as well as hitting the right comedy beats. In comparison, fan-cum-stalker Nancy is a one-note character who is in danger of making her TV namesake Adric look as complex as Hamlet.
Nevertheless, there is an unexpectedly poignant revelation about her character near the end of the play, more in keeping with 21st-century Doctor Who than the original run. This leads to a last-minute twist in which she travels back to 1963 and meets Dalrymple and Bittlestone as a pair of BBC execs in a sketch that manages to be both well written and zippily performed – as the saying goes, it’s about time. Of course, Nancy is armed with all the Space Doctor fan scripts she has written, the names changed to avoid copyright infringement, and she presents these to the pair: lo and behold, she has invented yer actual Doctor Who. Never mind any football, I’d rather be watching that on a Saturday afternoon than Space Doctor.
Matthew Grierson
July 2018
Photography by Bogdan Milošević
Make Everybody Political (by the Shedload!)
Party
by Tom Basden
Alex Payne at OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 30th June
A review by Celia Bard
Brexit, Trade Wars, Donald Trump. In today’s political climate tensions run high. Even before these current issues there has always been intense political debate. Who can blame a group of five young adults with high ideals for wanting to form a new political party, and to change the world? Can they do any worse than any British Parliament of the day, often split down the middle on so many issues! Take comfort, they seem no more to distinguish between the woods from the trees than do present day political parties, wanting to extol democratic values but caught up in endless discussion and debate, going around in circles until a vote is taken and the matter settled.
The setting for this unlikely group of students, assembled under Jared’s leadership, is a garden shed transformed into a make-shift conference room but still with the tell-tale signs of assorted DIY, garden equipment and general old tat amongst the flip charts and filing cabinets. The group’s intention is to draft a manifesto for their new political party. They want to change the world but have no idea why or more importantly, how. They are not short of issues: China; sex trafficking; cycle lanes; unfair trade coffee practices; what to call the party, ‘The Friendly Party’, ‘Peace in the Middle East Party’ or ‘Gladios’; and more importantly when exactly they should take a break and cut into the cake.
Party, produced by Alex Payne, from the team behind the OSO Pantomime, Sealed and Punk Rock is ably directed by Will Jarvis, himself an active writer.
The play begins with Jared, the appointed leader, Jones, Mel, and Phoebe raising their arms high in a display of democratic agreement about China. Duncan, new to the group and only there because his step-father runs a printer’s shop, is confused but eventually raises his arm too, still not knowing what the group is voting for other than whether they were ‘for’ or ‘against’ China. It turns out the others are just as clueless and allow themselves to be railroaded over minutiae such as the correct pronunciation of ‘abstentions’.
The genre of Party is political satire: witty, sarcastic, and outrageously cynical. The actors, under tight direction, rise magnificently to the occasion. What the script lacks in plot is made up by the very funny stereotypical representations of a group of politically minded students who talk a lot but don’t seem to know very much. The cast is strictly disciplined, and the actors are very much in the moment, appearing very natural. The interaction between them is superb, quick at picking up on cues but understanding the importance of pregnant pauses to hit home a point. Good use is made of the acting area and the actors successfully manoeuvre each other, the props, and other pieces of stage furniture with ease.
Each of the characters played by the cast is well defined. Jared cleverly portrayed by Alex Hill manages to appear likeable even though he displays some overbearing traits in his attitude to the two women; he certainly does not like to lose an argument. In many respects he has some of the characteristics of a natural leader, but he lacks knowledge and tries to win an argument by drowning out the others. His counterpart is Mel, played by Hana Jarrah. Mel is fiery, bolshie, outspoken. She is assertive and quick to take offence, e.g. her comments about her ‘invalid’ car. Hana’s superb acting skills and sense of comic timing prevents this character from being weighed down by over-the-top stereotypical feminist argument. Daisy Jones as Phoebe is delightful as the would-be mediator but without the knowledge or skills to carry this role through. This actor is able to work on two levels as seen by her ability to suggest her strong feelings for Jared without saying a word. Harrison Brewer as Jones gives another great performance managing to convey a childlike immaturity and physicality in his attempts to be a productive member of the group. Duncan, played by Joel Coussins, is wonderful in the way he can combine naivety with common sense. He is oblivious to all political rhetoric but is elected leader of the group by default, which means he can tuck into a slice of Lemon Drizzle Cake and celebrate his birthday. After all he thought he was going to a social party, certainly not a political party. Although Will Jarvis, the director, taking on an acting role as Shortcoat appears just briefly, nevertheless he succeeds in making a great impact in this cameo role. He is the only character who has some real knowledge and understanding of political issues; thus, he represents a threat to the group and is very soon ‘kicked’ out.
The whole of the cast and its director, Will Jarvis, must be applauded for injecting real life and comedy into this political satire. It would have been very easy to have played this script for laughs, but they refrained from doing so and thus succeed in highlighting the foibles of political argument and behaviour. Although short and sweet this is a production not to be missed.
Celia Bard
June 2018
Photography by Alex Stenhouse
Tradition Bars Progress
Eventide
by Barney Norris
Questors Theatre, The Questors Studio, Ealing, until 30th June
Review by Denis Valentine
Eventide is an interesting play, with a lovely set for the actors to work on, which raises many recognizable themes and ideas. The performers are very earnest in their efforts and, although needing a little more refinement in certain areas, the show offers an interesting evening of fringe theatre.
From his show notes, director Daniel Cawtheray makes particular mention of the idea of exploring the way ‘tradition is being overhauled by progress’ and that is a strong undercurrent to the performances he brings out so well in his actors.
Each character’s arch features a gradual build, where their stories unravel and that aspect of the writing is well captured by the performers. Anil Goutam as John arrives as the loudmouthed landlord telling a dirty joke, but over the course of the first act that bravado gives way to a man at a crossroads, completely unsure of where he is heading. The fact that his dirty joke, with the punch line being based around old fashioned gender roles only elicits laughs out of politeness and awkwardness from the two he’s telling it too, is reflective of a person being lost to an older time and not quite understanding how things have moved on. There is genuine sympathy built for the character in Anil’s performance and his exit from the play is edged with the sadness of another person lost to the changings of time.
Dani Beckett as Liz brings a wonderful natural vibe to proceedings and as the straight character in the play provides a steady basis to her scenes, which allow the two more eccentric figures to spiral off from. There is a subtle hidden pain to her character’s story and it is poignant that she does not appear in the final scene to seek out that last dramatic moment.
The show at times features some insightful dialogue and moments that offer a commentary on aspects of the modern world; a particular favourite of mine being “you’re a tosser but I admire you for trying to work your way out of it,” something that could be applied to a whole host of people in the current public consciousness. The show and performances would benefit from proceedings being occasionally slowed down a little to let them really resonate with the audience, as at times it felt that, just as a point or idea was being made, we were already onto the next thought without being given enough time to let the previous one land.
The character of Mark played by Zac Karaman is a man who is at the crucial stage of life where youthful optimism clashes with the harsh realities of adulthood. Much is made of the entitlement of the ‘millennial’ generation in today’s society and the overall arc of his interactions with John and their battle for ‘who has had it harder and who has more right to be upset’ is well realised. Karaman also delivers perhaps the play’s most heart wrenching moment, with his revelation that he is the one who has to rebuild the monument, with which the love of his life recently had a fatal encounter. It is a well-crafted moment from playwright Barney Norris, which Karaman allows to land with the most bitter of ironies; a very poignant moment exploring the idea of just how brutal and devoid of any sentimentality the world can be at times.
Special mention must also go to the set and its designer Andrew Hiat-Lacey and the Questors Design Department. On walking into the theatre the audience is met with a tranquil pub beer garden, which on a hot summer’s night looks ideal for sitting and relaxing in. It is the sort of set that instantly holds your attention and leaves you interested in what is going to be taking place on it. The way it changes after the interval fits in brilliantly with the aforementioned main theme of the play, as gone is the lovely back garden feel of the benches and grass (tradition) and in its place is the drab, grey steel of any generic modern day café-pub establishment (progress).
The show is not without a few odd moments and would benefit from adjusting its pace in certain places. Some of the character decisions are at times a little jarring, particularly in the second half (beginning to ask a groom about the death of his ex-girlfriend on his wedding day), which at times break the naturalistic feel of proceedings and seem to be more of a ‘plot device’ to launch into the next point rather than being part of an organic flow in the proceedings.
For anyone looking for an evening of Theatre that offers a small insight to the lives of three characters with some reflection on the modern state of society and some of the people in it, then Eventide is a decent fix.
Denis Valentine
June 2018
Photography by Jane
Obsession
The Collector
by Mark Healy
Teddington Theatre Club, Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre until 30th June
Review by Melissa Syversen
The Collector: as soon as I heard the title of Teddington Theatre Club’s latest production I had a rather disconcerting feeling in my gut. This wouldn’t be an average trip to Hampton Hill Theatre, no matter how lovely the weather might have been. The Collector. It is quite remarkable just how sinister the title sounds, the little shiver it sends down the spine. This might be because the play by Mark Healy is based John Fowles’ debut novel by the same name. I was not aware of this book or just how famous it is, but some research quickly showed me what a huge impact the novel has had on popular culture. How many times have I been exposed to it indirectly through references and homages in TV and film? The book’s association with several famous real-life serial killers also adds a disturbing layer to the book and its place in the public collective consciousness.
The Collector is the story of the shy and unassuming Frederick Clegg, an entomologist, one who collects butterflies. We meet him as he tells us he will tell us his side of the story, as all stories have two sides he says. He is awkward, shy and avoids eye contact when possible. He tells us about Miranda Grey, a girl says he was in love with. As Frederick tells his story, he continues to claim he never planned to do what he did: he was happy watching Miranda and her beauty from afar. Things change however when Frederick wins the lottery and becomes a very wealthy man. Rather than travelling the world to collect rare butterflies for his collection, he buys a house, two hours’ drive outside of London, which he refurbishes, including the cellar.
Director Sophie Hardie cleverly moves the action of the story up to present day and shows the audience through video projected on a curtain how Frederick stalks Miranda on social media and taking hidden photographs. As the video plays, Frederick narrates the events that lead up to him finally kidnapping Miranda and locking her in the cellar of his new house. It is from here the actions picks up as Frederick pulls the curtain aside and we see Miranda awaken in her prison for the first time after being knocked out with chloroform. What follows are two hours of tense mental and physical struggle between captor and victim that grows deeper and more dangerous by the minute. Matt O’Toole plays the difficult part of Frederick Clegg, and he more than rises to the occasion. In his hands, Frederick is a twitchy, nervous man who avoids eye contact. He’s like a puppy that has been kicked, but as he sinks further into what he has done, he starts barring his teeth. Rachel Burnham is equally good as Miranda. Her Miranda is a clever and resourceful young woman. You can see the wheels turning in her head as she continuously tries different ways to escape and to understand what it is her captor truly wants. Rachel and Matt are clearly two actors who trust and respect each other and together they face the dark material at hand straight on.
Sophie Hardie and her team of designers make full use of their limited performance space. The audience is placed on either side of the playing space with Miranda’s childlike prison on one end to the doors of the playing space on the other. At times it even extends to outside the doors. Set designer Fiona Auty subtly plants the theme of butterflies throughout the show in small details such as bedding with butterfly patterns to butterfly wrapping paper. The more sinister nature in the play is hinted at throughout the piece through the sound and light designs by John Pyle and Nick Osorio. James Bedbrook’s Alfred Hitchcock inspired sound and music choices do feel a bit heavy-handed at times, but the mixing of Frederick’s narration and the final piece of video by Sarah J Carter sent a proper chill down my spine as I exited the room.
Writing-wise the play is structured in a way that suggests the writer wants us to empathise with Frederick. He is as the main narrator and is introduced to us as a seemingly harmless, misunderstood and lonely man. Miranda, by contrast, is portrayed as strong-willed, clever and assertive even when trapped within the circumstances she finds herself in. She curses, belittles and verbally harasses Frederick on multiple occasions. She too might have been lulled into a false sense of security by the seemingly hapless figure that is her kidnapper. It is a clever ploy and it creates an interesting twist to a dynamic that could easily have fallen into the ‘female victim’ trope. The ploy doesn’t quite land, however, but that is not the fault of Mark Healy or John Fowles. What undermines this ploy is quite simply reality. In a post-Fritzl world, it is hard to drum up any genuine sympathy towards Frederick no matter how sweet he might originally seem or how cruel Miranda gets.
As an audience member today, The Collector is not disturbing as a harrowing piece of fiction, it is scary because we know that this really happens. We see and read about such events like this again and again from Natascha Kampusch to the case of Ariel Castro. This is a legitimate fear, especially for young women, and unfortunately, kidnappings and imprisonments of this nature are not as rare and extreme an incident as we would perhaps like to think. As Frederick says, many more people would do things like this if they had the time and money. Now isn’t that just a terrifying thought?
Melissa Syversen
June 2018
Photography by Sarah J Carter
Backpedalling
Meet Me at The Nightingale
by Andrew Sharpe, and
Understudies
by Joanna Gardetta
Theatre in the Pound at The Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone until Monday 17th Dec
Review by Poppy Rose Jervis
Theatre in the Pound is an evening of new theatre at The Cockpit, which is described as “provocative theatre and risky new work, new drama, writing, cabaret, physical theatre and all kinds of everything theatrical”
…… and, yes, it does what it says on the tin! Theatre in the Pound is happening every month throughout the year at The Cockpit Theatre. Quite extraordinarily, only cost £1.00 for the evening. In itself enticing, posting your pound into a black painted parking cone complete with slotted top to gain entry, is a fair indication of the fun and quirky juxtaposing with the sombre and serious that is to come.
Well, what was to come? … all performances, which have a maximum running time of twenty minutes, are simple black box with minimum fuss and minimum distraction, with efficient lighting and essential or occasional props.
Sylvia, Ja Theatre Company’s thought provoking play about Sylvia von Harden, the journalist who was the subject of the Otto Dix’s well-known painting, was a wonderful example of the style.
There have been a number of other interesting offerings in Theatre in the Pound recently. Here are two contrasting examples.
KatAlyst Productions London premiere of Andrew Sharpe’s self-contained new play, Meet Me at The Nightingale, directed by Kat Rodgers is a gentle play with the feel-good factor and a twist at the end.
Cyclist Kirsty (Sarah Leigh) is distraught and she takes refuge in the legendary Nightingale Café, where she meets the charming but befuddled Harry, (Paul Manual) waiting, seemingly for ever, for his wife to return from a shopping trip. Together, these two unlikely friends uncover a mystery stretching back over eighty years.
The play is unpretentious – the setting is a pleasant café complete with checked tablecloth and flower vase. Kirsty and Harry are wearing the ordinary clothes of real people (Kirsty’s show us she has been riding a bike and Harry is sensibly casual) – both are perfectly ordinary people.
Paul Manual is wonderfully cast. We see a touching and naturalistic portrayal of Harry. He’s everyone’s father, he’s everyone’s favourite uncle, he’s the somewhat old fashioned, gentle and kind, loyal and faithful husband we all hope to find (and yes, we do want to take him home with us!). Somehow, emerging through this is also a sense of sadness and confusion which becomes more apparent (and increases our fondness of him) as the play goes on.
Sarah Leigh too, plays Kirsty in such a way that we feel we know her well from the start. She’s practical, she’s kind. We trust her. We know she’d pick our children up from school if we couldn’t get there and probably give them a snack and a drink as well. It’s an energetic and pacey performance.
We fully believe in the characters, their interaction and the relationship between them as their interpretation is spot on – both are ingenuous and leave us to grow uncertain and question.
The play opens from darkness with the sound of a motor accident but Harry is sitting unhurt and Kirsty, in cycle gear, emerges intact so it doesn’t immediately seem that either were involved. As conversation between the two progresses, we learn that Harry is waiting for his wife (she had been at Balham Station and they always meet here). He is becoming a little repetitive and confused and we wonder if he could have been re-living her accidental death of some time ago.
It is hard to say too much more without spoiling the story-line but various pennies begin to drop in a moving moment between the two when we realise that all is not well with Kirsty.
The ending is not for the analytical, for those who feel cheated when (although this is not), ‘it’s all a dream’ or for those who feel that anything inconclusive is a ‘get out’ but its fifteen minutes of enjoyable, well-shaped escapism with a considered dialogue which is easy to listen to and easy to watch. The audience fully related to the characters with a few audible in-taking of breaths and wipes of a gentle tear.
Well-paced, lovely acting and the line delivery at the end rather than the script, that brings the lump to your throat.
Understudies by White Wall Productions is the one with the girlie giggles. Written by Joanna Gardetta (comedy sketch writer for Channel 4’s highly acclaimed, Smack the Pony) and directed by Lou-Lou Mason it is bitter-sweet comedy, which follows the trials and tribulations of Beth and Ali. They are two actresses, both alike in dignity but both desperately trying to make the big time, but forced to inhabit the back-stage storage cupboard that is their dressing room.
Alike in dignity perhaps but not much else, the girls are thrown together whilst being almost diametric opposites with not a lot of understudying or straddling going on. One shorter and blonde, taking her acting seriously and working as hard as possible; one tall, skinny with long dark hair, wishing to become rich and famous through modelling and acting (because after all, aren’t all four one and the same?). Beth (Blanche Anderson) is practical, hardworking and believable in a robust portrayal striving do her best in whatever is thrown at her whilst waiting for her big break (in this case wearing unflattering dungarees and hoping desperately, as the title suggests, for the opportunity to understudy) whilst the self-obsessed, shallow and selfish Ali (Stephanie de Whalley), played as a little more of a caricature, conspicuously flibbertigibbets around her. Whilst wanting to be exalted (and rich) Ali has no respect or understanding, is obsessed with the trimmings of designer merch’ and recuperates from her shopping spree swigging wine back stage and getting in Beth’s face.
So we have got to know the young ladies in a remarkably short space of time, partly because as an audience we know the types, partly through the nature of the script coupled with the delivery from Anderson and de Whalley. Not caricatures as such, both Beth and Ali are played stereotypically which is of course, what makes a ‘sketch’ funny. Anderson and de Whalley bounce off each other without anticipation but the banter is not unexpected and the ending is predictable. Pacey but not punchy the energy could be ramped up. Originally written as a short comedic radio drama, Gardetta retains her sketch-show style with both her material and de Whalley’s vocal portrayal, tone, timing and delivery being highly reminiscent of Sally Philips (Smack the Pony) playing Clare in BBC Radio 4’s sitcom Clare in the Community.
The audience had a good giggle but other than seeing the characters return in further short sketches, it’s hard to see how this could be expanded and adapted for the stage for anything more than a half hour slot. The material is not conducive to a play and the characters are short dose funny.
Ideal for audience on a party night or outing in a theatre pub or festival, this is a piece for lovers of a girlie giggle and Chick Lit.
Poppy Rose Jervis
June 2018
Photography courtesy of Cockpit Theatre
Mark Aspen 