Review of School Shorts: Star Brave, Brian Gravy & Who's Afraid Of The Bogeyman? at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

The Royal & Derngate Youth Theatre School Shorts consisted of two acts and to add to my confused mind I watched act two first. However this matters not as each act consists of two completely separate plays. Act two features the plays Stay Brave, Brian Gravy by Carl Grose and Who's Afraid Of The Bogeyman? by Mike Kenny. Both plays are short (no flies on me) and roughly about 25 minutes, also these two in particular featured very tough and heavy subjects.

Stay Brave, Brian Gravy is the lighter of the two but even so revolves around the potential divorce of Brian's parents and their constant fighting and physical violence. The latter is handled in a lighthearted way complete with comedy sound effects. However this doesn't disguise from the seriousness of the situation of what these young actors are performing. A spin on the divorce nature in the second half of the play adds a neat and thankfully more lighthearted element to proceedings.

At the centre of the piece is a wonderful performance by Louis Sheldon as Brian Gravy, he keeps a playful edge to the role despite the obvious tough subject and despite being script in hand (as are all), he never uses it. Josie Adams and Lewis Varrier also handle their tough roles as Brian's parents well and maintain the level at the right point for children performing such characters. It is overall a lovely entertaining piece considering the subject matter and the ensemble in all their collection of bizarre costumes are a delight.

Who's Afraid Of The Bogeyman? for me was considerably different and much more uncomfortable to watch. Mixing the heavy subject of parents concern at a child missing and challenging an innocent in connection with it, was I felt a touch too much for such young children to perform. The play itself was cleverly constructed and had very smart use of sentences being completed by different cast members., This was performed generally well considering the obvious challenge of keeping them the sentance moving. The use of the ticking clock was a lovely device, as was the knocking on doors. This saw the switching of this between the distressed father's pleas for help and then to those at the door, and was a tremendously clever idea. It was actually I think a better play than the first, but for me it had this edge of not being appropriate for such a young cast.

Having said all that, I remain assured that R&D are working totally professionally with these youngsters and director Ashley Elbourne himself made it clear that they had worked more upon the development of the characters and their paths through the plays than the performance itself, and for me leaving that afternoon, that is all the assurance that I needed to hear.

Performance reviewed: Saturday 21st, 2015 (matinee) at the Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton.

Stay Brave, Brian Gravy and Who's Afraid Of The Bogeyman? were performed for School shorts by the R&D Youth Theatre at the Royal & Derngate on Friday 20th March and Saturday 21st March, 2015. Details here: http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/whatson/2015-2016/Underground/SchoolShorts/?view=Standard

For further details about the Royal & Derngate visit their website at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/

Review of Touching The Void at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

For those unfamiliar with this story, this review tells more than you might want to know ahead of seeing it. So, the short review for those who don't know the story of Joe Simpson, go and see this play and then come and read this review if you wish.

Staging the 1985 tale of Joe Simpson and his somewhat unbelievable, if it wasn't true, escape from surviving three days without food and water, a 150 foot fall previous, and following breaking his leg a previous, previous, seems an insurmountable challenge, but with the clever work of writer David Greig, director Tom Morris, and designer Ti Green and the rest of the creative team, we manage during a long and pulsating evening of theatre to reach that peak.

Following a short sequence of flashes of what is to come, we join Simon (Edward Hayter), Richard (Patrick McNamee) and Sarah (Fiona Hampton) at the wake of Joe Simpson, imagined for the stage and a neat way of introducing us to the story. Here Sarah, Joe's sister becomes the …

Review of the University Of Northampton BA (Hons) Acting Graduate Showcase at Leicester Square Theatre, London

The Graduate Showcase was pretty exciting even for me, so heaven knows how it was for the actors actually taking part. Here I was in a gathering of around twenty people (all others infinitely more important than me) at a special closed event at a West End theatre, complete with free drinks and buffet. Fortunately I had Mr Jim aka @mudbeast76 to keep me on the straight and narrow of juices after the one alcoholic one went straight to the head drink. Then as if it wasn't a surreal world as it was, there only goes and walks in Lukewarm himself, Christopher Biggins!

However, this isn't about me, this is about the thirty six ultra talented individuals who after I have followed them for a bit over a year are about to venture forth into the big competitive world of the acting community. They have though the double advantage of not only coming through the excellent three years University Of Northampton training and also being rather talented to help them in this.

This being my first s…

Review of Benidorm Live at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

I arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre to see this touring stage version of ITV comedy hit Benidorm with a distinct lack of knowledge. Having never seen the show, my information stretched as far as knowing it was set in a holiday resort in Spain (the title helps there), and that the humour generally resorted to the cruder end of the spectrum. However, having graced the screens for ten years, it was clear that Derren Litten's show had garnered quite a following, and indeed it was clear from the reception of the audience on the night, that this following was pretty much filling the theatre.

The plot, such as it is for this stage show, is very much drafted from an episode of Fawlty Towers, and made a great deal more adult with its humour. The hotel manager, Joyce Temple-Savage (a sharp performance by Sherrie Hewson) gets wind that a hotel inspector is in, and the scene is set for seeking them out and all the obvious cases of mistaken identity. It's thin and doesn't fill the show,…

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog