Skip to main content

Review of Café Crescendo - The Early Show by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

I officially love leaning on a table while watching a play being performed. That is my conclusion of spending Sunday afternoon watching two youth theatre shows.

It helped of course that the shows in particular were of the most glorious and inventive variety, the first of which was performed by the specific Youth Theatre group (the younger stars in this case) and featured more than a hint of the Scooby Doo about it. Deprived of a dog, we had a band of five led by Shannon "Shamrock" played by Crystal Reilly with more than a hint of nastiness about her. Well a lot of nasty to be honest and her whipping boy mostly was poor old Cameron played with wonderful charm by Alfie Sanders.

This being a musical we were of course treated to a lot of wonderful little numbers, all excellently performed. The best of which had to be the solo ghostly performance of My House. This was the most wonderful of pieces delivered gorgeously by the young star whose name alas eludes me. Just perfect though and you know who you are.

Another lovely ensemble number was the recurring This Is A Ghost Story, a catchy little number which had some lovely little choreography with it. While mentioning this, this work by Helen Parlor was wonderful to see, it felt balanced just right to be a challenge while not being too complicated, therefore allowing the young performers to be confident with it.

Writer Christopher Elmer-Gorry has created a lovely little inventive piece and this coupled with co-director Trudy A Bell and the work of musical director James Clements and musician Joby Morris it all becomes a wonderfully entertaining show. Atmospheric, fun and full of talented young stars and the set of tables and chairs created the perfect layout for this very different theatre experience.



Performance reviewed: Sunday 25th May, 2015 (second show) at the Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton.

 Café Crescendo was performed by the R&D Youth Theatre at the Royal & Derngate between Friday 22nd May and Sunday 24th May, 2015.

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Rules For Living at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

It is possibly a rule in life for a few in the audience for the opening night of Sam Holcroft's domestic comedy Rules For Living not to mention Christmas until December. Therefore anyone of such a persuasion might have been a little perturbed to be presented on the 13th September with, an undeniably brilliantly dressed, homely Christmas scene.

Opening up in glorious dollhouse style and on a gorgeous little hinge, this little home of living room and kitchen sets the scene for a typical family Christmas. Mother Edith (Jane Booker) welcomes her sons, Matthew (Jolyon Coy) and Adam (Ed Hughes) and their respective partners, Carrie (Carlyss Peer) and Nicole (Laura Rogers) And with a final dramatic arrival of father Francis (Paul Shelley), the scene is very much set for comic antics of the highest calibre.

The first thing you get from Rules For Living in the first few minutes is the arrival of one of the most brilliant, yet simple concepts I have seen for a while in the play. These are …
1 comment
Read more

Review of Make Way For Lucia by John Van Druten at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

There have been a couple of television versions of the Mapp & Lucia novels by E. F. Benson over the years and irrespective of which generation version you might have seen, the roles of Miss Mapp and Mrs. Lucas were filled with some heavyweight performers. So taking on these roles could, in theory, be a challenge too much to live up to. However, that would be if the characters themselves were less the sum of the performer. These are great characters on paper as well as on stage and therefore Gena McCrystal (Miss Mapp) and Juliet O'Connor (Lucia) make them very much their own in the stage adaption by John Van Druten.

Lucia has arrived and breezed both into the town of Tilling and the musical chair roundabout of house rental that is want to occur here. Her rented property is Miss Mapp's and for some reason, Mapp fails to follow the routine of keeping away, constantly "popping in", so the battle lines are drawn.
Make Way for Lucia is the typical battle of supremacy i…
Post a Comment
Read more

Review of Once Upon A Grimm Tale by The Royal & Derngate Actors Company (Early) at Judge's Lodgings, Northampton

Once upon a time, there was a brave theatrical reviewer. He lived in a market town in deepest darkest Englaland, where many great and remarkable things of stage did occur. At the centre of this wondrous world of performing spectacles was a place referred to by many as the Royal Derngatus, a place of people pretending to be other people and telling tales of mystery, intrigue and frolics.

Within the fortressed walls of Royal Derngatus, there were a group of fearless players who entertained local folk for no reward, other than the thrill of seeing the joy in the faces of others. Those group of artists went by the name of Actors Companus, which many pronounced carefully when they did say it out loud. This group of merry men and women did have two forms, an early and a late, and but two days before this adventurous evening of forthcoming storytelling, the late group did perform for a third and final time a most amazing feat of theatre, going by the name of Great Expectations.

Our hero of thi…
Post a Comment
Read more