Skip to main content

Review of The Annual General Meeting of a Medium-Sized Firm of Accountants by The Arts Lab at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

You see strange things at the theatre.
You see weird things at the theatre.
You see peculiar things at the theatre.
Then you see The Annual General Meeting of a Medium-Sized Firm of Accountants by The Arts Lab and absolutely nothing has prepared you for this day.
The day that you leave to the interval, having watched Samuel Jones as accountant Seth Lopod sing about wanting more from life. Wanting to be an octopus, a gay octopus, who wants another octopus to ejaculate his ink on your face. While the audience joins in with the chorus.
Yep, it's clear that nothing could ever prepare you for that.

The Arts Lab are a relatively recently formed group within Northampton who generally throw ideas about and create what appear to be incredibly random pieces such as this. I remarked in a conversation at the interval that the show appeared to be like throwing ideas at the wall and seeing which ones bounced back. I later learned that this whole show had occured from a Twitter exchange of ideas between two of the eventual writers. If this show is anything to go by, it is a neat and successful trick, as most of the time it all worked rather well. There was without doubt some brilliant moments.

The octopus of course is one of them, however there were a few other showstoppers which included Lindsay Spence (as Tim Burr) and his spirited speech of his undying love for his desk, and the papers strewn upon (or more specifically the tree from whence they came). There was a brilliant exchange via email between Mac Intosh (Josh Spiller) and his love desire Holly Dais (Stephanie Humphris), which also used some good tech. I particularly liked the neat trick of pie chart to beach and cliff visual exchange, excellent. Sonny Drake also provided an excellent "short speech" as Nickbert The Apprentice.

Perhaps the big draw of the show though (people had traveled from as far a field as Huddersfield and Brighton for the show) was the involvement of the one and only Alan Moore. His background work as project manager was one thing, however his appearance in a pre-recorded scene in the second half as God without doubt got the audience buzzing more than they already were. The scene co-written by Moore with Megan Lucas and performed with Morgen Bailey (Leticia Tardy) was superb, and yes despite the brilliance of everyone else on the night, probably the best moment, despite none of it being live.

It is rare that I review the audience in a review (and usually it only happens in a negative way), but they were truly excellent during the show. Making the show work so much better with their responses, singing along on more than one occasion, and very respectful when the rare awkward moments occurred. I have rarely sat in an audience with was so alive, and more importantly perfect for the show taking place.

So, The Annual General Meeting of a Medium-Sized Firm of Accountants (which did not actually include the AGM) was bizarre but brilliant at times. Some material didn't work, but when it did, it was incredibly funny, although sometimes in the squirmy way. I suspect your granny wouldn't have liked it, but, yep, I did.

Performance reviewed: Friday 4th November, 2016 at the Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

The Annual General Meeting of a Medium-Sized Firm of Accountants was at the Playhouse Theatre, Northampton on 
Friday 4th November, 2016 only.

Details of the Arts Lab can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/artslabnh and on Twitter @ArtsLabNH
For full details of the Playhouse Theatre visit their website at http://www.theplayhousetheatre.net/ and can be found on Twitter @PlayhouseNTH


Popular posts from this blog

Review of Murder She Didn't Write at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Murder She Didn't Write , stopping off for a four-day run at Royal & Derngate on a lengthy UK tour, treads the now well-worn path of an improvisational evening of theatre entertainment. Unsurprisingly, from the title, this show from Degrees of Error's takes a murder mystery as its inspiration, with the story influenced by ideas from the audience each evening. Due to this, Murder She Didn't Write and a review are very much an individual affair. What I saw in my evening at the theatre will differ significantly from what the audience will see the following evening; however, the fine performers will remain. The touring cast, in no particular order, is Lizzy Skrzypiec, Rachael Procter-Lane, Peter Baker, Caitlin Campbell, Stephen Clements, Douglas Walker, Harry Allmark, Rosalind Beeson, Sylvia Bishop, Emily Brady, Alice Lamb, Sara Garrard, Peta Maurice and Matthew Whittle. For my performance, Skrzypiec, Procter-Lane, Baker, Walker, Bishop, and Clements were on stage alongsid...

Review of Immune by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The cover note for the script of Oladipo Agboluaje's Immune describes it as "a challenging science fiction play with a large cast", and the word challenging in this case is not a lie. This is a fast paced, multi-cast changing script which leaves little room for error for its young cast in the performance. If the script isn't enough to handle for the young performers, director Christopher Elmer-Gorry and designer Carl Davies have made the situation even more complex for the actors with the set and stage work. Having to manhandle great panels on wheels and a huge cube, which also splits in two occasionally, during scene changes requires skill, coordination and cooperation of a high level. As if all this is not enough, the actual story is epic enough for the relatively small stage of the Royal. Attempting to form an apocalyptic world (albeit only happening in Plymouth) offers challenges in itself, but Agboluaje's script does that in a sort of apocalypse in the teac...

Review of Les Misérables: School Edition (NMTC Youth Society) at the Cripps Hall Theatre, Northampton

From my four years or so of watching theatre in Northampton, there is one thing beyond the huge professional shows that I see touring, that I always enjoy so much more (despite the occasional dodginess of the quality), and that is youth theatre. For me in my heart, it adds something special, here we have the often maligned young of today, getting out there and doing something truly fulfilling. Here though, with the debut of the newly formed Youth Society, spinning off from the adult Northampton Musical Theatre Company, we have something also which goes beyond enthusiasm of the young to create a really special piece of theatre. Les Misérables is in the top three of musicals for me, I love its huge numbers, I connect to its story, and it has some extremely strong characters, for me, it just works. Therefore, you could say that I would have an immediate bias towards this show, however, I do feel protective of it as well, so, it needs to be done right. However, I have nothing to worry...