Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2017: A Sinner Kissed An Angel by Merge Theatre at St Peter's Church, Northampton

Mentioning the name Ruth Ellis to people of a certain age even after over sixty years brings about a strong emotional reaction with some, and even for those not of a certain age, many people know well the name and her story of being the final woman hung in Britain.
Olivia Sarah Jane Noyce

This nicely researched play from Merge Theatre (opening my fourth year at Flash) tells at times vividly that story, from the early days of her meetings with her future husband George Ellis (played by Jennifer Etherington), via her success at 'The Little Club' and onto her destructive meeting with David Blakely.

Connor McCreedy
Centre in the play is an extremely solid performance from Olivia Sarah Jane Noyce as Ruth Ellis, portraying the confident and freewilled person with style, whose confidence remains to her final days in Holloway.

Jennifer Etherington
Jenny Watson is also excellent as her sister Muriel, the quiet opposite of Ruth and she is superbly emotional in her narration scenes moving the story forward. Connor McCreedy is a coldly played David Blakely, vicious but without being obvious about it.

Jenny Watson
There are in this generally serious play some lighthearted moments of housewives guides which themselves progress into much darker and gloomier territory as we move through the story. There is a great, but disturbing line describing eggs being prepared as to "beat them like he beats you" which successfully chills and turns these pieces down a grim, but a balanced path. All of the cast are excellent in these scenes, although the glorious over the top feminine performance from Connor is the standout.

If there is one criticism to lay at A Sinner Kissed An Angel is that it is perhaps too long, a significant amount of momentum is lost at times during the play with a few scenes that could have maybe been cut or shortened to make it a more condensed production.

However it is nicely played and a thought provoker and brings forward to a new generation a story of perhaps regret and more than a little injustice that helped turn around the world of criminal law forever.


The Flash Festival 2017 runs between Monday 22nd and Saturday 27th May, 2017 at three venues across the town. Tickets can be found at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/flash-theatre-festival-2017-tickets-34315017140, with details at https://www.facebook.com/FlashFest2017
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes at Milton Keynes Theatre

Sir Matthew Bourne has rightfully become the doyen of accessible contemporary ballet, with his works spanning a wide range, from Swan Lake , Lord of the Flies , and Edward Scissorhands to The Red Shoes , now here at Milton Keynes on an extensive tour. Based broadly on the 1948 film of the same name, The Red Shoes , set across Europe, follows the story of ballerina Victoria Page, discovered by ballet impresario Boris Lermontov. He requests that a ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale   The Red Shoes  be written by the  composer Julian Craster, whom Page falls deeply in love with. A conflict arises, and Page must choose between love and success. The first impact on any audience of The Red Shoes is visually on the costumes and set. This is, without any question, a spectacular staging. Lez Brotherston, responsible for both costumes and set, has created a gem. The striking costumes effectively recreate the period in minute detail, placing the audience very much in t...
Read more

Review of Friends - The Musical Parody at Milton Keynes Theatre

The One Where 2026 starts in a world of confusion. And so, 2026 is upon us and for my first trip to the theatre this year, one of my most significant reviewing challenges was to occur. Touring to Milton Keynes Theatre is Friends - The Musical Parody , based, unsurprisingly, on that little American show that ran to a few audience members for ten years. However, I confess that I was not, and have never been in that audience, never having seen a single episode of the show. However, always up for a review challenge and doing my due diligence by having a Friends superfan as my plus one, I headed to Milton Keynes with anticipation. For those unfamiliar with the show, I could say I can’t help; however, a quick review of some of the information you might need (thanks, Google and my plus one). Running for ten years between 1994 and 2004 with 236 episodes (quiz question, you are welcome), the main characters consisted of Phoebe (ditzy, writer of sad songs), Monica (in possession of an unfeasibly...
Read more

Review of The Play That Goes Wrong at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

It is scary to contemplate that it is almost four years since I first saw Mischief Theatre's The Play That Goes Wrong . It is no secret that on that night I enjoyed it quite a bit (and ended up on stage, but that is another story). I returned the next evening to watch it again and then stalked it down to London later that same year, which over three years later it continues its remarkable West End success story. Since my last encounter with this original, I have seen Chris Bean's ramshackle Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society create chaos on stage and television with Peter Pan Goes Wrong , mess-up Dickens' A Christmas Carol and even gatecrash BBC Radio at Christmas. This fourth encounter with the original The Play That Goes Wrong though, offers the opportunity to see it in the hands of a different cast for the first time. How can pretenders of the original creators shape up in this anarchic disaster of a play? Actually, as it turns out remarkably well. It is true that ...
Read more