Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2018: (His) Sheep by Control Theatre at St Peter's Church, Northampton

Set in a church and performed in a church, (His) Sheep from Control Theatre presents the first site-specific performance of Flash this year. The smart and stylish Pastor Stanley (Mo Samuels), sits clutching the good book, and nodding in recognition as we take our seats. Random jazz slowly fades and Pastor Stanley flys into a Billy Graham-like presentation to us, "his sheep", with his line "God is good" destined to be a force throughout the show.

(His) Sheep is an unusual piece of theatre, the story often challenging to follow, and if indeed you follow it, it has a habit of wrong-footing you with another curious swerve. At the opening, while the Pastor is preaching, a homeless guy, Kevin (Terell Oswald) lurks in a corner, laying amongst an assortment of his precious belongings, his life in a bag. He begs us for a few pieces of coinage to survive on. He also seeks the help of Stanley, who is known for being one to really help the homeless, or does he?

Later, Kevin's sister enters the situation, Victoria (Chloe Hoffmeister) is a journalist, and apparently returns, not looking for Kevin, but in pursuit of Stanley, who she is investigating. When the three worlds collide, an odd, often unsettling story, opens up. This isn't the first time also, that you get the feeling that the material you are watching, isn't truly suitable to be played out in a church.

There was a lot of physical theatre in (His) Sheep as well, which was very well performed. For myself, I did feel a couple of scenes were a tad repetitive, but the intensity of them really helped to create a foreboding atmosphere to the whole piece.

All performances are strong. Samuels cuts a fine figure and deftly manages to sweep between the Godly pastor, and his alter ego, exhibiting a real scary, intimidating performance. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed Oswald's homeless Kevin, he is a performer that hasn't really for me come to the fore previously, but not for the first time, the Flash performance delivers.

Finally, Hoffmeister presents a cold and calculating Victoria, full of inner aggression and mostly not a very nice person, trying to get what she wants. It needs to be strong, and the performance is, but I almost enjoyed the trouble she got in at the end. I apologise for that, I know it's wrong!

The idea behind (His) Sheep is great, it is definitely for me a little long, and a nice bit of pruning would have made it much more fulfilling. However, generally, quality stuff, and a brilliant ending.

Performance viewed: Tuesday 24th April 2018

The Flash Festival 2018 ran between Monday 23rd and Friday 27th April 2018 at three venues across the town.
Photos: Looking Glass Theatre

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Review of The Wizard Of Oz by the Northampton Musical Theatre Company at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The last couple of shows from the award-winning Northampton Musical Theatre Company has been a slightly mixed bag, with their last show at Derngate the rather difficult to get a grip on thrills of Grease , a woefully inferior stage version of the classic film despite being very well performed. Their best show recently was ironically Summer Holiday , hidden at the much smaller Cripps venue. Therefore still in the wake of the exceptional Sister Act , does The Wizard of Oz create the Derngate magic once again? The answer for me, is both yes and no, it is as always an exceptional production filled from top to tail with talent, as NMTC is so renowned for, and packing the audience in and thrilling them like perhaps nothing like Oz can in the musical department, you cannot question its selection really. However, like Grease , and to readjust a requote, "it's just Oz". This time I use it in the way that Oz is just a little over-familiar, I am desperate for the buzz that I go...
Read more

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...
Read more

Review of Mamma Mia! at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

Ahead of my trip to see Mamma Mia! in Northampton, I had enough conversations about the show to discover that there appears to be no in-between with people over their love or hate of the work of ABBA (music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus). For your information, patient reader, I fall firmly in the love department and an audience member of Mamma Mia! like myself is always going to ride on a tidal wave of joy as this jukebox churns out an incredible selection of their numbers (and truly reveals a substantially great back catalogue, that even a hater could not deny), however, is the show they are weaved around actually any good? The answer is mostly, yes. It is though, a typical popcorn musical where you are just required to switch your brain off for two hours or so and ride that tidal wave to Kalokairi, and observe the bright colours and frivolous nature of the plot. The plot, such as it is, involves 20-year-old Sophie, who is heading towards marria...
Read more