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 Sunny Afternoon at Milton Keynes Theatre

Sunny Afternoon , the Kinks-inspired jukebox musical, debuted on stage in 2014. Featuring Ray Davies' music and a book by Joe Penhall, it first found success in London before a UK tour in 2016/17. Now arriving at Milton Keynes Theatre with a new 2025/6 tour, the question remains: with some songs now over 60 years old, is Sunny Afternoon still relevant to today's audiences? While this is a jukebox musical, this show follows, via this system, the story of the formation and eventual success of The Kinks rather than creating a random story from the songs. Opening with the band The Ravens, the group is safe and sophisticated, with their prim-and-proper lead singer. However, the true band of the future, Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Mick Avory and Pete Quaife, are itching for freedom, to break away, especially writer Ray, who wants to create songs that mean something to people. Enter the suits of management, and the rocky creation of The Kinks begins. I had the pleasure of seeing Sunny A...
Read more

Review of It's A Wonderful Life by Masque Theatre at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

Remarkably I only saw the classic film It's A Wonderful Life last Christmas, this was thanks to spotting it lurking on my subscription of Netflix. A glorious heartwarming film perfect for Christmas? That must be why I was a blubbering mess at the end of it then. There was hope that in public, The Masque Theatre's performance of the radio version of the story didn't leave me in the same situation. As it happened it did a little as that final scene in the Bailey household played out again, but it didn't matter as there were members of the cast in the same broken state as many of us audience members. Left to right: Jo Molyneux, John Myhill, Lisa Wright, Michael Street, Lisa Shepherd and Jof Davies This was the first radio play that I had seen performed and on the evidence of this, I sure would like to see some more. While not having the drama of standard plays in their creation of moment and places, they do have a rather striking drive towards character creation. The ...
Read more

Review of A View from the Bridge at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Although writer Arthur Miller died 15 years ago, and last published a play almost 30, he remains a force to be reckoned with, and you are probably still never far from production of one of his works, albeit one of probably just four from his back catalogue of 33 plays. If you pressed someone to choose his best, they would probably more often than not say The Crucible , because A: they studied it, or B: they have actually seen it. As for best though, maybe not. Perhaps that lies with the simpler format of A View from a Bridge , the gritty tale of immigration in the fifties. So, does this new version, a co-production between Royal & Derngate and York Theatre Royal, do it justice? In 1950s New York, hardworking longshoreman Eddie Carbone lives a simple life with his wife and niece deep in an immigrant community. When two of her Sicilian cousins arrives, slowly Eddie's life begins to change forever. In a theatre world where life is rarely simple anymore and directors of...
Read more