Skip to main content

Review of Flash Festival 2019: A Splice Of Life by Ripple Ensemble at Castle Hill URC

Ripple Ensemble's A Splice of Life opens very traditionally and innocently, a couple coming together, moving in, setting out on their life adventure. It's all very cosy, and of course, we know this isn't destined to continue like this. Our couple Kate and Mark are struggling to have children, so much so they end up on rounds of IVF. With this failing to work before the money runs out, a rather intriguing proposition is put to them via a medical trial into genetics.

This results in Kate and Mark building a baby, years later to become the grown-up Sophie. Added to the family is adopted Luke, and the slightly less nimble Kate with creaking bones, and the now greyed Mark now appear to have the perfect family. Sophie is heading towards the Olympics, and Luke has followed the artistic nature of Kate. All is well until a chance discovery changes events dramatically.

A Splice of Life's brilliant theatre, always intriguing, with never a dull moment. Kit Wiles and Ryan Greendale are exceptional as Kate and Mark, this is a real relationship depicted, believable and heartbreaking at times. It is just so brilliantly conceived and written, with some stunning silent moments of just physical interaction.

The children at times take a backseat, and Tim Medcalf's Luke is never really given enough to do other than to be wisecracking. However, his sparring with sister Sophie (Meredith Barnett) is always great fun.

However, there is one single scene that sets A Splice Of Life apart from many a Flash show, and that is the confrontation between Sophie and her father. Here, Greendale and Barnett are at their very best, performing an almost perfectly scripted piece. A bitterness running through them both, but still, love showing the most. This is a cruel scene of emotions that is truly affecting, I know I was, some tremendous power of acting here on show. It also is dissipated in an incredibly brilliant moment of comedy. A rollercoaster scene indeed, and here Barnett is particularly stunning.

There is a lot of moral stuff going on in A Splice of Life, again as always with a Flash show, much to think about. However, most important of all, while it was happening, it was just tremendously entertaining. A real cracker!

Performance viewed: Thursday 4th April 2019

The Flash Festival 2019 ran until Sunday 7th April 2019 at venues across the town.
Details here: Flash Festival 2019
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

Seeing the 46-year-old Rocky Horror Show at the theatre for the first time is quite an experience on many levels. First and foremost as a regular theatregoer, the audience, even on a relatively demure evening of a Monday, is something you would never really experience at a theatre beyond this show. Many are dressed up (even on that demure Monday), and so many are so in tune with the show, that these regular fans have become entwined within it. They know every word of the script, they contribute to it, they enhance it, often they make Richard O'Brien's already adult content into something much more adult. It's a revelation of experience, much before a newbie such as myself even considers the show. Laura Harrison's beautifully clear rendition of Science Fiction/Double Feature sets the scene for some generally excellent performances of O'Brien's classic tunes, in a musical which is clearly audible, sadly not something that always happens with many productio...
Read more

Review of Cinderella, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at Maidwell Hall (Avenue Campus), Northampton

So, this is a bit different, the third year actors (my fifth group of them!) do panto, Cinderella to be precise. Pantomime is my perennial favourite bit of theatre. Oh no, it isn't! However, I have long acknowledged that for an actor, the form is both incredibly important, because if you can entertain kids, you can probably do anything, it also provides a large opening for a regular gig each year as they are so abundant. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the intelligent bods teaching these students have come to the decision to create a little panto action of their own. This first of three (and the other two are very different beasts, as you will learn from the next reviews) is the ever so traditional one. Formed partly from the work of Looking Glass Theatre and director James Smith, I first saw much of this piece in January 2015, and although I didn't remember a great deal of it after this time, the cheese song managed to flash back to me, perhaps, sadly. So, ...
Read more

Review of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

This tour of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical has become sadly a double-tribute as it tours throughout the UK into 2023 and the love of its creator Jim Steinman, and the man who made his work world-famous, Meat Loaf, both lost in the last year, runs through the cast in this impressive version of the show. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell takes the Peter Pan idea and warps it into a dystopian world of a group of youth known as The Lost trapped forever at 18 years of age. The centre of this group is Strat, who, after a chance encounter, becomes under the spell of Raven. Of course, into this mix must come a megalomaniac, as all dystopian worlds really need. This is the father of Raven, Falco, who, with his wife Sloane, battle The Lost, Raven’s relationship with Strat, and indeed their own very bizarre relationship, to the backdrop of Steinman’s music. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t start particularly well, be it the performance or a show issue, for the first twenty minutes there is a lack of clarit...
Read more