Review of Flash Festival 2019: The Way by Cosmos Theatre Company at Looking Glass Theatre, Northampton

Solo pieces at Flash have quite a checkered history, one of the very best Flash shows I have seen was a solo one, however, many of the worst also were. They have the balance of either a performer getting everything right, for both the audience and themselves or as sometimes happens, a single person running wild with limited reasoning and it ending in a crash. The Way from Louise Akroyd and her Cosmos Theatre Company gets, fortunately, everything pretty much right.

We meet her character Vicky strewn across her bed, after a very heavy night. Her makeup still on, mostly in the right place. After a distraught and comical search for her phone, she discovers news from her mother that her childhood friend has cancer. A rift has been between them for years, but is now the time right to seal it?

The Way is simple in every way, but that is how it works so well. This is about whether you deal with something that probably wasn't anything in the first place to rebuild bridges before it is too late. It's a gently emotional tale, performed with an incredibly soulful performance by Akroyd. There is no glamour in her initial appearance, and her total belief in the material makes us believe every moment.

I was unsure to the very end whether Vicky was just talking to herself or addressing us directly, but, it mattered not. This story was something we could all understand, we all have someone, or maybe more, who we have drifted away from, most likely for very petty reasons, so The Way is something that works on all levels, and it is just a gloriously little piece of theatre as a result.

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

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...

Review of Dear England at Milton Keynes Theatre

James Graham’s award-winning play Dear England has been around a while now, and indeed, when it was first staged in 2023, some events depicted here hadn’t even happened. Therefore, the pen, likely keyboard, of Graham has been busy adding what amounts to a further epilogue, and it now amounts to the complete package of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as the poisoned chalice that is England football manager. For those who may have missed it, Dear England tells the story of Southgate’s journey from his inception into the manager role in 2016 to his eventual departure and knighthood in the New Year’s Honours of 2025. However, this play, while centred on the beautiful game, is more than about kicking a ball and managing and coaching it. Writer Graham mines from the source material a piece that very much explores what it is to be English and, with Southgate’s approach to coaching, what makes the brain tick. To that effect, enter psychologist Pippa Grange, and the journey for Southgate to become ...

Review of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

Music artist Tina Turner was a staple of the music network for a remarkable time, active as an artist for eight decades; her work is, or at the very least should be, familiar to every generation. Therefore, it was little surprise that in 2018, a stage musical of her work and life arrived upon the stage. You could say that for such an artist, it actually took longer than it should have to appear. Now, as part of its first UK & Ireland tour, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical , it arrives at Milton Keynes Theatre for a two-week run. So, the question is, is it worthy of the legendary artist? For those unfamiliar with any part of Tina Turner's life, the content of this stage musical telling her life story might be a surprise to an audience that grew up just listening to her music. It is an early commendation of the show that the show does not shy away from the themes of domestic abuse, racism and parental abandonment that Turner suffered through her life. With all that rich and startlin...

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