Skip to main content

Flash Festival: Part Seven - Vallence Road (The Reggie Kray Story) at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

A ninety minute envelope opened up for me on the final night of the Flash Festival and it somehow luckily managed to absorb a seventy minute production of Vallence Road from Rising Persona, a solo company from Steven-James Leonard.

I had been assured by @mudbeast76 that this should be a play I should see, and he was not wrong. I had initially deselected this play at the time for a mixture of time reasons and because the subject matter sounded far from interesting to me. However sometimes it has to be said that even if in theory the material doesn't sound good to you, if it is well done you still find something interesting. Vallence Road was well done, telling the story of criminal Reggie Kray.

At seventy minutes it was the second longest play of the week and for a solo performance this was a heck of an undertaking. Mr Leonard had no trouble undertaking it. This was a real, real, quality production. Well researched and well performed, very much like watching a drama documentary.

The set was also one of the best of the week, particularly two very clever panels featuring silhouettes of Ronnie Kray and Reggie's wife Frances, which were interacted with in a impressive style.

Tech was minimal but effective with a little period music, some hard written letters on screen and finally footage of the final interview with Kray cleverly interspersed with Mr Leonard laying on a bed.

An excellent play, not my favourite of the week, but strangely perhaps the most interesting as I did feel that I had learnt a great deal about the notorious character upon leaving the Underground and the Flash Festival for the final time.


Vallence Road was on at the Royal & Derngate (Underground).

The Flash Festival has now concluded for 2014, but the website is still active at http://flashtheatrefestival.wix.com/flashtheatrefestival

Popular posts from this blog

Review of & Juliet at Milton Keynes Theatre

First performed in 2019, & Juliet has become quite a global success, and now, as part of a UK Tour, it has arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre for a two-week run. Featuring a book by David West Read, it tells the what-if story of the survival of Juliet at the end of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet . Primarily a jukebox musical, it more specifically features the works of Swedish songwriter Max Martin (and friends, as the credits describe). The question is, does & Juliet provide more than the standard of many a jukebox musical before it, and does it honour the tragic tale from which it has sprung? Our story opens with William Shakespeare presenting his latest work, Romeo & Juliet , for the first time. However, when his wife, Anne Hathaway, learns how he intends the tale to end, she is away with his quill and planning on her reworking of the story. At the core of this touring production's success is Geraldine Sacdalan's powerhouse performance as Juliet. Her Juliet ...

Review of Northern Ballet - The Great Gatsby at Milton Keynes Theatre

This production of The Great Gatsby performed by Northern Ballet was my fifth encounter at the theatre of a full ballet production and as before, I happily share my review of the show with nearly zero knowledge of-the-art form and more of a casual theatre-goer. You could say that this is a poor direction to come in on a review, but I would say that casual audience are the ones to review this for. Over the years, Northern Ballet has set quite a high benchmark for ballet productions, and any audience member who is worth their salt as a ballet fan would no doubt have tickets for this new touring version of the 2013 version of The Great Gatsby , lovingly created by David Nixon OBE. So much is Nixon part of the very fabric of this show, that he not only provides the choreography and direction but also the initial scenario and costume design (assisted by Julie Anderson). So, discounting those ballet fans already sitting in the audience, what does this offer for the more casual theatre-goer ...

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre

Richard O’Brien’s anarchic, surreal, and often incomprehensible musical, The Rocky Horror Show , has captivated audiences for over fifty years now. With this new tour, it feels as fresh and unpredictable as if it had just emerged from O’Brien's vivid imagination yesterday. While another review might seem unnecessary given the countless dressed-up fans who fill every theatre it visits, let’s go ahead and write one anyway. The Rocky Horror Show follows the adventures of Brad and Janet, a newly engaged couple. On a dark and stormy November evening, they run into car trouble and seek refuge at a mysterious castle reminiscent of Frankenstein’s. There, they encounter the eccentric handyman Riff-Raff, the outrageous scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter, and a host of other bizarre characters. What unfolds is a science fiction B-movie narrative that is at times coherent and at other times bewildering — yet somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. I first saw The Rocky Horror Show in 2019 and exper...