Show five for me was yet another tough subject. This play concerned the murky path that relationships could take and came from Monkey Shine, a quartet of George Finney, Annie Jones, David Johns and Nicola Schopp.
The format of this play was similar to Sell By Date, tackling a tough subject in both a serious and comic way. And for the most part it was very effective. For me it did take a little to get going, with a deliberate or problematic(?) technical fault in the opening performance.
So after a sort of half and half start, the play really hit the ground running with the blind date scene between Johns and Schopp. The latter playing the crazed part and this was a very funny, date gone wrong scene. The ending however was the crunch part as the audience was made to judge that all of a sudden this was not funny once the roles were reversed. A very clever piece of work, very well performed.
The physical requirement was, it has to be said very physical. With the four performers repeating well timed and physically impacting moves on their own body. Particularly David Johns who put so much into the traumas he was depicting, the bruises and pain was visibly far more than a "performance".
Scattered liberally throughout the play were also some very good musical interludes and comical sketches (so loved the banana scene, great work Annie and Nicola!). However possibly the scene that most would leave thinking about was the bar scene, presented with both a funny and dangerously violent aspect. This was the meat of the whole play and very, very powerful.
I tweeted yesterday that "If the @BA_Actors did a @Flash_Festival play about pink fluffy bunny rabbits it would centre around an outbreak of myxomatosis" and I was not kidding you. These young men and ladies are taking the toughest of subjects and going at them full steam and You & Me was no different. You need to be prepared for a tough viewing, but they are also tremendously rewarding pieces to see.
YAH!
The format of this play was similar to Sell By Date, tackling a tough subject in both a serious and comic way. And for the most part it was very effective. For me it did take a little to get going, with a deliberate or problematic(?) technical fault in the opening performance.
So after a sort of half and half start, the play really hit the ground running with the blind date scene between Johns and Schopp. The latter playing the crazed part and this was a very funny, date gone wrong scene. The ending however was the crunch part as the audience was made to judge that all of a sudden this was not funny once the roles were reversed. A very clever piece of work, very well performed.
The physical requirement was, it has to be said very physical. With the four performers repeating well timed and physically impacting moves on their own body. Particularly David Johns who put so much into the traumas he was depicting, the bruises and pain was visibly far more than a "performance".
Scattered liberally throughout the play were also some very good musical interludes and comical sketches (so loved the banana scene, great work Annie and Nicola!). However possibly the scene that most would leave thinking about was the bar scene, presented with both a funny and dangerously violent aspect. This was the meat of the whole play and very, very powerful.
I tweeted yesterday that "If the @BA_Actors did a @Flash_Festival play about pink fluffy bunny rabbits it would centre around an outbreak of myxomatosis" and I was not kidding you. These young men and ladies are taking the toughest of subjects and going at them full steam and You & Me was no different. You need to be prepared for a tough viewing, but they are also tremendously rewarding pieces to see.
YAH!
You & Me is on at the Royal & Derngate (Underground) on Wednesday 14th at 6pm and Saturday 17th at 11am