Review of Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire's Celebrate Northampton at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

You would probably be hard pushed to find a show of such contrasting quality on the Derngate stage than Celebrate Northampton. There was much brilliance at times, but also some, saying in my kindest way possible, less good. However it was totally unimportant about the quality on such a night, because it just did not matter. Celebrate Northampton was just a joyful couple of hours or so of ordinary people being 100% braver than I would be and seizing that chance to perform on the Derngate stage.

The show was broken into two separate parts with the pre-interval a dance orientated one and after the interval a full choir. The show was introduced by VIN Chief Executive Jane Carr, hosted by John Fisher and the choir directed by the seemingly omnipresent Gareth Fuller.

I rather unexpectedly enjoyed the first half of the show the most, despite the fact that I was looking forward to the choir part having experienced and enjoyed a few in recent months. Maybe its that the dance part offered a constantly changing spectrum with Indian dance, Sikh drumming and the revelation of belly dancing from the Haraam Arab/Egyptian Dance Troupe. My favourites of the half though were the stunning performances by Starlight Stage School and Ashby's School Of Dance. They were simply stunning and their routines were themselves a constantly evolving beast, with quick music changes and styles of dance. They were the pick of the night for me.

The choir while spectacular was oddly an anticlimax. Don't get me wrong I loved it (although I have to say that there were sound issues for me, I think the volume on the speakers was just too loud), and they performed an impressive variety of songs with the last two Heal The World and Rather Be my favourites. It was just a little less impressive than I had hoped.

So a mixed bag of quality, but an absolute delight of an evening simply because these people were having fun and we couldn't help but have fun with them. I left with a happy grin upon the face and that can never be a bad thing.

As a side note to my review, there was something even more prominent than usual last night with the audience. With these public performance shows the bulk of the audience is made up of friends and family of performers and it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that sadly these are not the best kind of theatre goers. I always expect a certain amount of fluid movement in these shows now with people coming and going. However from my slightly lofty position last night in a circle box, I saw an even more ugly occurrence from a few people. First of all putting in context, there was a lot of filming going on last night on mobiles (I believe that this was accepted for this show). However what I noticed last night were people filming single parts which were obviously their family/friends, which was fine. What wasn't fine for me, was that some of these got up and left after they had filmed their pieces. While I know nothing can be done about this, it smacks of a horrifying disrespect for the other performers and comes as a huge disappointment to me. There you go, axe grinded.

Review of Lord Of The Dance at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The stage show Lord of the Dance possibly needs little introduction to most people, as it has become a legend and now, in this touring version, subtitled rather immodestly, 25 Years of Standing Ovations, it reaches a landmark anniversary. Those that do not know of the show would probably well know its spiritual fathers Michael Flatley, and even more likely Riverdance , from which Lord of the Dance sprung with a proper spring in its step. During the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, Riverdance hit the world by storm as Michael Flatley and his troop of dancers possibly presented the most famous part of Eurovision ever, certainly of the non-singing variety at least. Here, this touring show brings that same style Flatley created from traditional Irish dancing across the country once again and it is truly something special to see. The concept of the show is simply a battle between good and evil told through dance, and some captivating and stunning songs performed by Celyn Cartw...

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...

Camden Fringe Review: FEET by Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play at Etcetera Theatre, London

While some issue plays tend to miss the point of providing fun and entertainment as well as making their point on a relevant issue, FEET is certainly not one of them. Written, produced, directed and performed by the two-person team of Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play, this is clearly a labour of love of the two, full names Emma Brown and Lawrence Smith, it is fun and engaging throughout. It's "issue" is loosely about selling your body for money or art and how far you might be willing to push it. Lucy Winwood (Emma Brown) is your typical young actress, struggling hard to get those money making roles, or roles in general, and in need of money she stumbles upon the world of feet fetishism (as you, of course, would) and slowly from just images of her feet sold online, it becomes feet in jelly and then finally personal meetings with clients for full on feet interaction. The path that FEET takes is that is this denigration of your body in selling your feet actually worse than...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog