Skip to main content

Review of Lilies On The Land performed by The Masque Theatre at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing an all-female cast at the Playhouse perform Bazaar & Rummage and to see a four strong cast of ladies in the latest Masque production was an equal delight.

Lilies On The Land is written by the wonderfully named Lions Part, a group of professional performers that collaborate to create theatrical pieces, and in this they have truly created a gem of a show. Telling the story of four former Landgirls whose memories are stirred upon hearing of the death of Winston Churchill, their reminiscences form a loving history of their challenging, occasionally sad, but often humorous time on the land.

The four strong cast of Jen Kenny, Sarah Stringer, Hannah Burt and Liz Clarke are uniformly excellent. Jen Kenny portrays a wonderfully refined and obviously quite lonely Margie and she has a confident forward way of projecting to the audience. That time where she just sits while the rest join in a jolly song are genuinely quite sad moments. Sarah Stringer's Peggy is quite different, a confident cockney who provides much of the laughs and is almost always a cheerful presence.

The youngest cast member Hannah Burt, who I had been delighted by as Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods last December, was once again a sparky presence. I particularly liked her other characters (the play features as well as the four mains, literally dozens more played by the cast) that she effortlessly drifted into. She was, and I mean this very kindly, a most wonderful and comical cud chewing cow. The final cast member just about edges it for me as the best performance. Liz Clarke's Vera adds a glorious air of authority to proceedings, the obviously more educated character but portrayed with a mischievous edge. A most wonderful performance.

The play itself is a constant delight and the songs throughout always provide a surprise and are absolutely perfectly performed by the cast. The play itself, while it has many visual moments, does have a very wordy, descriptive feel to it (a good thing) and I could see this working equally well as a radio play.

Having said that, director Ursula Wright has crafted many wonderful moments on the eye, including comic moments like Run Rabbit Run. The addition of the boxes is also a clever inventive idea and that with set designer Bex Fey and the wonderful colourful backdrop made a lovely visual flair. I also felt not performing as a round helped the clarity of the performances greatly, and while the round is a wonderful dynamic flair for a director no doubt, it is also I suspect both a challenge for them and the audience sometimes. As a silly side not, I did miss the seemingly constantly present Owen Warr though, so as a slight indulgence, I would myself have had him to one side of the stage performing Winston's lines. However that is me.

A wonderful fun play, lovingly and skillfully performed and at the top of the list of amateurs plays I have seen to date.


Performance reviewed: 10th October, 2015 (matinee) at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton.

Macbeth was performed by the Masque Theatre between Tuesday 6th and 10th October
, 2015 at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton.

Details of the Masque Theatre can be found at http://www.masquetheatre.co.uk/



Popular posts from this blog

Review of Murder She Didn't Write at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Murder She Didn't Write , stopping off for a four-day run at Royal & Derngate on a lengthy UK tour, treads the now well-worn path of an improvisational evening of theatre entertainment. Unsurprisingly, from the title, this show from Degrees of Error's takes a murder mystery as its inspiration, with the story influenced by ideas from the audience each evening. Due to this, Murder She Didn't Write and a review are very much an individual affair. What I saw in my evening at the theatre will differ significantly from what the audience will see the following evening; however, the fine performers will remain. The touring cast, in no particular order, is Lizzy Skrzypiec, Rachael Procter-Lane, Peter Baker, Caitlin Campbell, Stephen Clements, Douglas Walker, Harry Allmark, Rosalind Beeson, Sylvia Bishop, Emily Brady, Alice Lamb, Sara Garrard, Peta Maurice and Matthew Whittle. For my performance, Skrzypiec, Procter-Lane, Baker, Walker, Bishop, and Clements were on stage alongsid...

Review of Immune by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The cover note for the script of Oladipo Agboluaje's Immune describes it as "a challenging science fiction play with a large cast", and the word challenging in this case is not a lie. This is a fast paced, multi-cast changing script which leaves little room for error for its young cast in the performance. If the script isn't enough to handle for the young performers, director Christopher Elmer-Gorry and designer Carl Davies have made the situation even more complex for the actors with the set and stage work. Having to manhandle great panels on wheels and a huge cube, which also splits in two occasionally, during scene changes requires skill, coordination and cooperation of a high level. As if all this is not enough, the actual story is epic enough for the relatively small stage of the Royal. Attempting to form an apocalyptic world (albeit only happening in Plymouth) offers challenges in itself, but Agboluaje's script does that in a sort of apocalypse in the teac...

Review of Les Misérables: School Edition (NMTC Youth Society) at the Cripps Hall Theatre, Northampton

From my four years or so of watching theatre in Northampton, there is one thing beyond the huge professional shows that I see touring, that I always enjoy so much more (despite the occasional dodginess of the quality), and that is youth theatre. For me in my heart, it adds something special, here we have the often maligned young of today, getting out there and doing something truly fulfilling. Here though, with the debut of the newly formed Youth Society, spinning off from the adult Northampton Musical Theatre Company, we have something also which goes beyond enthusiasm of the young to create a really special piece of theatre. Les Misérables is in the top three of musicals for me, I love its huge numbers, I connect to its story, and it has some extremely strong characters, for me, it just works. Therefore, you could say that I would have an immediate bias towards this show, however, I do feel protective of it as well, so, it needs to be done right. However, I have nothing to worry...