Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2017: G.M.H. by Stalagmite Theatre Company at St Peter's Church, Northampton

G.M.H. stands for Genetically Modified Human in Stalagmite Theatre's involving, if a little slowly building the tale of a potential future. We are introduced from the opening to two scavengers who appear to be far from those in the title and are indeed survivors of the pure species. These two are played with a nicely realistic tone by Daniel Ambrose-Jones (Kamari) and Jamal Franklin (Iblis). They happily appear to have a love/hate relationship with each other, yet in this harsh environment also clearly need to respect and need one another to survive.

Thrown into this pairing upon arrival at an underground base (featuring a huge, nicely decorated structure with artwork from former Flash performer Zoe Davey), is a G.M.H. of the title, Atara. She is played by Jessica Bridge with an icily chilling style, cold and obviously calculating but not letting on her true motives perhaps.

The play itself is a curious one and as mentioned is a little slow to build considering its length, however, it is a great idea and nicely balanced in content with humour and drama. There is some nice video usage including a well directed corporate piece (although I would have tried to avoid this repeating so much and made it a proper part of the plays start).

The audience leaves on a high from this production though as despite any slowness early on, there is a brilliantly well-judged and played out twist at the end, which happily makes any possible early disappointments unimportant. I think definitely a potential for an expansion of the duration and life in the future, as there is much to be mined from this scenario.

Performance viewed: Monday 22nd May 2017

The Flash Festival 2017 ran between Monday 22nd and Saturday 27th May 2017 at three venues across the town.

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Frankenstein at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Over 200 years since its first publication it is remarkable to think that what is, in essence, a scientific novel such as Frankenstein is still so relevant in content today. However, as science evolves endlessly, and now with AI becoming so dominant and controversial, the difference between right and wrong, good and evil in science, and what is too inhuman is as current as ever. Tilted Wig's production, now at the end of its UK tour at Royal & Derngate and written and directed by Sean Aydon takes the original story and sets it about halfway between the first publication and modern day, around the time leading up to the Second World War. Aydon's adaptation works really well in placing the story within this degenerating world, a place where true horror is around the corner, and veiled ideas of their (Germany's) interest in Frankenstein's work are gently developed. However, while Aydon clearly had this idea in his head and his pen when scripting this version, the polit

Review of Hacktivists by Ben Ockrent performed by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

The National Theatres Connections series of plays had been one of my highlights of my trips to R&D during 2014. Their short and snappy single act style kept them all interesting and never overstaying their welcome. So I was more than ready for my first encounter with one of this years Connections plays ahead of the main week of performances at R&D later in the year. Hacktivists is written by Ben Ockrent, whose slightly wacky but socially relevant play Breeders I had seen at St James Theatre last year. Hacktivists is less surreal, but does have a fair selection of what some people would call odd. Myself of the other hand would very much be home with them. So we are presented with thirteen nerdy "friends" who meet to hack, very much in what is termed the white hat variety. This being for good, as we join them they appear to have done very little more than hacked and created some LED light device. Crashing in to spoil the party however comes Beth (Emma-Ann Cranston)

Review of Flashdance - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

For the second week running, the Milton Keynes Theatre is overrun by a wave of eighties nostalgia as Selladoor's production of Flashdance The Musical follows hot on the heels of An Officer and a Gentlemen. However, is it nice to have more of that classic decade upon the stage? The answer mostly is yes, despite the fact that the story driving Flashdance is that light and flimsy at times, you just have to sit back and watch the dancing and the bright colours to get you through. Welding genius, Alex Owens, has her sights set for a bigger thing beyond this tired and struggling factory in Pittsburgh.  Hoping to take her dancing beyond Harry's bar, she plans to make big, via Shipley Dance Academy.  Then, also drifting into her life comes Nick Hurley, who initially unknown to her, happens to be the factory bosses son, the scene is set for romance. Flashdance has a generally excellent cast led with a tremendously good performance from Joanne Clifton as Alex Owens. Those famili