Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2017: A Guide To Perfection by Sample Theatre Company at Hazelrigg House, Northampton

Sample Theatre's Flash shows bravery straight away when you enter the performance room as they have broken many of the conventions of a piece of theatre. Set up with several tables banquet style, we sit around them. There are broken sight lines in abundance and occasionally you can't even see the performer at all. On paper, this is a disaster of a piece of staging, however, its relaxed style actually is beneficial to the show as you duck back and forth observing each of the three performers, like an observer at a restaurant or other social event. The room is also cleverly given a long mirror on either side that when you don't catch your unexpected reflection, offers an alternative take to view the performers.
Florence Waite

The three performers are Samuel Littlewood, April Lissimore and Florence Waite and create fun and interesting characters. Florence was my favourite, often in the corner in hopeful control of her lighting/sound deck in this neat format of a play before a play. She is the perfect foil for this show about perfection as she self-doubts herself at every opportunity and there is a lovely aww moment of her hopeful glance to Samuels character.
Samuel Littlewood

Samuel and April appear to provide the "perfection" of the title, however obviously they are not. This play pretty much makes it clear there really isn't any such thing and in reality the pursuit of it is pointless, perfection is both in the eye of the beholder and the confidence of a person.
April Lissimore
Samuels character clearly shows that to be pursuing such a thing makes you potentially a very shallow person as you spend your life preening away at your hair or despairing at a spilt coffee stain. There is some great humour to be had from this production as well, especially in the scenes of the devil and angel on the shoulder.

It all heads to a conclusion of the opening of the seminar, which we happily see little of and provides a nice ending, if ironically the audience was a little unsure whether it had or not. Curtain calls were a fascinating thing to behold during Flash this year.

However, this is great entertainment, innovative staging and a thoroughly fun show with three very well-balanced performances.

Performance viewed: Wednesday, 24th 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 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 Bat Out Of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

Bat Out of Hell - The Musical was first realised as a stage musical back in 2017, opening at the Manchester Opera House. Since then, it has achieved significant international success. Now, as part of a new UK tour, it has returned to Milton Keynes Theatre, which it previously visited in 2022 during its global tour. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell , written by Jim Steinman, draws on the story of Peter Pan as a basis and evolves it within a dystopian world, where a group of teenagers known as The Lost live forever at the age of 18. This plot is both flimsy and initially confusing; however, within the music of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, it finds a rough-around-the-edges polish that allows this weakness to shine through and succeed. At the centre of this group of teenagers is Strat, who, following an unexpected encounter, falls under the spell of Raven. Within this, a megalomaniac lurks, as all dystopian worlds require. This maniac is Falco, the father of Raven and Sloane's husband....

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 ...