Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2017: The Powers That Be by Tangled Spines Theatre Company at St Peter's Church, Northampton

Perhaps of all the Flash Festival shows this year, Tangled Spines' The Powers That Be was the one that I was most looking forward to seeing. I had read Luke Rhinehart's intriguing novel The Dice Man (on which this is based) some years ago and while the main plot had long departed my mind, the truly fascinating premise that permeates the story is genuinely very clever. Our protagonist lives life by the throw of a die where his every action is decided by the number that the dice scattered at his feet portray.

Steven Croydon
A quick google of The Dice Man offers a rather bizarre fact that for some reason this story and idea hasn't been developed to any great degree over the years with just one minor mini-series and a couple of plays taking on the idea, therefore Tangled Spines are very much onto something and their nippy and clever performance brings to life the story to fascinating effect and doesn't hold back on the controversy and power of the original novel either.

After a quite brilliant repeated, but slowly altering physical routine, we are immediately presented with our lead Luke Rhinehart (Steven Croydon) throwing a die to decide if he rapes his mistress (Jen Wyndham). We do not see, but quickly learn that the answer is yes and he matter of factly presents this information to her and in this world that this story lives within, it is accepted by her.
Jen Wyndham

I love the fact that this play doesn't shy away at all from this power and repulsiveness of the original. When I read it originally I felt that although it told obviously a very different story, its morals were very much like that of A Clockwork Orange. This is crime and evilness often of the highest order, but you can't help but for the duration almost be on the depraves side.

Jack James
Steven Croydon given the meaty lead character also offers the best of the performances, however, that doesn't detract from the others. Jack James is excellent as a close colleague, while even better as Rhinehart's son, again showing skill at creating both a believable but never silly youngster seen successfully more than a few times at Flash.

Jen Wyndham is once again her captivating best as both woman in Rhinehart's life, the aforementioned mistress and his wife (it is worth noting that beyond this performance, a pair of crutches were her "friend" and this demanding performance truly showed her dedication to her chosen profession).

I truly loved The Powers That Be for bringing that wonderful novel to life in physical form. Tremendously well chosen, brilliantly created within both the altar space and within a neat and sensible running time. Thank you Tangled Spines for reintroducing me to Rhineharts religion of the die.

Performance viewed: Thursday, 25th 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 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 Bat Out of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

This tour of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical has become sadly a double-tribute as it tours throughout the UK into 2023 and the love of its creator Jim Steinman, and the man who made his work world-famous, Meat Loaf, both lost in the last year, runs through the cast in this impressive version of the show. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell takes the Peter Pan idea and warps it into a dystopian world of a group of youth known as The Lost trapped forever at 18 years of age. The centre of this group is Strat, who, after a chance encounter, becomes under the spell of Raven. Of course, into this mix must come a megalomaniac, as all dystopian worlds really need. This is the father of Raven, Falco, who, with his wife Sloane, battle The Lost, Raven’s relationship with Strat, and indeed their own very bizarre relationship, to the backdrop of Steinman’s music. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t start particularly well, be it the performance or a show issue, for the first twenty minutes there is a lack of clarit...

Review of It's A Wonderful Life by Masque Theatre at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

Remarkably I only saw the classic film It's A Wonderful Life last Christmas, this was thanks to spotting it lurking on my subscription of Netflix. A glorious heartwarming film perfect for Christmas? That must be why I was a blubbering mess at the end of it then. There was hope that in public, The Masque Theatre's performance of the radio version of the story didn't leave me in the same situation. As it happened it did a little as that final scene in the Bailey household played out again, but it didn't matter as there were members of the cast in the same broken state as many of us audience members. Left to right: Jo Molyneux, John Myhill, Lisa Wright, Michael Street, Lisa Shepherd and Jof Davies This was the first radio play that I had seen performed and on the evidence of this, I sure would like to see some more. While not having the drama of standard plays in their creation of moment and places, they do have a rather striking drive towards character creation. The ...