Skip to main content

Flash Festival 2017: Push & Shove by Crisis Point Theatre at Hazelrigg House, Northampton

Despite being a long term blogger, the alternative vlogging has mostly passed me by and I have rarely sat and watched many and certainly am not an avid subscriber of one, however the social revolution of them has not passed me by as I am very aware that many people make an awful lot of money nowadays as vlogging stars. In this Flash show Olly Manning plays one such vlogger and in Push & Shove, he has something very special for his subscribers.

To be perfectly frank, that something special is really quite simple to guess. I realised very early the contents of the ominous box that Olly's character Jared Howell presents to his audience at the start of the vlog, and it is clear very early on who is going to be on the end of the said contents as Jared goes through his pretty bleak piece to camera. However guessing does not change the impact of this cleverly put together play.

At the basis of this Flash is another issue play, this time mental illness, one which thankfully is gaining more and more recognition after having spent too long being ignored, most especially in the male gender. Push & Shove handles it with a nice touch, allowing the story to unfold in a believable way, Olly chipping away for the audience the emotions of Jared beneath.

There is a delightfully well-sung song during proceedings to music nicely played on guitar by Luke Mortimore, although this did get me wondering how we were meant to interpret his appearance as everything was supposedly done live. Was this chap sitting in the corner of the room observing Jared as he made his final vlog? It just felt strange as everything else was intuitive and being created very naturalistically by one person for his audience. Not a problem, just a little something I was unsure of.

There is also an issue of performing to a camera for a vlog for the audience within the room and this was slightly made more problematic by the configuration if the seating with audiences on two sides rather than the usual format, which could have meant it was presented front on, instead of often to one side.

However this was a powerful piece of theatre well performed by Olly, which while didn't hold much surprise (except for one member of the audience), was very well constructed and believable in its telling of a very real issue that the world needs to deal with.

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 My Mother's Funeral: The Show at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The title My Mother's Funeral: The Show is perhaps not the most attractive title for a theatre show, however, this show had great success at the Edinburgh Fringe and now arriving at Royal & Derngate, one of its co-producing theatres, so, let's look beyond the unusual title and see what lies beneath. Abigail is a theatre dramatist pursuing plays that the theatres no longer want. Her "gay bugs in space" saga falls foul of being fiction for a start, something a theatre director states audiences no longer want stating they want gritty, real experiences, theatre with painful truths. So, after Abigail devastatingly loses her mother and finds no money to pay the funeral fees, she pursues the creation of a very personal theatre show. My Mother's Funeral: The Show is gritty and sad, but, also in many ways very funny, if in a dark way. Writer Kelly Jones digs deep into the world of poverty in Dagenham and countless estates across the country. A world of people born in...