Review of The Flint Street Nativity, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at Maidwell Hall (Avenue Campus), Northampton

The Flint Street Nativity was presented by the BA Actors as part of a double bill with The Night Before Christmas, and you could hardly imagine such a difference in style. Tim Firth's genuinely, quite endearing play was quite the opposite to the rough and vicious Christmas spirit of the previous show.

Flint Street offers the intriguing situation of adult performers acting as children as they present to their audience (and always watched by the unseen, but a creepy red lighted teacher, Mrs Horrocks), their production of the nativity. It forms quite a delight of totally recognisable characters from your school days if you are able to remember that far back.

Among my favourite performances from this are Gemma Fensham as the total brat Gabriel, never seeming to have an expression other than sucking a lemon, as she breezily switches her best friend back and forth with abandon. She rather stylishly perfected the sulking strutting off routine as well, fabulous! Playing up to his size with menace (but high humour mostly), Jake Wyatt brought a style to his sudden appearances as the Innkeeper, which were all perfectly timed.

There was a delightful performance from Robert Charles as the sweet-natured, but unfriended Wise Frankincense, who garnered much of the audience sympathies, along with an equally understated performance from Terell Oswald as Ass. Robert Barnes created some brilliant humour as Herod/Joseph, in a character that reminded me much of Max in The Play That Goes Wrong, who himself is still a child at heart. Barnes' timing, and audience reactive ease, clearly made clear that there is quite a performer there.

I found Farrah Dark quite delightful and suitably innocent as Mary, despite the constant threat of role usurpation from the plotting Gabriel. She also achieved quite an impressive puke, if that can be listed as a suitable acting achievement for the CV? Finally, my favourite performance came from Megan Leask-Walters as the Narrator, not necessarily a showy role, but one that with great effort, can be made one. For me, Leask-Walters did this rather brilliantly, who of all the cast, nailed down the youthful nature of the role the best. Trying desperately as she might to keep the show moving along as the chaos surmounted around her. Really delightful.

The play itself is great fun and makes a sensible one act option despite the fact that it is populated with a large number of characters. They all get fully realised by both writer and performers within this fifty minute or so play, and while they might even during that short time become over-familiar, it remains an entertaining piece of theatre throughout. A nice friendly and really quite sweet play, nicely performed.

Performance viewed: Friday 15 December 2017 (matinee) at Maidwell Hall, University of Northampton (Avenue Campus), Northampton
Twitter feed for the University actors is @BA_Actors

Review of & Juliet at Milton Keynes Theatre

First performed in 2019, & Juliet has become quite a global success, and now, as part of a UK Tour, it has arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre for a two-week run. Featuring a book by David West Read, it tells the what-if story of the survival of Juliet at the end of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet . Primarily a jukebox musical, it more specifically features the works of Swedish songwriter Max Martin (and friends, as the credits describe). The question is, does & Juliet provide more than the standard of many a jukebox musical before it, and does it honour the tragic tale from which it has sprung? Our story opens with William Shakespeare presenting his latest work, Romeo & Juliet , for the first time. However, when his wife, Anne Hathaway, learns how he intends the tale to end, she is away with his quill and planning on her reworking of the story. At the core of this touring production's success is Geraldine Sacdalan's powerhouse performance as Juliet. Her Juliet ...

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre

Richard O’Brien’s anarchic, surreal, and often incomprehensible musical, The Rocky Horror Show , has captivated audiences for over fifty years now. With this new tour, it feels as fresh and unpredictable as if it had just emerged from O’Brien's vivid imagination yesterday. While another review might seem unnecessary given the countless dressed-up fans who fill every theatre it visits, let’s go ahead and write one anyway. The Rocky Horror Show follows the adventures of Brad and Janet, a newly engaged couple. On a dark and stormy November evening, they run into car trouble and seek refuge at a mysterious castle reminiscent of Frankenstein’s. There, they encounter the eccentric handyman Riff-Raff, the outrageous scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter, and a host of other bizarre characters. What unfolds is a science fiction B-movie narrative that is at times coherent and at other times bewildering — yet somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. I first saw The Rocky Horror Show in 2019 and exper...

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 ...

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