Skip to main content

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

Popular posts from this blog

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

Seeing the 46-year-old Rocky Horror Show at the theatre for the first time is quite an experience on many levels. First and foremost as a regular theatregoer, the audience, even on a relatively demure evening of a Monday, is something you would never really experience at a theatre beyond this show. Many are dressed up (even on that demure Monday), and so many are so in tune with the show, that these regular fans have become entwined within it. They know every word of the script, they contribute to it, they enhance it, often they make Richard O'Brien's already adult content into something much more adult. It's a revelation of experience, much before a newbie such as myself even considers the show. Laura Harrison's beautifully clear rendition of Science Fiction/Double Feature sets the scene for some generally excellent performances of O'Brien's classic tunes, in a musical which is clearly audible, sadly not something that always happens with many productio...

Review of Breaking the Code at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Breaking The Code , the opening play in the new Made in Northampton season at Royal & Derngate, is a surprisingly old and rarely seen play. Written in 1986 by Hugh Whitemore, it tells the story of legendary codebreaker Alan Turing, a man who, in the 1980s, when this play first appeared, was relatively unknown. The years since the origin of this play have been good for Turing, with his life's work finally getting the recognition it deserves, and also, very much what this play centres on, a recognition of the horrific life and end that Turing had as a result of dealing with the laws of the day. Breaking the Code has seen life before on the stage of the Royal, as back in 2003, Philip Franks took to the role of Turing in a very well-received production. So, what of this brand new version directed by the Royal & Derngate's artistic director Jesse Jones? Does it live up to Turing's legend? That is an unquestionable yes with no machines needed to crack the class behind thi...

Review of Cinderella, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at Maidwell Hall (Avenue Campus), Northampton

So, this is a bit different, the third year actors (my fifth group of them!) do panto, Cinderella to be precise. Pantomime is my perennial favourite bit of theatre. Oh no, it isn't! However, I have long acknowledged that for an actor, the form is both incredibly important, because if you can entertain kids, you can probably do anything, it also provides a large opening for a regular gig each year as they are so abundant. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the intelligent bods teaching these students have come to the decision to create a little panto action of their own. This first of three (and the other two are very different beasts, as you will learn from the next reviews) is the ever so traditional one. Formed partly from the work of Looking Glass Theatre and director James Smith, I first saw much of this piece in January 2015, and although I didn't remember a great deal of it after this time, the cheese song managed to flash back to me, perhaps, sadly. So, ...