Flash Festival 2018: Out Of Shot by Periscope Theatre at Castle Hill, Northampton

In April this year, the first woman was convicted following a new domestic violence law introduction, and it couldn't, therefore, have been more timely to have seen this devastating performance from Periscope Theatre. As although at first, preconceptions suggest we are watching a man's abuse of a woman, it quickly transpires that Out Of Shot has tipped the scales in the opposite direction.

What flagged it up for me, and probably for many in the audience, was a burn from an iron. Innocent enough, but enough to bring to my mind that we were to see the less acknowledged side of domestic abuse. From this moment, Out Of Shot began to turn into an extremely intimidating piece of drama, tense and disturbing. At the helm was a tremendous and extremely scary performance from Grace Stewart Hogg as Siena. Hogg was simply incredible spinning the innocence and sweet nature with a heavy suggestion of being the victim in the police interview scenes, and turning that on the head with the private home scenes of violence towards her partner Andrew (Robert Barnes).

These scenes are so well created, lurching from a calm to a destructive nature, the scene that creates the definitive switch where Siena strikes Andrew to the ground is an amazing moment. The tables are thoroughly turned at this point, and the whole piece disguises nothing more from its audience, as we see everything that Siena controls, from who he sees, to where he goes and to what he spends. This whole piece becomes an increasingly tense journey with every moment.

The secrets are still hidden in some brilliant scenes of calm, alongside the interview sequences, a scene between Hogg and Zoe Elizabeth as her neighbour (one of three characters she plays extremely well in the play, including Andrew's sister Emily), is so finely balanced. Believable and calm in every way and beautifully, but frighteningly played.

The Out Of Shot of the title comes from a clever idea where Andrew sets up a camera to record what is happening to him. It's curious you might think that this should happen if he is so much into the fact that he is being abused, that he would set out to film it, why would he even stay? These are the questions that only victims could attempt to answer perhaps, but Barnes plays Andrew with a definite edge of believability, he loves Siena, and no matter what, he believes that that love can get him through this.

The key sequence of the film towards the end of the play, while not quite perfectly timed, really is a fabulous piece of theatre, the two worlds of film and live action merging together, to allow us to view the "out of shot" crucial action. It's brilliantly created and prepared, and most importantly, extremely believable.

Out of Shot is superb, there is no question on that. All the cast are excellent, although Hogg stands out for the menace of her performance. After a week of admittedly being the downtrodden sex in the Flash Festival (which I guess, is fair enough), it was nice to just get one tilt the other way. Quality theatre, excellently performed.

Performance viewed: Thursday 26th April 2018

The Flash Festival 2018 ran between Monday 23rd and Friday 27th April 2018 at three venues across the town.

Review of Here & Now at Milton Keynes Theatre

During the late 90s and early 2000s, the dance-pop group Steps was a mighty presence in the British charts. They accumulated two number-one albums in the UK and 14 consecutive UK top-5 singles, including two number ones. They were juggernauts of lightweight pop. It is perhaps a surprise that it took until 2024 for a musical to be based on their hits. Now, writer Shaun Kitchener brings enough campness to keep Alan Carr and Julian Clary in work for decades. Here & Now , the show everyone was waiting for, is at Milton Keynes Theatre as part of a UK tour. So, the question is: has it been worth the wait? Here & Now is, fundamentally, a ridiculous concept that should not work. Set in a supermarket, yes, a supermarket, our eclectic cast of characters go through the typical dramas of many a musical as love and drama unfold against a backdrop of jukebox music. It should never work, but it does, extremely well in fact. A huge amount of the success here has to go to writer Shaun Kitchene...

Review of Blood Brothers at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

A theatre in the east midlands, a thousand people stand applauding and cheering towards a stage where fourteen people stand. There on the stage, they bow, and bow, an inordinate number of times. They depart after a time and the lights come up over the capacity audience. So did you hear the story of the Blood Brothers show, how people flocked and came to see them play? Did you never hear about how we came to be, standing applauding the brightly lit stage this November day? Come judge for yourselves how this night did come to be. Blood Brothers was a significant show for me back in 2014, being the first musical that I saw live. Hiding up in the upper circle of the Derngate back then, not really sure what to expect, it was it turned out perhaps the perfect show to graduate me from play to musical that I could choose as Willy Russell's gritty and solid story is as confident as a straight play that perhaps any musical is. So strong is the story of the Johnstone's twins, tha...

Review of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Milton Keynes Theatre

There have been numerous productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's groundbreaking musical since it first appeared in 1968 and opened in the West End in 1973. One might wonder if there is still room for another tour. However, judging by the packed audience in Milton Keynes Theatre for the opening night of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , much interest remains for this show. Also, with this production first seen at The London Palladium in June 2019, and with a few production elements altered, Joseph still has, after all those years, the room to change and evolve. However, the question is, does this change help or hinder the show's history? For those unfamiliar with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it tells the story of Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, in a lighthearted and musical style that jumps between various genres. Joseph's brothers are somewhat envious of him, leading to them selling him into slavery to an Egyptian nobleman. As for ...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog