Flash Festival 2018: An Error In The Melody by Carousel Theatre Company at Hazelrigg House, Northampton

At the centre of Carousel Theatre's An Error in the Melody is an intriguing character, performed by the groups solo performer, Amelia Renard. She plays, with some skill, Leonie Owens, a composer of immense skill herself, well, in her head in any case.

With shades of Glorious! The true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, which I have also seen this year, Owens just wants to perform and absorb the love of an audience, despite the fact that her skills mostly just lie within her head. Owens perhaps isn't anywhere near as nice a character as Foster Jenkins though, and when the tide turns against her, she really is quite nasty, and definitely very cold.

The dislike of the character though isn't the biggest problem with An Error in the Melody, it's more that it is a very insubstantial piece. Two very long scenes in this play are just so lightweight, the opening where she tidies her shelves, mostly with her back to the audience, and then later another scene similar in style. It all, unfortunately, stalls the piece, and perhaps if the rest was solid and more importantly longer, these wouldn't have felt so bad, but this is also a very short performance, barely twenty minutes.

It's such a shame that you can't help but leave disappointed after Error in the Melody, it all stems from frustration really in its brevity, what happens beyond those two scenes is great, however, as it stands, it simply wasn't enough of a play. Development further would help this, as the character is strong, she just isn't given enough to do, so the show sadly feels half ready as a result.

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 & 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 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 ...

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...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

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