Skip to main content

Review of Blackbird at Bonkers Playhouse, Kettering

Seeing Blackbird by David Harrower, presented me with my first visit to Bonkers Playhouse in Kettering. Opening just this year, it has become the home to Bonkers Theatrical, a group set up in 2009, and the cosy little venue also plays host to a wide range of touring productions, including those from White Cobra and Next Page Productions. It's a smart and really lovely little venue, complete with bar, seating of up to 40, and an impressive stage and bar area with some innovative ideas. However, what of the play?

Blackbird by David Harrower is a tough and gritty little piece, a ninety minute one act, but here split in a nice location. Una has found, by accident, Ray, who 15 years earlier had sexually abused her. He then a 40-year-old, her, just 12. It's an uncomfortable premise to form a play from, however, the sharpness of the writing, while definitely making its audience uncomfortable, never makes it unwatchable.

What it does need though are two performers of some ability and here with David Mander as Ray and Susan Hackett as Una, the show has that. At no point is this little piece perfect, but at its centre are two confident performances. The best of the two is Hackett, who presents the depth of the trauma that she carries with some scenes of brilliant emotion. Her extremely long monologue in the second section is delivered extremely well, and although it is wordy, the director, Mark Walker, keeps our attention through it with just slight movements at significant times, but never excessively to detract from the quality text. Mander meanwhile has the tough deal, it's not a nice character, that goes without saying, and at times, I did feel the role was a tad underplayed. He remains remarkably placid during Una's long speech, and be this director's choice or in the original piece, it seems odd that such a thing would occur without some more emotion, if only beyond the fixed facial gesture. However, between the two, this is a remarkably polished piece of drama from the pairing, with the explosive scenes becoming extremely intense at times.

Staging is clever, on a simple but well-designed set, and those explosive scenes are very well handled, with the front row missing, there is more effort to bring the nature of this outward into the audience space. All in all, with simple sound use, the whole production does Harrower's play full justice and comes as a pleasant surprise for my first visit to Bonkers and this theatrical group. I look forward to seeing future offerings from the group.

Performance reviewed: Saturday 11 August 2018 at the Bonkers Playhouse , Kettering.

Blackbird ran at the Bonkers Playhouse, Kettering between Tuesday 7 and Saturday 11 2018.

For full details of the Bonkers Playhouse visit their website at https://bonkersplayhouse.co.uk/
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Of Mice And Men at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Other than, randomly, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The War of the Worlds , John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men is perhaps one of the most familiar of stories to me. I have seen it several times before, and while at school, we studied it, and dissected it like the work of Mr Shakespeare, but with Steinbeck, I got out the other side still liking it. This brand new version from Selladoor Productions, which opened in Canterbury last week, brings a by-the-book presentation of the trials of George and his slow, but incredibly strong friend, Lennie, to the stage. Perhaps, this is its first issue blocking a huge success from this production, in that it rarely does anything brave or different. It's clearly been expertly cast visually, with the hulking form of Matthew Wynn as Lennie, and the diminutive (in comparison) Richard Keightley and Kamran Darabi-Ford as George and Curley respectively. Darabi-Ford especially perfect in his tremendously awkward scenes wit...
Read more

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 ...
Read more

Review of Flash Festival 2016: Red Inquisition by Memoir Theatre at Castle Hill URC

Red Inquisition from Memoir Theatre evolves from a theatre groups creation of a play based on the 1947 Hollywood blacklist and McCarthyism So that I can get it out the way early on and take this review in a more upbeat direction that Red Inquisition deserves, I am going to get a real bugbear done first. There was a huge negative for me from this production and one that I ended up getting negative vibes from. For me there was far too much video and audio footage in this production. Much of it was while excellently researched, surplus to requirements. The were a couple of occasions especially where we saw material repeated on screen that had already been performed. The show did not need this and for me theatre is not about watching a screen in any case, its about seeing performances. This however does need to be taken as a positive as what I am simply saying is that I wanted more acting from the trio of Daniel Hadjivarnava, Ciara Goldsberry and Jaryd Headley as they work excellently ...
Read more