A Small Mind At The Theatre

A bit over five years stalking the theatre world of Northampton and a little beyond has never oddly enough led me to the door of The Hardingstone Players. Last Friday though I finally rectified that as I saw the final performance of their production of Peter Gordon's farce Out of Focus. Never also having seen a Peter Gordon play, left me with an interesting evening ahead. When an unfortunate over-booking at the Church Hall happens, a gathering of badminton players, brownies, pantomime actors and an odd exhibitor of slides collides into a chaotic and rather eclectic cast for this years pantomime, Super Cinders. Presented upon an excellently created set by  Alison Roberts and Iain Hodge, the evening is set for introduction to a feast of odd characters, and this beyond everything is where the strength of this production lies. The performers had clearly gone to great lengths to make their characters as big and bold as the colours upon Cinderella's oddly shaped carriage. We ha...

Sneaking out one afternoon to finally get a chance to catch O,FFS by Ytho? Theatre turned out to be a very good decision. Having been performed beyond the realms of Northampton, at the Edinburgh Fringe no less, this show landed finally at it's "home" this week of the University of Northampton, home, because this group is made up of four graduates from the University BA Actors course. It also was a landmark for myself, seeing for the first time a brand new show created purely by a group of actors consisting only of those that I had seen graduating. It was nice to see that they were doing good! The best word to describe O,FFS is sharp. It sums up the pinpoint accuracy of delivery from the four actors, of this fast-paced, clinically constructed piece of theatre, there is no flab around this comedy. Set in the offices of a children's charity, we have some typical office staff, the supervisor, the IT guy, and specific to the charity world, the chuggers manager. Throw i...

Last Sunday I spent the afternoon in the Royal watching four pieces of theatre, all inspired by a celebration of 100 years of women's suffrage. It proved an emotional afternoon, with some widely contrasting pieces of theatre work. Opening the afternoon, was a piece devised by the collaboration of Zoo Co, Stantonbury Theatre and Stantonbury International School. Titled Suffrajitsu , it turned out to be one of the more remarkable pieces of theatre that I have seen in a long time. Seeping vast emotion from me, not just from the story of the struggle it was telling, but also the sheer brilliance of some of the incredibly well-constructed scenes that this young cast handled to perfection. From its opening, of the cast simply coming onstage in their modern clothes and dressing into a traditional dress of the time, right through to the spectacular Keystone Cops inspired finale, this was a perfectly constructed piece of theatre. Finely balanced, never boring, always entertaining, alway...

I was eight when the Challenger shuttle explosion occurred and more than old enough to remember it, but curiously I have very little memory of it at the time. I have no doubt that my staple then of Newsround covered it, and probably Blue Peter, but no real vivid memory from that very day. Fortunately, director of Defying Gravity, Megan Lucus does, and that love, memory and understanding of the event drives the engine at the heart of this production (and a dedication to allow a childhood toy to get quite a pummeling as well). All theatre productions need energy and time to be put into them, however, here even with just the visual element, it is clear that this show has had so much more time than most put into it. Defying Gravity by Jane Anderson takes six fictional characters, and one real one out of time, and takes us on a journey of what it was like to live through those 1986 events in Florida. Their account while fictional does include Teacher (Bex Fey), a very clear representati...

I arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre to see this touring stage version of ITV comedy hit Benidorm with a distinct lack of knowledge. Having never seen the show, my information stretched as far as knowing it was set in a holiday resort in Spain (the title helps there), and that the humour generally resorted to the cruder end of the spectrum. However, having graced the screens for ten years, it was clear that Derren Litten's show had garnered quite a following, and indeed it was clear from the reception of the audience on the night, that this following was pretty much filling the theatre. The plot, such as it is for this stage show, is very much drafted from an episode of Fawlty Towers , and made a great deal more adult with its humour. The hotel manager, Joyce Temple-Savage (a sharp performance by Sherrie Hewson) gets wind that a hotel inspector is in, and the scene is set for seeking them out and all the obvious cases of mistaken identity. It's thin and doesn't fill ...

For those unfamiliar with this story, this review tells more than you might want to know ahead of seeing it. So, the short review for those who don't know the story of Joe Simpson, go and see this play and then come and read this review if you wish. Staging the 1985 tale of Joe Simpson and his somewhat unbelievable, if it wasn't true, escape from surviving three days without food and water, a 150 foot fall previous, and following breaking his leg a previous, previous, seems an insurmountable challenge, but with the clever work of writer David Greig, director Tom Morris, and designer Ti Green and the rest of the creative team, we manage during a long and pulsating evening of theatre to reach that peak. Following a short sequence of flashes of what is to come, we join Simon (Edward Hayter), Richard (Patrick McNamee) and Sarah (Fiona Hampton) at the wake of Joe Simpson, imagined for the stage and a neat way of introducing us to the story. Here Sarah, Joe's sister bec...

Hot on the heels of their award-winning production of Peter Quilter's Glorious! , White Cobra Productions turn to another of the writer's back catalogue for their very next production. It is easy to see why they should choose to do so, as Duets (a comedy about couples), is a stunningly well-written piece, formed of a quartet of plays loosely linked around the theme of love and romance. What is very apparent watching Duets is the surprising strength of all of the pieces, there is no filler here to complete the four. Indeed a conversation after the show resulted in three people coming to the conclusion that we each liked a different one, and I have no doubt that in the bar there was someone who had the other as their favourite. Each of the four segments also has a very different style to it, the opening play Blind Date revels in silliness and awkwardness to create it's comedy, while Secretarial Skills creates some extremely clever humour while also working to a very s...