Skip to main content

Review of Flash Festival 2019: A Minute To Midnight by Ruminate Theatre Company at Castle Hill URC

Connie, Harper and Freya are in a flatshare. One night Freya brings home Imogen, a homeless girl she has befriended. So far, so simple, however, that is if we haven't already seen the rather dramatic opening sequence, a flashforward to what is to happen involving said new person and Freya herself.


A Minute to Midnight works on a few levels and fails on others, the story, that of some sort of miniature cult involving some sort of preparation for some sort of disastrous global event is far too vague at times, to allow its audience in. It leaves us occasionally bored and wanting more information to keep our interest.

Fortunately what is great are the performances, despite us frequently not totally getting their motives, the characters themselves are nicely rounded individuals. Freya is played with a finely developing way by Mia Leonie, initially in control of events with her new introduction, but gradually changing as things over time develop in a way she dislikes from the new girl.

Georgie Morna-Arkle is equally good as this new woman Imogen, the second of the two characters with the full character development through the show, leading from the innocent, but then gaining more confidence as she becomes more vital to events.

Tonia Toseland is confident as the effective group leader Connie, while Amelia Scott is great fun as Harper, the complete opposite end of the group, at the bottom, almost along for the ride, but most definitely bringing most of the humour into the show as a character.

A Minute to Midnight is as a piece of drama a bit of a disappointment, not intriguing enough to keep the interest, with vagueness taken a little too far. However, perhaps the main thing to acknowledge is that all the performances are fine, and while they have maybe done themselves a little disservice with the material, it is far from a total disaster.

Performance viewed: Wednesday 3rd April 2019

The Flash Festival 2019 runs until Sunday 7th April 2019 at venues across the town.
Details here: Flash Festival 2019
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Read more

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...
Read more

Review of National Theatre Connections 2017 (16 Shows) at Royal & Derngate (Royal & Underground), Northampton

Alongside the University of Northampton BA Actors Flash Festival, the Connections festival at Royal & Derngate is now my joint favourite week of theatre each year. This is my fourth year at the festival and each time I have tried my very best (and succeeded) in seeing more and more of those on offer (four in 2014, ten in 2015 and twelve last year). This year I cracked sixteen shows, including the most interesting, a chance to see two of the plays by three different groups. I was able to see nine of this year's ten plays (a single nagging one, Musical Differences by Robin French was missing from the R&D line-up), and most I either enjoyed or finally understood their merits or reasons for inclusion. The writing of sixteen reviews is a little bit of an daunting prospect, however, I will do my best to review each of the plays and those I saw more than once, and pick around the comparisons. Extremism by Anders Lustgarten Performed by Bedford College Extremism was perfo...
Read more