Review of Flash Festival 2019: The Way by Cosmos Theatre Company at Looking Glass Theatre, Northampton

Solo pieces at Flash have quite a checkered history, one of the very best Flash shows I have seen was a solo one, however, many of the worst also were. They have the balance of either a performer getting everything right, for both the audience and themselves or as sometimes happens, a single person running wild with limited reasoning and it ending in a crash. The Way from Louise Akroyd and her Cosmos Theatre Company gets, fortunately, everything pretty much right.

We meet her character Vicky strewn across her bed, after a very heavy night. Her makeup still on, mostly in the right place. After a distraught and comical search for her phone, she discovers news from her mother that her childhood friend has cancer. A rift has been between them for years, but is now the time right to seal it?

The Way is simple in every way, but that is how it works so well. This is about whether you deal with something that probably wasn't anything in the first place to rebuild bridges before it is too late. It's a gently emotional tale, performed with an incredibly soulful performance by Akroyd. There is no glamour in her initial appearance, and her total belief in the material makes us believe every moment.

I was unsure to the very end whether Vicky was just talking to herself or addressing us directly, but, it mattered not. This story was something we could all understand, we all have someone, or maybe more, who we have drifted away from, most likely for very petty reasons, so The Way is something that works on all levels, and it is just a gloriously little piece of theatre as a result.

Performance viewed: Thursday 4th April 2019

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

Review of Broken Party at The Benn Hall, Rugby

Broken Party , now on stage at The Benn Hall, is the first production by the new theatre company Nerve Theatre. Written and directed by company founder Mia Ballard, it provides an impressive collection of twists and turns that will please thriller enthusiasts. The story setup sees a gathering of the Lewis family to celebrate the birthday of Abigail. She is the daughter of Ann Lewis and the leading player, James, a high-flying lawyer who sets his stall out in the world as a supporter of the victims of society. However, as events unravel due to a television interview, is he the worthy man many believe him to be? Ballard's script is a perfect smorgasbord of murder mystery aperitifs, a dinner party, and a collection of the most dislikeable individuals, each of whom is the ideal culprit for guilt. The story is told in a single-location living room with little distraction and sees the Lewis family spar against one another following a somewhat awkward viewing of a TV show. The dialogue fr...

Review of The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

During the interval of The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband , last weeks production at The Playhouse Theatre Northampton, I got involved in a conversation between a couple sitting next to me. The lady was very much of the opinion that the play was a comedy, while the gentleman, had formed one that it was a tragedy. They were joking of course in the conversation, but it did highlight the differences that Debbie Isitt's dark comedy might have between the sexes. And also now perhaps the passing of time. When this was written in the nineties, Isitt's play was a forthright feminist play, heralding the championing over of the ladies over the man. One the ex-wife plotting to cook him, the other, the new lover, potentially already very tired of him after just three years. The husband, Kenneth (Jem Clack) elopes initially in pursuit of sex with Laura (Diane Wyman), after his nineteen years of marriage with Hilary (Corinna Leeder) has become tired and passionless. Then later, he elopes ...

Review of Kinky Boots (N.M.T.C.) at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The musical Kinky Boots is perhaps the perfect show for the homegrown theatre group Northampton Musical Theatre Company to perform with the very core of the story bred within this very county. The tale of of Charlie Price and his encounter and unlikely partnership with a certain Lola is based on a true story of factory W. G. Brooks Ltd and the owner Steve Pateman. Back in 1999 his story of men and their wearing of shoes for women featured on a BBC documentary and this in turn inspired the 2005 film, Kinky Boots . Finally, in 2012, this musical adaptation of the story hit the stage, with a book by Harvey Fierstein and songs written by Cyndi Lauper. Longtime readers of my blog with good memories may remember that five years ago I reviewed the opening of the UK professional tour of Kinky Boots , also at the Royal & Derngate. While I enjoyed the show, I didn't give it the most favourable review. Five years on, and a second viewing, have I warmed to the charms of Charlie and Lola...

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