Review of Much Ado About Nothing at Isham Dark (Avenue Campus), Northampton

Aficionados of Shakespeare would probably recoil at "The Story" on the back of the programme for the BA Acting & Creative Practice second-year students production of the Bard's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. In short, it refers to Don Pedro returning with his regiment from the Falklands, and stopping off at Leonato's hotel in Greenland on the way. Elsewhere Don Pedro's brother Don Jon is on the lookout for juicy stories for the tabloid newspaper he edits. Claudia has fallen in love with Hero, Benedict says he never will fall in love. Meanwhile, the Sirius Arctic Dog Patrol keeps things in line and Balthasar with her trusty guitar keeps the music rolling.

Yes, this is 1982, and we are in a world of a very different Much Ado About Nothing, and oddly it mostly seems to work.

As expected there are some great performances, even at this second-year stage. There is great style and much more period feel to the ladies in the play than the gents, so Beatrice (Libby Homer-Doyle) and Hero (Lois Gold) have a very eighties feel, both being excellent characterisations.

The gents are a little more traditional, even if their look is not. Keon McDermott is an excellent Benedict, filling the hugely comical role with his own enthusiasm. The scene where he overhears proceedings is buoyant with energy from McDermott, bouncing around the back of all the seated areas and very literally throwing himself into the performance.

I enjoyed also the stately like performance from Jonathan Mansfield as Don Pedro, authoritative as only the leader should be. Leanne Avery was a sharp and stylish Antonia, and Amy Crighton brought superb presence and weight to the role of Leonato.

Elsewhere, Sasha Russell was an intense firecracker performer as Dogberry, and styled magnificently and more than a little scary with a horsewhip (even managing to break part of it with her passion). Lindsay Crawford was superb as her two very different characters of Friar, all refined, and Verges, all wacky and awkward, two brilliantly distinctive roles sharply played.

Finally, Emily Ashberry as Baltazar, transformed into Adam Ant and with guitar, bringing some superb reworked versions of many eighties tracks (how brilliant was Let's Dance!). Her little interludes were one of the best parts of the show, brilliantly performed and cleverly conceived. Fab stuff!

Director Dan McGarry has made the perhaps unbelievable work with this version of the Shakespeare comedy. He gets great energy from all his performers and by the very end as Walking On Sunshine fades away, you feel you have had an extremely fun afternoon.

Performance viewed: Saturday 18th May, 2019 (matinee) at Isham Dark, University Of Northampton (Avenue Campus).

Much Ado About Nothing ran until Saturday 18th May, 2019
Twitter feed for the University actors is @BA_Actors

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

Seeing the 46-year-old Rocky Horror Show at the theatre for the first time is quite an experience on many levels. First and foremost as a regular theatregoer, the audience, even on a relatively demure evening of a Monday, is something you would never really experience at a theatre beyond this show. Many are dressed up (even on that demure Monday), and so many are so in tune with the show, that these regular fans have become entwined within it. They know every word of the script, they contribute to it, they enhance it, often they make Richard O'Brien's already adult content into something much more adult. It's a revelation of experience, much before a newbie such as myself even considers the show. Laura Harrison's beautifully clear rendition of Science Fiction/Double Feature sets the scene for some generally excellent performances of O'Brien's classic tunes, in a musical which is clearly audible, sadly not something that always happens with many productio...

Review of Breaking the Code at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Breaking The Code , the opening play in the new Made in Northampton season at Royal & Derngate, is a surprisingly old and rarely seen play. Written in 1986 by Hugh Whitemore, it tells the story of legendary codebreaker Alan Turing, a man who, in the 1980s, when this play first appeared, was relatively unknown. The years since the origin of this play have been good for Turing, with his life's work finally getting the recognition it deserves, and also, very much what this play centres on, a recognition of the horrific life and end that Turing had as a result of dealing with the laws of the day. Breaking the Code has seen life before on the stage of the Royal, as back in 2003, Philip Franks took to the role of Turing in a very well-received production. So, what of this brand new version directed by the Royal & Derngate's artistic director Jesse Jones? Does it live up to Turing's legend? That is an unquestionable yes with no machines needed to crack the class behind thi...

Review of Cinderella, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at Maidwell Hall (Avenue Campus), Northampton

So, this is a bit different, the third year actors (my fifth group of them!) do panto, Cinderella to be precise. Pantomime is my perennial favourite bit of theatre. Oh no, it isn't! However, I have long acknowledged that for an actor, the form is both incredibly important, because if you can entertain kids, you can probably do anything, it also provides a large opening for a regular gig each year as they are so abundant. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the intelligent bods teaching these students have come to the decision to create a little panto action of their own. This first of three (and the other two are very different beasts, as you will learn from the next reviews) is the ever so traditional one. Formed partly from the work of Looking Glass Theatre and director James Smith, I first saw much of this piece in January 2015, and although I didn't remember a great deal of it after this time, the cheese song managed to flash back to me, perhaps, sadly. So, ...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

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