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 & Juliet at Milton Keynes Theatre

First performed in 2019, & Juliet has become quite a global success, and now, as part of a UK Tour, it has arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre for a two-week run. Featuring a book by David West Read, it tells the what-if story of the survival of Juliet at the end of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet . Primarily a jukebox musical, it more specifically features the works of Swedish songwriter Max Martin (and friends, as the credits describe). The question is, does & Juliet provide more than the standard of many a jukebox musical before it, and does it honour the tragic tale from which it has sprung? Our story opens with William Shakespeare presenting his latest work, Romeo & Juliet , for the first time. However, when his wife, Anne Hathaway, learns how he intends the tale to end, she is away with his quill and planning on her reworking of the story. At the core of this touring production's success is Geraldine Sacdalan's powerhouse performance as Juliet. Her Juliet ...

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 ...

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre

Richard O’Brien’s anarchic, surreal, and often incomprehensible musical, The Rocky Horror Show , has captivated audiences for over fifty years now. With this new tour, it feels as fresh and unpredictable as if it had just emerged from O’Brien's vivid imagination yesterday. While another review might seem unnecessary given the countless dressed-up fans who fill every theatre it visits, let’s go ahead and write one anyway. The Rocky Horror Show follows the adventures of Brad and Janet, a newly engaged couple. On a dark and stormy November evening, they run into car trouble and seek refuge at a mysterious castle reminiscent of Frankenstein’s. There, they encounter the eccentric handyman Riff-Raff, the outrageous scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter, and a host of other bizarre characters. What unfolds is a science fiction B-movie narrative that is at times coherent and at other times bewildering — yet somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. I first saw The Rocky Horror Show in 2019 and exper...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog