A Small Mind At The Theatre

Rush Theatre Company has as its mission to provide opportunities, influence and instigate change within the theatre community and the community at large and this production, RUSH - A Joyous Jamaican Journey , is very much their signature show. Telling the story of the Empire Windrush and its 1948 journey from Jamaica with the first of the "invited", it is an evocative and powerful show, full of energy and love. It's true that at times, RUSH doesn't quite fit the theatre space as well as perhaps it might other performance spaces, with its rough around-the-edges production, and community styling, however with placing it in The Rep, in the very heart of Birmingham, it does get the recognition it needs more than any other space. The show primarily consists of a long history tale starting with the original colonisation of the islands of the latter-known West Indies, to the "discovery" of the islands by a certain Christopher Columbus, and the events that devastati...

Everybody's Talking About Jamie first appeared back in 2017 as a stage musical with a score written by Dan Gillespie Sells and book and lyrics by Tom MacRae and co-writer/original director Jonathan Butterill. However, the beginning of this story, and the true story that it is, came to the public eye a little earlier with a 2011 British television documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 . This tells the story of Jamie Joseph Campbell (also known as Fifi la True) and his coming-of-age journey to the world of drag, and this musical inspiringly tells this tale. Without hesitation and from the outset there is no question that Everybody's Talking About Jamie is an exceptional show. The key initial reason for this is that it has a stunning collection of songs, and what better requirement for a musical? It sets the benchmark high from the very beginning number and never drops in standard. Dan Gillespie Sells songs from start to finish are pure magic, be that a proud anthem ( And You Don...

Mischief Theatre has been creating havoc in theatres across the world now for ten years with shows like The Play That Goes Wrong and  Peter Pan Goes Wrong regularly doing the rounds. Their latest incarnation, reaching Milton Keynes Theatre this week on a UK tour, is The Mind Mangler , a two-man solo show (with some audience participation) offering more chaos, this time around mind-bending-mind-reading. The Mind Mangler is played by Mischief Theatre co-founder Henry Lewis with a mixture of menace, danger, and cuddliness, a devastating combination. For anyone who has seen Lewis on stage before, you will be well aware of his tremendous stage presence, a booming voice full of the greatest of enunciation and perhaps, with The Mind Mangler he has one of his greatest creations to use these skills. It is beyond the stage presence however that this character delves, into one of self-mocking in the extreme, the ability to try to smooth his suit out as his self-importance fails as his mind-...