A Small Mind At The Theatre

The wonderful Amber Mae was quite an enigma within some of the University shows, portraying often the silent element of proceedings, especially in Orientation where she provided a song for us but little else verbally. However she spoke perhaps like few others with her movement and facial expressions, despite often being silent, she was frequently the centre of the eyeball for the audience, busy flitting around. So for her Flash performance, a solo one was a dream ticket. One to finally get to see her in full swing to do what she chose. It is true that for much of the first few minutes as we sat watching Amber sketch and paint that I thought she was not going to speak again. We sit in the basement of Hazelrigg House (one of two Flash shows to take place entirely there) and we learn that this is a special confinement location for people to partake in creating art. Something that has been banned in the outside world. They are however not permanently confined, this is a place that they g...

Following the rather poor play in the form of Days Of Significance (and a little bit of minor social media storm), I am happy to say that the third and final outing from this years third year uni shows was a much greater success. This despite the fact that Greek themed plays are well down in my own personal favourites. Written by Moira Buffini, Welcome To Thebes is an exploration of an encounter between the wealthy state of Athens under leadership of Theseus (Vandreas Marc) and the substantially poorer Thebes of the title under command of Eurydice (Sharni Tapako-Brown). Lurking in the background are Prince Tydeus (Charlie Clee) and lover Pargeia (Kathryn McKerrow) seeking to snatch power through their own stirred up anarchy. The direction from Eva Sampson is for me the best of the three plays, superbly whipping the audience into the world of Thebes with opening tension in the stalls of the Royal. Three soldiers; Megaera (Madeleine Hagerty), Scud (Daniel Gray) and Sergeant Miletus (...

I first got the opportunity to see these now third year actors at the Holy Sepulchre in March 2014 and even at that time, as first years, their heavily choreographed movement work and delivery of the words of John Donne showed huge potential. Fast forward to June this year and the levels of skill were developing at an exponential rate as before my eyes they made my nemesis Shakespeare very, very watchable with their Winter's Tale and Merry Wives performances. Now a full twenty months after I first saw them they have presented perhaps the very best of the Northampton University shows I have seen to date and there have been many exceptional ones believe me. What Orientation did for me that was a delight that I have not always seen from the University productions is that as a concept it kept it simple. We are in a highly competitive office with a group of workers, basically amounting to a dysfunctional family, who find themselves not only snowbound in the office but also in som...

My ongoing policy to avoid William Shakespeare as much as possible is as successful as many government ones over the years. A Small Mind is not for turning! However he always, endlessly ends up back sitting watching another of the bards many (and long) tales. The Merry Wives Of Windsor has the one thing going for it in my mind from the bard, in that it is one of the comedies. I find them more bearable, but unfortunately locally there seems to have been very few of them performed. So for every comedy I have seen (and this would be only my third live), I have seen an endless stream of dead bodies on stage at the end of some horrific tragedy. Trepidation therefore was high as I approached another prospect of three hours of Shakespeare. Having said all this, I have managed to enjoy the University performances the most because they tend to do something different. This time the different had begun before the play started as when entering the inferno, otherwise known as the Underground, w...

As millions were sitting down to watch the misery of EastEnders and its big reveal of Lucy's killer, A Small Mind ventured out to the theatre for some light relief. Yeah right! That Face by Polly Stenham is generally as far from light relief as you could imagine, like the aforementioned soap being unshackled by its pre-watershed needs, this was gritty family drama in the extreme. Long before the play begins those who had made their way to their seats early get the chance to see curtain up and a girl sitting bound and masked in a chair. Moments of 50 Shades fears aside, its clear that we are seeing one of the unluckiest actresses you could imagine. Destined to be in two scenes with no lines, the first of which involves her being mauled about no end, its a thankless role, which todays actress of pain Julie Hicks plays very well. Suffering for her art indeed. Doing the mauling are boarding school "buddies" Mia (Amber Mae) and mad as a box of frogs Izzy (Clare Balbi). Mia...