A Small Mind At The Theatre

Watching the BA Actors perform Alan Ayckbourn's Christmas play Season's Greetings had quite a tinge of the very different about it. It all felt very traditional, and dare I say, safe, for the performers of the University of Northampton BA Actors to be offering. Over six years, I have got used to them bringing cutting, sharp, taxing, dynamic, brutal and controversial stuff to the stage, so to see James Bryan as Bernard performing a puppet show in the cosy world of Ayckbourn (admittedly with his trademark modern strife thrown in), it all seemed a little weird. However, over the last couple of years, this cosy, more traditional theatre has become the staple of the Christmas time offering, with the group also tackling pantomimes as well. It all makes a huge amount of sense, as so much of their potential future earnings may well come from this area. Here we have classic Ayckbourn, filled with diverse characters, and varied aged ones, performed by the staple early twenties per...

Ahead of seeing Arcadia in this University of Northampton production by the Third Year BA Actors, I had been warned that it wasn't a play for everyone. It makes sense in retrospect, it's a bit clever, making you always feel as if you are not as intelligent as you hope you are (in my case, probably a fair point). However, despite this, the young cast in this production make Tom Stoppard's ever so clever play entertaining from beginning to end. Arcadia follows two timelines, modern day as oddball poetry professor Bernard comes visiting Sidley Park looking for a Lord Byron trail, while 200 years before, young Thomasina Coverly is being taught by horny tutor Septimus. Intermixed with these timelines are a further assortment of odd characters. It's all a little weird, but oddly still fun. Thomas Van Langenberg has tremendous fun as Septimus, teaching and flirting with his pupil Thomasina, played to playful perfection by Abi Cameron, demonstrating perfection in playin...

While one half of the University of Northampton Second Year BA Actors tackle the fun and mostly frivolous The Taming of the Shrew , the others dig deep into the unpleasant happenings of Othello , and curiously manage to plunder a little more comedy than you might expect from it. Othello revolves around its two central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, and Iago, ensign to the general, and ultimately tragically untrustworthy. It's an extremely dark play, that toys with themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and repentance. It is weird it is as fun as this production manages to make it become. Othello is played by Alena Crawford but played totally male, and as the brilliant Kate Jones did two years ago as Richard II , Crawford plays it totally convincingly, making the audience gender blind to the performer like many females actors are doing at this time. It's neat casting, and against Leonor Leite De Castro's totally tender portray...

For modern audiences, The Taming of the Shrew has quite a sting in its tale that in this day and age is somewhat off-putting. However, the journey to that famous final speech is funny and never short of entertaining, so, allowing for the time the play was constructed, let's try to ignore how uncomfortable Katherine's final moment is and look elsewhere. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most famous plays within a play, and after Sly, later Petruchio is tricked into thinking he is a lord, the play within takes hold and becomes the bulk of what it is to become. A mixture of disguises and comic antics, take us slowly towards "a happy ending". This production of The Taming of the Shrew was performed open space on the brand new Waterside Campus of the University of Northampton by the current Second Year BA Actors, and the space near the river and bridge offers a superb space with loads of opportunity for director Vanessa-Faye Stanley to use, and no question does...

Concluding my 2019 Flash Festival week saw a journey to The Deco Theatre as Not Aloud Ensemble went it alone to present Leviticus. This tale of four individuals waiting in perhaps the best place to do so, a waiting room, was one of the more stirring and interesting Flash shows of the week. This waiting room though, it didn't take long to work out (even beyond the title clue), was God's waiting room, where these four were waiting for the decision of where they were headed. Here we had sulky nineties firestarter teen played by Samantha Turner, an ultra glamourous American from the 30s/40s played by Bethany Ray, a quiet and generally boring cleric played by Bethan Medi, and then finally the initially silent, but emotionally charged delivery man played by Thomas van Langenberg. It is a sparky quartet that creates the perfect powderkeg of conflict, as times clash to create issues surrounding gender, equality and ignorance. Perhaps Ray is the best, purely because she is often...

The Nubian Sky starring Shemelia Lewis was one of only two solo performances at this year's Flash Festival, and this exploration of what it is like to be a black woman now generally was a success, but in need of just a little more tightening up, and indeed exploration. There are some strong moments here, from a youngster watching a quite remarkable cartoon from 1941 (Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat), onto a schoolgirl in trouble for her hairstyle being distracting, and then the most bizarre TV show centring around whether a domestically abused housewife should get justice or not, we of course say yes, the show says no. It's a surreal and quite stunning collection of observations which are tough viewing of course. Unfortunately, The Nubian Sky doesn't really take anything anywhere, there is, no exploration, it's just generally a basic collection of anecdotes of shocking occurrences, with no depth given. Despite this, and most vitally though, Lewis is an excellen...

We are welcomed to the first meeting of Rise Northampton, as the audience gathers, soon to become the members of that first meet of environmental group Rise , at least one of the cast, to the eagle-eyed, is mingling with the paying audience before taking their seats. The first scene represents us as the audience of that first meeting, with planted cast interacting with group leader Emma (Franky Harris), offering sage comments at times, others not. Whizzing forward to the next meet, and we are no longer group audience, the stranglers of the cast, the six, form all that come to the next meeting. I know this problem well. Rise is sharp, clever, fun and informative, laying us the environmental issues in a way that doesn't preach, and perhaps does more than many things before to put the issue to the front of your mind. It really is that clever. It helps that all of the characters are great, all very individual, and even while there is a conflict between them, they all are ver...

Ripple Ensemble's A Splice of Life opens very traditionally and innocently, a couple coming together, moving in, setting out on their life adventure. It's all very cosy, and of course, we know this isn't destined to continue like this. Our couple Kate and Mark are struggling to have children, so much so they end up on rounds of IVF. With this failing to work before the money runs out, a rather intriguing proposition is put to them via a medical trial into genetics. This results in Kate and Mark building a baby, years later to become the grown-up Sophie. Added to the family is adopted Luke, and the slightly less nimble Kate with creaking bones, and the now greyed Mark now appear to have the perfect family. Sophie is heading towards the Olympics, and Luke has followed the artistic nature of Kate. All is well until a chance discovery changes events dramatically. A Splice of Life 's brilliant theatre, always intriguing, with never a dull moment. Kit Wiles and Ryan...

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...

Making their Mark is created and performed by Hannah Bacon and Amy Jane Baker, otherwise here known as Face To Face Theatre Company . The "making their mark" reference in the title, here isn't about a woman becoming more relevant to society specifically, but here with the case of Baker's character, the need to bring a baby into the world. The feel that this is what a woman's role might be for some, and with her character, the inability to do so. It's a surprising approach to a female-led show, and fascinating mostly in its creation. At only thirty minutes, it isn't particularly long, but in that time, Baker exudes great emotion from the audience, while Bacon, as a collection of other characters, helps to move the story. Both perform the piece excellently, with Bacon as a rather overplayed (in a good way) Made in Chelsea like work colleague, and onto a rather clinical doctor, and also as the slightly annoying, has it all (in the child sense), sister. ...

Connie, Harper and Freya are in a flatshare. One night Freya brings home Imogen, a homeless girl she has befriended. So far, so simple, however, that is if we haven't already seen the rather dramatic opening sequence, a flashforward to what is to happen involving said new person and Freya herself. A Minute to Midnight works on a few levels and fails on others, the story, that of some sort of miniature cult involving some sort of preparation for some sort of disastrous global event is far too vague at times, to allow its audience in. It leaves us occasionally bored and wanting more information to keep our interest. Fortunately what is great are the performances, despite us frequently not totally getting their motives, the characters themselves are nicely rounded individuals. Freya is played with a finely developing way by Mia Leonie, initially in control of events with her new introduction, but gradually changing as things over time develop in a way she dislikes from t...

As is so often the case, Flash Festival performances have a strong emotional theme running through them, they are so very rarely lightweight, and Nine More Lives from Ellipsis Ensemble is no different. Here as this plays central point is organ donation, and it's spin here, spin used with political context as well, is an idea by high flying politician Emily of making people only eligible for organs if they themselves are on the organ donation list, known as Give to Get , and the play title coming from the nine lives that each person can potentially save. Emily, played by Izzy Weaver, is a highly driven politician, and Weaver's performance carefully calculates what her two personas represent. We have the clear, business-like character standing at the podium taking increasingly difficult questions, and then we have the more relaxed Emily, having her diary and biscuit quota handled by her ever-reliable PA Molly (Beth Hâf Jones). The two faces of a politician are extremely w...

There is a piece of audio played during Still Night Theatre's Trapped Under Class that is of current Prime Minister Mrs May (as of 3rd April 2019), describing the controversial Universal Credit scheme, a slightly central theme to this play. It's interesting to an audience of this time perhaps to hear our Prime Minister actually talking about something other than a certain ongoing theme (as of 3rd April 2019, and indeterminant and possibly endless time into the future). The residents of a council block in this stark drama feel of a much different opinion I suspect though. Following the death of their mother, siblings Sophie, Molly and Aiden, along with Aiden's girlfriend Charlotte and their friend Emma, find themselves dealing with low incomes, spiralling costs, and the stark reality of living hand to mouth under the constraints of this. Running for a period of one year following the initial vodka shot celebrations of the new year being devastated by their mother...