A Small Mind At The Theatre

Hot on the heels of their award-winning production of Peter Quilter's Glorious! , White Cobra Productions turn to another of the writer's back catalogue for their very next production. It is easy to see why they should choose to do so, as Duets (a comedy about couples), is a stunningly well-written piece, formed of a quartet of plays loosely linked around the theme of love and romance. What is very apparent watching Duets is the surprising strength of all of the pieces, there is no filler here to complete the four. Indeed a conversation after the show resulted in three people coming to the conclusion that we each liked a different one, and I have no doubt that in the bar there was someone who had the other as their favourite. Each of the four segments also has a very different style to it, the opening play Blind Date revels in silliness and awkwardness to create it's comedy, while Secretarial Skills creates some extremely clever humour while also working to a very s...

I don't mind admitting that I am a huge fan of the work of White Cobra Productions, they have the ability to draw together the best of what the local amateur world has to offer and package it together in a professional way, they also have a knack for picking plays of quality, rarely performed or brand new material that makes them a breath of fresh air. Well mostly. I don't mind also admitting once again here, that their last show, Hi-de-Hi , felt a terrible misstep on their part, taking a show which was either so enrooted in the minds of some of its audience to single performers of the past, or a bamboozled collection of dated material to others, just didn't really work despite the talent and obvious effort of its cast. So, what of Glorious! , is this a, ahem, glorious return to form? Short answer, incredibly so, long answer, below. Glorious! (subtitled The Worst Singer in the World) tells the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, an American socialite, active ...

I have seen very little restoration comedy, and with Playhouse Creatures  early this year, very much Restoration period, Masque Theatre has provided much of it this year, with this edition of Aphra Behn's 1677 play The Rover or The Banish'd Cavaliers . Behn was quite a landmark writer, recognised as one of the first women to make a living from writing (and has an extraordinary real-life worth researching). Perhaps having watched The Rover now, you can see why her work might well have been accepted back then. It is suitably bawdy, really extremely rude at times in places, definitely farcical (with disguise situations aplenty that wouldn't fool a blind man with a blindfold on) and perhaps most importantly, makes the woman much of the time the victims in the frequent sexual exploits. It clearly wasn't being anything that a man of the time wouldn't write, and probably means it lay a suitable path for success for Behn as a result. The Rover itself is tremendous...

I was a fan of Hi-De-Hi in the eighties and in actual fact a fan of many of those very much of their time comedies. Hi-De-Hi was a bright and breezy and overly familiar show having ended up at many a holiday in the Maplins equivalent of Butlins, albeit not the fifties setting, but with very little changed in the decades anyway. However, we have moved on a bit since these eighties days, so does Croft and Perry's comedy still cut the mustard now? The answer is yes and no, a lot of the humour is still fun and there are many a chuckle moments, the characters also are still bold and fun enough to provide some great entertainment. However, with these characters lie the first problem with an acting group doing a show like this. Anyone familiar with the show and its nine series run will have the characters so indelibly marked in their head and this offers no freedom for a performer to make that character their own, they are just setting out to copy someone. Yes, a challenge, and w...

Bernie Wood (Cleopatra) & Matt Fell (Antony) Unless you are one of the gold chain rattling members and higher echelons at the top of The Globe theatre and planning on evicting your innovative artistic director, the good old Bard is currently rife for exploiting in setting, gender and dynamics of theatre, and for me perhaps he should be. It is not as if after 400 odd years there haven't been enough opportunities to see "pure" Shakespeare. Hence why long before I made my way to see Masque Theatre's production of Antony & Cleopatra this week at Abington Park museum, I was already pretty excited to see it. The very reason is that having had the privilege of seeing female Malcolm's and Richard II's in the last few years via the University of Northampton shows, a nicely split gender balance from this show thanks to innovative casting by director John Myhill was on the cards. Throw in a bit of Mike Oldfield to open proceedings and you are going somewher...

Having had the pleasure of seeing six previous and all excellent productions from White Cobra, it is perhaps inevitable one day that one might eventually disappoint. Setting a standard so high means that anything other than excellent feels below par. Sadly their new show Dizzy Boo fails to hit the spot. Not so much in the performances, as White Cobra have once again assembled their excellent company of actors who have yet to be a letdown, it is more that the play itself by Brian Wright seems a little unsure of itself at times. Set in Saxons Mead housing estate, the play centres around the sale of Nick (Fraser Haines) and Donna's (Kate Billingham) house following his discovery that things may not stay the same forever on the homes overlook of meadows. Add into the mix some roaming immigrants escaped from a lorry and some musical numbers and you have a curious mix between comedy and tough drama. This mix is at times where some of the problems lie as although the best plays balan...

I had heard great things of The Shakespeare Revue, presented here by White Cobra Productions. So much so, that even the fact that "Shakespeare" was in the title, had not activated that involuntary twitch that that name sometimes generates. I am generally one of those Shakespeare viewers that prefers my Bard spruced (brushed?) up a tad, giving the contents a stir after 400 plus years of simmering. Thankfully The Shakespeare Revue, originally compiled by Christopher Luscombe and Malcolm McKee in 1993 (but added to since) for the Bard's birthday celebrations, is very much on the lighthearted side of Mr Shakespeare. Over an incredibly varied 37 sketches and musical routines, he is revered, poked fun at, honoured and slightly modified, to create a quite brilliant evening of entertainment, for the Bard or not to Bard fan alike. Standout sketches include a quite brilliant take on The Importance of Being Earnest titled Othello in Earnest. Written by Perry Pontac it sees Othel...