A Small Mind At The Theatre

The dark web has perhaps never been as relevant as it currently is with the recent shocking events where it is no doubt often being used for this kind of activity. Stern Mystics takes the dark web and offers a fascinating collection of stories and characters to teach me more during this show about the dark web than I possibly wanted to know. You leave this show both wanting to go and see this vast place, over 90% of the internet in existence and also absolutely never wanting to go anywhere near it. Chris Drew A Parkinsons' sufferer, a layabout with plans against his sister's partner and a neo-Nazi blogger are the three characters we follow during this play. The viewer and myself often unsure at first how each character is going to find themselves on the path to the dark web. The blogger is perhaps the most obvious, while I admit I did take some time to work out the Parkinsons timeline, as for the layabout. I genuinely didn't see that coming until much near the end. I ...

The performance of The Comedy Of Errors by the current second year actors heralded my first viewing of my fourth batch of students. With two groups seen into the big bad world over the last couple of years and next weeks Flash Festival saying a fond farewell to the group I have followed the longest (25 months!), I needed new blood to tide me through the next year. As a first encounter with the first half of this group, it looks as if the quality is continuing into the next generation. The eighteen in this production of Shakespeare's comedy appear to show no lack of skill, even minor roles although often relatively brief were lively and realistically performed. I knew nothing of this particular play upon arrival and garnered just a little quick knowledge that is was about lost twins and mistaken identities from the programme. Oddly this was enough and for a first encounter with a play by the bard, this was for me the most easily accessible one I have seen. I actually knew what wa...