A Small Mind At The Theatre

For me the inventiveness and emotional power of Aftermath was encapsulated in its opening and closing scenes. They formed the solid bread of the delightful meat within. The opening also allowed the newly emerged "Immerse" section of the R&D Youth Company to do very much that. It was a neat trick to open the play with, and I think genuinely confused a few members of the audience. However it worked very well at drawing the audience into this tale of several characters personal lives, and their experiences of the First World War, both at home and on the front. The disillusioned youth being preached upon by the elderly was also the perfect moment for the youth and actors company to merge together. Huge credit must go to writer Daniel Bye who with wit and powerful intent has created a fine play from a collection of local stories (much as he did when I pursued him round town with an umbrella for Story Hunt last year). While at the same time shoehorning in "pop group...

Within a couple of minutes of the beginning of the history tour of Northampton, I was a bus driver about to leave the Derngate Bus Station and also about to propose to another member of our small (and all female, well except me off course) band of tourists. Having only just met the lady and not holding a driving license, this was going to be an interesting afternoon all round. However off course this was just part of what was going to be a fun and interesting seventy five minutes of history. I was neither going to crash that bus or propose marriage. These were people of the past, representing just a few of those that met at the station of the past and this story had been related to the Story Hunt team by a child of the couple I and my companion represented. A happy story this was to begin, however on our travels around the centre of Northampton much of the story telling was to be generally grim, such is life. This was not to make it uninteresting. As we learnt of a woman being hang...