A Small Mind At The Theatre

One day I am reviewing the National Theatre touring production of Patrick Marber's version of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler , the next day it's John Myhill's adaption of Elton and Curtis' Blackadder's Christmas Carol performed by an amateur group, the Duston Players. This is my theatre world, a place of contrasts, and also pressures on this poor innocent reviewer. How can I possibly compare and indeed cope? With much cunning, I set about my plan... The answer is I don't. No one at Duston Players is ever going to be thinking such a thing can be compared, however, while the quality difference is a no-brainer, it doesn't mean that many of those at Duston Players are putting in any less effort to make something as good as can be. You might even argue that with no pay packet at the end of it, their effort is equal if not more. However, that would also be a lie, as the world of acting is a competitive one, and laziness is not an option. I am today full of the intell...

At the end of a week where I was slightly disappointed with a production which had been a past Tony Award nominee for best play, I found myself at Duston for the very differently graded Little Red Riding Hood pantomime. There is no comparison of course, despite my disappointment and reservations, that play not only surpasses Red Riding Hood in performance levels, technicals and well pretty much everything. However it did generate a great deal of thought over a reviewers roles in the so called "entertainment" aspect. Despite Peter And The Starcatcher (for that of course is the play in question) being an exceptional achievement in production and performance, just lacking in the material aspect, I do wonder whether the audience at Red Riding Hood were actually having a better time. Like last years Sinbad The Sailor , this is written once again by the mysterious Mr Johnathan Freeth, who it seems is quite a dab hand at this pantomime writing lack. He certainly knows what...

I am not the biggest fan of pantomimes, however at a request I by chance found myself at Duston Community Centre (a venue I have not been to before) to watch Duston Players (a group I have not seen before) performing Sinbad The Sailor (someone I have not met before). It was absolutely a great community based amateur production, suitably cheap (even written into the script) with just a great cast of all ages having fun. Through this I managed to avoid the need to worry about much of the pantomime antics going on and in Johnathan Freeth's script there was absolutely every panto requirement inserted (add innuendo here). For my benefit, the tale of Sinbad being transposed into the eighties was perfect as this is very much my era, especially with music. Therefore I got everything from The Final Countdown through to Girls Just Want To Have fun and all the comically named shipmates names (harking back to stars of yesteryear) in between. Our hero Sinbad was played with relish by James ...