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Showing posts with the label Eleanor Morrison

Review of The Pillowman at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

The Pillowman sounds such a friendly title, and to be fair, his story is one of the lighter aspects of Martin McDonagh's script. It still involves dead children though, if you want to get a clear vision of how dark this play is. Set in a police state of the future, Katurian (Toby Pugh) is taken in for the content of his often violent stories and a similarity to a spate of recent child killings. Here in detention cell 13, his police captors, Tupolski (Adrian Wyman) and Ariel (Steve While) play good cop, bad cop while holding over the threat of violence against Katurian's mentally disabled brother Michal (Patrick Morgan), being held in another cell. The Pillowman is clearly a very warped story, with the blackest of black comedy, and often also very offensive with it's racial stereotyping and disability. In fact, it is no surprise that a couple left in the interval, as I would happily admit that this play is far from everyone. I like a good black comedy though, and ...

Review of Lydia By Any Other Name by Weekes Baptiste at the Looking Glass Theatre, Northampton

Lydia By Any Other Name is a sweet gentle little play written and directed Weekes Baptiste. Unpretentious and friendly are two words I would describe it as. It suited that it was receiving its, pause for dramatic effect, World Premiere at the quaint little Looking Glass Theatre. The play tells the story of a bizarre happening reintroducing two former child stars back to one another and the rather coincidental existence of two Lydia's. Combining live action with archive footage of 8mm film recorded over 25 years is an effective but different approach to one I have seen previously. The play itself had managed to get over its own little drama just a week before with the lead dropping out, therefore parachuting into place at short notice (script in hand) was Georgina Pearson who given the time constraints gave a nice performance as Rosemary Cooper. Able to discard the script for the second act part. We had three Lydia's in the piece, with a bolshy turn from Eleanor Morrison...