A Small Mind At The Theatre

There is perhaps a certain inevitability that the amateurs of Northampton will provide a better play this year than Sextet , currently running at The Playhouse Theatre. However having said that, there might not be many on the stage that are as ambitiously optimistic of the skills of those local actors performing in it. There is much to trouble an actor here, with Michael Pertwee's piece (very much of its seventies period) challenging timing, prat falls, prop management and a navigation of a complex set (especially so on the small Playhouse stage). April Pardoe (Valerie), Simon Rye (Philip), Jem Clack (Denys) and Barry Dougall (Roger) The play itself as always with a character driven play, takes a while to get going. One by one we are introduced to the motley crew made up of family, business links and random people bumped into. Our six characters (yes, there is a clue in the title), are the Captain of the yacht, Roger (Barry Dougall), his (ex/current) wife Lisa (Tamsyn Payne), ...

There is a tradition at the start of some meetings that a member of a committee has to declare an interest in something being discussed. Therefore it is appropriate that at this time, I declare that as the relatively newly installed publicity committee member at The Playhouse Theatre, I am about to review a play that it has been my responsibility to promote. So how is that for conflict of interest? However to be fair, the amateur world has become an increasingly delicate place for me to work with reviewing as I have got to know more and more of those involved, and they have all learnt who I am. My reviews though are not here for me to make friends, as some recent offerings have shown, so if there was something up, rest assured that I would happily state so. Fortunately director Jem Clack has on this occasion gave me little of concern, as with his large cast of nine, he has produced a nicely polished production. I had the opportunity on Sunday to see the final dress rehearsal for th...

As has often been the case I arrived totally cold as to what I was going to see and experience from The Playhouse's production of The Sunshine Boys. The writer Neil Simon was unknown to me (research today has told me that he wrote classics The Odd Couple and Barefoot In The Park, and it is true, shockingly, that I have seen neither), therefore what I was going to get either way was a surprise. All I really knew was that is was a comedy. How sharp, witty and caustically funny is was to be was a remarkable surprise. It was also great news to discover that one of my favourites of the Playhouse regulars, Graham Follett, was the main star. In all the shows I have seen, I have admired his generally soft and gentle approach to the roles. It was however a huge pleasure to see him playing against that type I have previously seen in the role of Willie Clark, a opinionated, miserable and often downright rude ex-vaudeville star, one half of a long dissolved double act. He is immediately perf...

In my relatively brief theatre life I like often to try to spot tidbits of information with any new plays that I am seeing. Most are generally dull, maybe a writer I have or haven't seen before or an actor reappearing. Bazaar And Rummage though provides one of the more vaguely interesting ones in that it was first performed in 1982 in the compact 90 seater Royal Court Upstairs, which just so happens to be the same place I saw my very first London play, Rainbow Kiss in 2006. Well that is interesting to me anyway... The writer of Bazaar And Rummage, Sue Townsend, is someone I very much grew up reading via her classic Adrian Mole diaries. However despite loving them so much, rather oddly I have never seen or read anything else from her career as a writer. Bazaar And Rummage (Townsend's fifth play) is about a group ("You can't call them a group. They've never met!) of agoraphobics who attempt to recover through holding as the title suggests a bazaar and rummage sale....