A Small Mind At The Theatre

Bernie Wood (Cleopatra) & Matt Fell (Antony) Unless you are one of the gold chain rattling members and higher echelons at the top of The Globe theatre and planning on evicting your innovative artistic director, the good old Bard is currently rife for exploiting in setting, gender and dynamics of theatre, and for me perhaps he should be. It is not as if after 400 odd years there haven't been enough opportunities to see "pure" Shakespeare. Hence why long before I made my way to see Masque Theatre's production of Antony & Cleopatra this week at Abington Park museum, I was already pretty excited to see it. The very reason is that having had the privilege of seeing female Malcolm's and Richard II's in the last few years via the University of Northampton shows, a nicely split gender balance from this show thanks to innovative casting by director John Myhill was on the cards. Throw in a bit of Mike Oldfield to open proceedings and you are going somewher...

Once upon a time, there was a brave theatrical reviewer. He lived in a market town in deepest darkest  Englaland, where many great and remarkable things of stage did occur. At the centre of this wondrous world of performing spectacles was a place referred to by many as the Royal Derngatus, a place of people pretending to be other people and telling tales of mystery, intrigue and frolics. Within the fortressed walls of Royal Derngatus, there were a group of fearless players who entertained local folk for no reward, other than the thrill of seeing the joy in the faces of others. Those group of artists went by the name of Actors Companus, which many pronounced carefully when they did say it out loud. This group of merry men and women did have two forms, an early and a late, and but two days before this adventurous evening of forthcoming storytelling, the late group did perform for a third and final time a most amazing feat of theatre, going by the name of Great Expectation...

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...

My one and only other previous experience of live improv was in the hands of the venerable Mischief Theatre team and a performance of Lights! Camera! Improvise! in London in 2015. It was a heck of an evening to see them weave a movie from a mixture of inputs from the audience, and was quite a team for The Same Faces to follow. Founded by Tom Young, The Same Faces have been performing in Leicester and Northampton for a number of years and have swelled their ranks of performers to allow a huge amount of variety to not only the show but those bringing it to the stage. For my first encounter with the group, the performers I was to see were Tom Young himself who was joined by Dave Gotheridge, Jen Kenny, Thomas Lawrence and Becky Moore and musician David Burton. The format is simple, through a series of games the audience provide key ingredients to allow the performers to bring the stage alive with their impulsive talent. These can vary from the very simple addition of numbers or colours, to...

I never got to see Deckchairs as it was performed at the Playhouse in 2014 two shows before I discovered the place. Therefore I was coming to this follow-up cold. However this is not a sequel in any case, just another play of four totally unconnected plays, they are two handers set on a seafront or beach of some kind. None of them are thankfully performed on those impossible to put up traditional deckchairs. The style of the four plays varies, with two serious pieces of drama in the centre, book ended by two outright comedies. It forms an interesting, and not totally successful package. Written by Jean McConnell, these are quintessentially British feeling plays with often broad brushstroke and caricatured characters. The quality of the stories varies with by far the stronger ones after the interval and this is surprisingly replicated to a certain extent by the performances themselves. The opening play is titled Day Trippers and is a relatively lightweight tale of a trip of two cowo...

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing an all-female cast at the Playhouse perform Bazaar & Rummage and to see a four strong cast of ladies in the latest Masque production was an equal delight. Lilies On The Land is written by the wonderfully named Lions Part, a group of professional performers that collaborate to create theatrical pieces, and in this they have truly created a gem of a show. Telling the story of four former Landgirls whose memories are stirred upon hearing of the death of Winston Churchill, their reminiscences form a loving history of their challenging, occasionally sad, but often humorous time on the land. The four strong cast of Jen Kenny, Sarah Stringer, Hannah Burt and Liz Clarke are uniformly excellent. Jen Kenny portrays a wonderfully refined and obviously quite lonely Margie and she has a confident forward way of projecting to the audience. That time where she just sits while the rest join in a jolly song are genuinely quite sad moments. Sara...

I have never made it a secret of my dislike of Mr Shakespeare's work. It's not so much that I hate the stories or the characters he creates, its just that my ears fail completely to attune to his language and often while watching performances, more than any other play I lean towards the production and visual aspect of the show. Therefore is was once again that during my latest Shakespeare, I watched costumes, sets, lighting and some most glorious make-up work going on. Not to say that I didn't see the actors superb work, there bodies and facial expressions helping me beyond the troublesome language and managing to take me into the story. It helped this time that I was coming at Macbeth as the first of the bards plays that I was seeing for a second time live, having seen the spectacular (and highly physical) feast that the University Of Northampton provided last year ( review here ). I therefore had a little more knowledge of the tale than I normally would. Here the Masque...