A Small Mind At The Theatre

Last night I was back at Royal & Derngate to see the Youth Theatre/Young Company production of Bugsy Malone , this time seeing the almost completely different cast of Clyde Company. This second evening of the show had the fortune of running much smoother, with less of the technical issues that had beset the previous evening and restricted the success of some of the scenes. It was most apparent in the Fat Sam's Grand Slam scene, which became a greater hive of activity, with a full dance routine taking place, which unfortunately hadn't happened the previous night. Leading this scene was a full-on performance from Morgan Charles as Tullulah, exhibiting the vocal talent, and most especially the dance skills she had shown in last years Fame . In the lead for this second company, and taking a much different approach to the role, was Nathan Stroud. Here we had a more mature Bugsy, not just in age, but in personality. The slightly more serious style worked excellently alongs...

Despite very much being one of the in things when I was growing up in the eighties and definitely seeing on occasion, Fame wasn't really for me. However via theatre of the last four years, I have learnt to love musicals of various kinds more, and the R&D youth company and its companion young company via Sweeney Todd, Honk!, Cafe Crescendo and Oliver! have helped that development. For 2017 they presented two versions of the same play, the junior version of Fame , it runs for just a compact hour, and while they were dialogue wise the same, directorially and performing was very different. It offered in two days a great opportunity to see the same thing, differently. Even during the opening it was clear that the different nuances were going to be fascinating to look out for, the opening scene sees the students preparing to discover if they have made P.A., and in the young company version the cast clutch their notes and pray to them, while the youth version sees them hidden in...