A Small Mind At The Theatre

I arrived at St Peter's Church for Looking Glass Theatre's Sleeping Beauty slightly jaded and apprehensive for my third pantomime of the season. However I always love to support this little theatre and this years show had the bonus of having a quartet of those magnificent University of Northampton students that I get great pleasure in also supporting. The four on this occasion were Matt Larsson, Tara Lawrence, Nikki Murray, Ashley Thomas Sopher and they made a quite excellent and youthful quartet and showed surprising skills in the challenging art of pantomime (no doubt very useful to have on the CV). Tara held the obvious affinity for working with children following her Flash Festival success the children's storytelling show and she has that quietly gentle style that offers no menace. Here she was once again joyful and even as a baddie in the second act remained playful. Ashley was quite a revelation as the dame of the show, playing up the part with glee and doing everyt...

I had already felt I knew quite a bit about Under The Hat by Headcase. They had via Twitter been the most active in teasing about their mysterious play in the lead up to performance. It was all about what was under the hat and it wasn't a rabbit. I don't think I still know what was under the hat after watching the show. I do however know that a hat is not a mug. Based on case studies from 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat' by Oliver Sacks, Under The Hat explores the effects of different neurological disorders. They do this in an extremely clever and entertaining way, perhaps teaching the audience more through a lighthearted way than laying the subject matter on thickly. We therefore see a character who has no perception of things to their left who misses that moment of love from another character because of it. We have a character who is unable to stand upright and his doctors have to catch him from an endless spiral. Then there is Jimmy who is unable to live pa...