A Small Mind At The Theatre

The University of Northampton BA Actors devised shows are never, ever, a disappointment. Many of them like the incredibly splendid Orientation from last year, I could happily watch more than once. She Echos easily falls into that category and I shall return tomorrow to watch it once again. Taking the concept of alternative possibilities made famous in popular by Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors , She Echoes creates a multiple splitting world of Emily and her success in work, family, driving and most importantly love. We awake each morning with Emily either early, late, or with time to read the paper or not, and a meeting with her sister who may be back on the bottle or sipping coffee. Emily may walk to work, she may drive, she may get the tube. She might go to the Red Ruby club or not. Each of these scenarios is created in two ways, first through repetition of scenes where charges occur on route through alternating incidents; some simple, some startlingly dramatic. The second way...

Last month I was present for Orientation, very possibly the best ever University of Northampton BA Actors performance I have seen. Therefore the second groups ingeniously titled An Evil Gathering Of Infidels had much to live up to. Now lets get it straight from the outset, for me this wasn't quite as good as Orientation. However it was up there with the best of them and was perhaps such a different beast of a show that it is probably unfair in any case doing the comparison. First of all it is very much less character driven, as although there are several strong and defined characters in the play, actually only ten of the twenty-one performers even have character names. Those other eleven either have single unnamed roles or move between a number or groups of characters, and sometimes rather magnificently portraying doors (holding doorknobs in their outstretched arms). Lead character (for the first half at least) is Charlie Clee (last seen pursued by a bear) as Daniil Kharms, a writ...

The Graduate Showcase was pretty exciting even for me, so heaven knows how it was for the actors actually taking part. Here I was in a gathering of around twenty people (all others infinitely more important than me) at a special closed event at a West End theatre, complete with free drinks and buffet. Fortunately I had Mr Jim aka @mudbeast76 to keep me on the straight and narrow of juices after the one alcoholic one went straight to the head drink. Then as if it wasn't a surreal world as it was, there only goes and walks in Lukewarm himself, Christopher Biggins! However, this isn't about me, this is about the thirty six ultra talented individuals who after I have followed them for a bit over a year are about to venture forth into the big competitive world of the acting community. They have though the double advantage of not only coming through the excellent three years University Of Northampton training and also being rather talented to help them in this. This being my firs...

On the first of March 2014 I attended a play at the Royal & Derngate for the first time in twenty-one years (Sylvester McCoy starring in the The Invisible Man). It was a tremendous neglect on my part that my hometown's theatre had been ignored for so long. During that time my theatre visits had consisted of sporadic (but expensive) trips to London. A Tale Of Two Cities on Saturday 1st March totally changed that. Well not totally maybe, perhaps the wonder of A Body Of An American on Thursday 6th made a bigger impact. However show by show the momentum built until I found myself coming quite often. Well very often in fact. It also had a spin-off effect, so just as I had found R&D, I found other worlds within my town. I found University students performing at the Holy Sepulchre. I found the amateur Masque Theatre performing at the same venue. I found the Errol Flynn showing plays from London. I found the Looking Glass Theatre via the University shows for the Flash Theatre ...

I arrived at the avenue campus on a dull, rainy afternoon having left a pile of washing up behind me, how these pesky students knew of such things I have no idea. However, having received my ticket (a piece of string), I and the assembled crowd were invited into the Isham Studios (dark edition no less). Inside was a set consisting mainly of string, either hanging from the ceiling or pooling upon the floor. Also present was one of the actors wafting incense around which was leaving a pleasant aroma. Also music, a soothing, soulful song was playing, perfect to fall asleep to. Taking our seats (please take them, oh the agony), we waited for proceedings to begin. Our introduction came from Lydia Rose Blagg, one of those that I was able to identify in the show (thanking you Twitter), and I say now from the outset that I am yet to be able to know all of the stars in the show, but this detracts from not one of you, because, you were all mighty fine. However Lydia spirited us away from the...