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Showing posts with the label Oliver Franks

Flash Festival 2018: Beneath It All by Balance Theatre at St Peter's Church, Northampton

There is a brilliant scene relatively early in Beneath It All which perfectly portrays the awkwardness and discomfort of the character of Charlie played by Oliver Franks, with so-called normal life. In a crowded corridor, he shifts uncomfortably out of the way of invisible people, even crashing into one at one point. It's an extremely clever way to quickly build the character and extremely nicely performed. Beneath It All from Balance Theatre tells us of the early life of three young people and their burgeoning relationships, and hormones, and winding back to the start, we find that Charlie has not had an easy life. The play opens with him in a wheelchair, we learn very little about why he is in this, but that doesn't matter, the thread of troubled times is enough for us to understand the story Beneath It All is telling us. There are a number of immensely tender scenes in Beneath It All , and they all build up our understanding of these troubled, but very endearing char...

Review of Canterbury Tales, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at St Peter's Church, Northampton

Much like An Evil Gathering of Infidels failed to live up to its same year devised buddy Orientation, Canterbury Tales has much to do so over Accused this year and sadly like Infidels is doesn't succeed, and in fact sadly fails much more so. As ever, little to do with the performances, which for the best part are top notch, but more because of the consistency of the material. Just like the distance Chaucer's pilgrims travel during their story-telling contest, here lies an immense gulf between the interest, and frankly boredom of some of the segments occurring here. It probably doesn't help that I have a nonchalant regard for Chaucer, having certainly studied him at school, I frankly, quickly forgot him (although I definitely had a flashback to The Miller's Tale and the red-hot coulter) and have never really encountered him since. The Miller's Tale ironically provides the best entertainment from Canterbury Tales , although you get to hear it twice (and repeat...