A Small Mind At The Theatre

The Pillowman sounds such a friendly title, and to be fair, his story is one of the lighter aspects of Martin McDonagh's script. It still involves dead children though, if you want to get a clear vision of how dark this play is. Set in a police state of the future, Katurian (Toby Pugh) is taken in for the content of his often violent stories and a similarity to a spate of recent child killings. Here in detention cell 13, his police captors, Tupolski (Adrian Wyman) and Ariel (Steve While) play good cop, bad cop while holding over the threat of violence against Katurian's mentally disabled brother Michal (Patrick Morgan), being held in another cell. The Pillowman is clearly a very warped story, with the blackest of black comedy, and often also very offensive with it's racial stereotyping and disability. In fact, it is no surprise that a couple left in the interval, as I would happily admit that this play is far from everyone. I like a good black comedy though, and ...

Remarkable as it may seem when I settled, although a little sweatily into my seat at The Playhouse Theatre to watch The History Boys , I was about to have only my second encounter with the works of Alan Bennett. My only previous meeting with his material had been the 1994 film The Madness of King George . Set in a Sheffield grammar school in the 1980's, The History Boys brings to life the story of the pursuit to Oxford of eight students and the school's collection of wacky and genital cupping teachers. It's a bewildering piece to stage with its pre-interval 18 scenes and another bag of 15 afterwards, however, this snappy production under the direction of Gary Amos moves without pause for breath, and perhaps despite my never thinking I would ever write this, maybe at times too swift scene changes. For a person whose musical tastes lie very much in the eighties soundtrack this play utilises, bridging every single scene with classics from the decade falls right into my happ...

The wonderful Caroline Avis welcomes us at the door of St Peters Church. She is in full mime mode, enthusiastic and eager to please. She beckons each of us to our seats. Once we are all happily seated the show The Hold Up begins. This is silent entertainment as Caroline holds up (get it?) cards telling us among other things to switch off our mobile phones. This is going to be a fun night. However all of a sudden with no warning (unless you have read the pre-show publicity), a group of five armed men and women burst through the church doors. This immediately becomes a different kind of hold up. I imagine now someone who has come to this show without knowledge of it and their reactions, as it is all very real. A moment of real dramatic impact. Our terrorist captors are Tom Stone (the leader), Suzannah Cassels, Stuart Warren, Amy Weaver and the injured Patrick Morgan, who lays prostrate in the church aisles. Early on we are told that we are safe as long as we stay seated and keep eyes...

I first got the opportunity to see these now third year actors at the Holy Sepulchre in March 2014 and even at that time, as first years, their heavily choreographed movement work and delivery of the words of John Donne showed huge potential. Fast forward to June this year and the levels of skill were developing at an exponential rate as before my eyes they made my nemesis Shakespeare very, very watchable with their Winter's Tale and Merry Wives performances. Now a full twenty months after I first saw them they have presented perhaps the very best of the Northampton University shows I have seen to date and there have been many exceptional ones believe me. What Orientation did for me that was a delight that I have not always seen from the University productions is that as a concept it kept it simple. We are in a highly competitive office with a group of workers, basically amounting to a dysfunctional family, who find themselves not only snowbound in the office but also in som...