A Small Mind At The Theatre

I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise that The Railway Children from Looking Glass Theatre was an awfully old fashioned and really rather quaint show. I know that at some point in the dim distant past I saw the original film version (all Jenny Agutter and "Daddy" etc), as I think definitely every one of my age will have seen that. However, the fact that of the audience, staggeringly only three were children suggests a little to me that the audience was either family and friends of the performers, or older people reminiscing over the story they remember from their younger days. I have to confess that I didn't remember much of the story ahead of seeing it, however, this adaptation from James Smith (who also directs) based on the Edith Nesbit original brings the story and characters to life in a compact seventy-minute version. As has been common from recent years, the cast is formed from recent graduates of University of Northampton BA Actors course, all famil...

I generally steer clear of pantomimes in general, but have inherited a few people and groups that I feel the need and am generally happy to support through thick and thin. Hence following my trip to Duston Players earlier in December, I found myself back at the annual Looking Glass Theatre's pantomime at St Peter's Church a week or so back (this is a heavily delayed review). Looking Glass do none showy traditional family pantos, there are no awkward moments here of the adult squirming over whether that joke was too near the knuckle for little Johnny sitting next to you. There are though always jokes for the grown-ups, but not in the adult nature, just occasionally newsworthy stuff, and this time among others we had the rather timely Baron Le Brexit as the baddie. This is the third panto I have seen from Looking Glass and without criticism of the previous ones, this is the best. It's a more solid presentation and perhaps most importantly wields the best quartet of a cast...

More possible years have passed than I wish to imagine since my last encounter with Kenneth Grahame's classic tale of the adventures (or misadventures) of a collection of lively, disturbingly human like animals. However as I watched James Smith's new stage adaptation of the tale, many things came swiftly back to me. Here was the classic messing about in the river line, there was the famous "Poop! Poop!", and there was Toad pretending to be a washer woman. The whole thing was pretty much back, if a little abridged to fit into its seventy minute running time. That is not to say that this is a straight adaption for the stage, as it is at times more like a pantomime version of the story (albeit one without any "he's behind you!" business) in its absolute silliness. This is much in keeping of what you tend to get from Looking Glass in any case, a relaxed telling of a classic tale. It's what they are best at and it is very much not broke, so why try to b...

For two previous years the Flash Festival had been a highlight of my theatre year. Full of energy, invention and talent, the University Of Northampton BA Actors students had created many a magic moment. So once again I was back at the brand new locations for 2016 for six days and thirteen shows of entertainment in the company of fellow "independent reviewers" Mudbeast76 and new recruit The Real Chrisparkle . The first thing that must be said about this years Flash was that of the three I have attended, it was significantly the best organised. Our five event organisers, Vicky Cooper, Aisha Ruth-Francis, Lucy Taylor, Daniel Gardner and James Broomfield were without doubt more organised and enthusiastic than any previous ones, and more importantly they had the stamina for the whole week. This coupled with a much improved schedule over the previous year, a better website design, more busy hub space and the impressive videos that were recorded made this without doubt the best y...

Much like Sell-By-Date in 2014 took death in it's many guises and made a dark comedy with wonderfully dramatic moments, The Show Must Go On takes cancer and creates a piece much like that Flash classic. Devised by Penelope May, Jake Rivers and Madeleine Hagerty, who between them are Lead Feather Theatre Company, this is without doubt the most emotionally dramatic play of the week. It centres around Alice (Penelope) and an illness that we eventually learn is cancer. Around her are her brother Ed (Jake) and her friend Sally (Madeleine). The piece is handled with a deft and adult style throughout much of the play as Alice's condition worsens. There is also a tremendously strong subplot as well with a husband and his cancer affected wife. The husband played by Jake delivers a particularly brilliant and challenging stand-up rountine (shades of Sell-By-Date once again) that builds from guilt laughter from the audience to eventually silence as the tone of the jokes deftly changes....

Following the emotional trauma of Blue Stockings, for my second play from the University of Northampton's third years, it would have been nice to have a gentle cool down. Days Of Significance telling the story of love lives and their own fears for a future on the front line in Iraq was not to provide it. Never in my experience so far have I been welcomed to a play with such aggressive and upfront material as this from Roy Williams. A barrage of F words, a minor mortar of a prosthetic penis hanging limply from an actors trousers and then an artillery shell of C words to make sure the enemy/audience is totally wiped out. I am quite frankly not surprised that an elderly couple did leave the show relatively early in the first half as despite our understanding that this was a war themed play, we were little prepared for the "Battle Of Bridge Street" opening, to give it a local theme. Fortunately myself, while not likely to partake in verbals to this extreme, rarely, maybe ne...