A Small Mind At The Theatre

The Third Year BA Acting & Creative Practice students made their final appearance onstage together in an adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde by Royal & Derngate's Erica Martin, who directs with Trudy A Bell. It offered an inventive, if perhaps overlong, telling of the story, but allowed the diverse range of skills from the students to be fully exploited. This telling of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, might at times feel a little different to those that know the story well. The piece itself, while in keeping with the Jekyll tale of a scientist exploring a hidden self, also developed a separate story, involving another culprit for Hyde's deadly adventures. This revolved around a local piece of history relating to the 1892 murder of Annie Pritchard (Amy Catherine), and the person convicted of her murder, an Andrew McCrae (Ben Loftus). It's a neat spin on fleshing out the tale, especially to allow more depth for the 23 strong year group to all be part of. So...

42 Church Lane from Battered Lemon Theatre Company was the sharpest written story of the week at the Fringe, a brightly clever tale of three groups occupants of the titular address. It's also lovingly performed, and despite the longest show of the week, never boring or outstaying it's welcome. We meet our first occupants of the address in 1941, as the resident family welcome home Arthur from the war, returning due to injury. Flash forward to 2016, and Megan and Jamie have moved into their first house together. Finally, 2027 sees its occupant Doctor Mia opening a clinic to administer the MMR vaccine in the face of the newly privatised NHS. Each of these three worlds is, in theory, unconnected, but as storylines develope through a strong and totally coherent scene-switching way, it becomes clear that the underlying theme is very much that of trust, and in the end, the betrayal of it. Each of the performers has multiple characters and they often switch briskly, but there ...