A Small Mind At The Theatre

When looking at the prospect of the Fringe performance Working For The Man , it is slightly difficult to work out who is the bravest person involved in this remarkable one performer, one audience member show set totally within or around the edges of a car. I guess I would in my case, say myself, but it takes some daring for performer Ellie Lomas of Naked Truth Theatre to also create a piece that offers the boldness that it does. Working for the Man is perhaps unsurprisingly about the sex trade, and explores exploitation and how, or if, prostitution is taken as a serious profession. It involves no live audio dialogue from performer Ellie Lomas, instead, she inhabits a purely physical performance, that is progressed by the use of a pair of headphones which you are given at the start. Across this audio are instructions of what to do. "Get in the car", "sit in the middle seat in the back", "open the glove compartment" etc, as you move to different areas ...

It is safe to say I think that reviewer and show maker alike never set out to deliberately write a bad review or create a bad show. There is simply no logic in it really for the latter, I mean why would you? However when the latter occurs and the former is there in the audience, things will end badly, and for me, it gives me no enjoyment. For my penultimate show, Unveiled , at this year's University of Northampton Fringe Festival, Myriad Theatre performer Isabella Hunt explores what marriage means to her in what ends up being just 18 minutes of a show that sadly goes nowhere. Marriage to Hunt it seems involves intermittently putting on and taking off a succession of dresses, amongst a collection of anguished thoughts mostly that mainly involves an outrageously over repeated physical piece. There is some very brief interaction with the audience among the lines of "how many of you are married?" and other light thoughts, where the answers are written onto a dress, the ...

I have always been a fan of a little science fiction. Not those sprawling space operas, or complicated detailed tales though, that you feel the need for a science degree to battle through. I am more about a simple tale, well told, not packed with scientific lingo, just well told. With Godspeed from performer Fox Neal and his Far From Home company, he ticks all the boxes on the good tale, well told, checklist. Ishmael Constant is humanity's last hope and following a comprehensive training, and having survived a troubling childhood, he is ready to embark on a twelve-year journey to a hole in spacetime to see if beyond it there is any hope for the people of Earth. Godspeed is an extremely well-written tale, told through Ismael's initial agreement and through his journey and told in chapters, and most impressively interspersed with some brilliant flashbacks, indicated via the screen in brilliantly realised video flashing between Space/War/Home, it's an incredibly good id...

One of my favourite films is the 2014 Whiplash , it revolves around drums (one of my favourite and often disregarded instruments) and jazz (one of my guilty pleasures, the Marmite of music indeed). Can't Quite Hit It takes drums as it's theme, and at times has a little of that film about it as well. Maybe it is therefore not a total surprise that it ended up being my favourite show of the Fringe week, and one of the top University shows I have seen over six years. Bias doesn't come into it though, as performer Rosemarie Sheach has created a top-notch show from her Rumble Theatre Company, superbly and endearingly performed, that non-drum fans I am sure would enjoy as well. It's more a chasing your dream story as Leah, an aspiring drummer, seeks out fame and more importantly the ability to do for a career what you love, and not have to be a team leader at KFC instead. You could replace drummer for any number of things to make everyone in the audience feel the passion...

Performer Jessica Harding opens her Unseen Truths production Exposing Inequality with a direct monologue to the audience where she explains that this is a show about, unsurprising, inequality, much centring around that vital turning point, the Suffragette movement. In this opening piece, she says something along the lines of this isn't just another boring show about this subject, and her intention is to make it all the more different. It is a dangerous thing to promise something like this, as it sets out all sorts of hopes for an excellent show. Sadly this genuinely entertaining opening, spirited and enthusiastic delivery from Harding, is pretty much the best part of the show. Although, Exposing Inequality is far from no merits at all, as there are some excellent ideas here which just needed a little more refining to make them work. The bulk of this show centres around Leicester Suffragette Alice Hawkins and takes her job in a shoe factory as another idea for the play. Throug...

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 ...

It is sadly true that even back in the '90s when I was about the right age to do so, I wasn't one for busting the moves on the dance floor. Therefore when I received the advance email for this show that we were requested to wear black, bring I.D. and come to paaaartey at The Platform, I welcomed it with a lot of trepidation. However, I need not have worried too much as I left most of the moving to the other students in the audience and my esteemed blogging colleague Mr Chrisparkle , who attempted some moves of his own and looked far more the part. I Believe from OVM - Our Voices Matter is performed by Na-Keisha Glenn in two main roles, and ably assisted by a number of other actors including Rosemarie Sheach mixing on the deck as the brilliantly introduced "token white girl". It tells the story of an innocent wannabee singer from Leicester and her pursuit to make it big from a meeting with R. Kelly, who inexplicably, is coming to Northampton. It doesn't take...

Having seen in excess of 70 University shows through Flash and this new breed, the Fringe, I have to say that I have enjoyed enough of all but one of them, to make them worthwhile, and to judge them a success, even if just one for ambition. Mein Hodenkrebs from Light in the Dark Theatre Company is a struggle though, but it does show immense promise at times, but unfortunately, that is mostly all on the big screen. Mein Hodenkrebs means My Testicular Cancer and is a comedy set in the body of Zak, a student whose world turns upside down with the news that cancer is riddling his body. That cancer here manifests itself in this play in a series of bizarre attempts to create political satire as characters like Boris and Theresa battle it out in Zak's body. Some of it works, the rectum scene, for instance, most of it feels hard work to watch, and irrelevant to the show. Our performers. Ben Loftus, David Wallace, Giacomo Galbiati and Kyle Lawson are good enough, throwing themselves i...

Back in the eighties, I used to read quite a lot of Choose Your Adventure books from the likes of Livingstone and Jackson, so, I was vaguely aware of the health, agility and whatever points as I came to this intriguing, and genuinely extremely different, Fringe Festival performance. The difference here from those books was this used the action and live a competitive diced variety of play, and this you have to think a little more on your feet and quicker at than sitting in bed reading. However, I was surrounded by non-experts anyway, so, as I took my Dragonborn form into the basement of The Platform, with helmet fitting badly over my glasses and on my giant, mostly empty head, I and the others relied on our guardian like guide (think Treguard but friendlier, for those old enough to get the reference), Liam Bottazzi. He is a jovial chap, all willing to guide us, but also as the gamesmaster, kill us if we step out of line. Our assembled gang decided in our path to steal a crystal ...

The Fringe Festival programme informed me that Veto Ensemble's Eve is based upon the biblical tale The Legend of Lilith. However, as someone who has only touched a bible since RE at school to move it in a drawer of a hotel, I'm afraid the reference is lost on me. However, a quick Google tells that Lilith is a wilderness demon and/or the first wife of Adam. So, taking the title Eve into account, I'll accept the latter reference as relevant here, because even a heathen like me recognises the relation between Eve and Adam. However, actually, none of this matters really to enjoy Eve, as this is basically a tale of friendship told in 90s flashback and modern times and its theme of dealing with both broken friendship, misogynistic society and rape. Eve therefore clearly tackles the tough subject matter, however, it has a lightness of touch to never be uncomfortable, but making its theme clear. It helps that it has two special performers, and at times very different on...

The third show of this year's Fringe increased the really good quality of the shows so far to properly superb as solo performer Kyla Williams presented Escape Route , a quite remarkable piece of theatre from a clearly multi-talented performer. Taking similar themes of mental health from the previous show, Escape Route centred more on suicide in both it's successful attempts, failures and what it means to be left behind. Using others and her own personal recollections, Williams creates a desperately sad at times depiction of life, yet, but makes it at resolution a most remarkably uplifting one with a truly inspired ending as well. Williams is unquestionably an amazing performer, able to deliver the stories in clear and distinctive ways. Each of the characters from young Caitlin, to the runner escaping life by running around, the very familiar to me Racecourse, and onto the cabaret singer asking "is that all there is?", are brilliantly realised. This is such a ...

For my second show of the 2019 University of Northampton Fringe Festival, it was a head-first dive into mental health (and this was not going to be the only show exploring themes on this during Fringe), and Amy DaCosta's Welcome to my World from her company The Realistic Theatre Company. This particular take on mental health was exploring Dissociative Identity Disorder, which was not one I was aware of going into the show. However, over thirty minutes, DeCosta went some way in helping a little to understand this, it is as it turns out multiple personality disorder, and here DaCosta explores a woman that has several hidden people while embracing as much as possible her real one of Zsofia. Welcome to my World is at times, and maybe deliberately so, a little confusing. As the characters become dominant, while DaCosta's characterisation is very different, the stories they tell can take some following, and indeed a discussion after was the only way to get a grip on certain a...

The opening show of the 2019 Fringe Festival (dissertation performances for (BA) Acting and Creative Practice Students) was everything as bold as its predecessors in 2018. During its first year, the Fringe established an audacity to its shows immediately and with Clickbait it was already very good to be back at the festival. Clickbait is presented by Flashdrive Theatre, made up of performers Shona Bullas and George Henry, and from the outset of the two performers standing in their underwear, we knew this was going to be bold, brave and indeed painful (for them) theatre. Henry plays Luke and Bullas is Emma, and both run YouTube channels, Luke-ing Good and Emmazing , and while they have some individual success, they seek, like all in this area, more. After a meeting, they create crossover videos on each other's channels and a partnership is quickly formed into a dual channel, LukeandEmma (it rolls off the tongue better, Luke says). What surprises with Clickbait is how ...

The Mages Guild, consisting of solo performer Rhiannon Flambard, presents in All To Myself , perhaps the most curious of offerings in 2018 UoN Fringe event. Based on Jonathan Coulton's concept album Solid State (it's really rather cool, so check it out), All To Myself is set in a world where an apocalypse, of the robot revolution kind, has left our character cooped up in a bunker, tin-hatted and awaiting the return of the mysterious Kurzweil. It's extremely quirky, as perhaps befits its performer, who from previous shows, clearly has a quirky, individual personality, making this an apparently very personal construction, but without getting bogged down in any issues too much. It's also at times extremely funny, with neat jokes about dead angels, and a great "plot twist" moment, that the audience relished. It's also extremely natural in delivery from Flambard, lines in this script are simply thrown away often, in a way you might barely hear them l...

This production from Unorthodox Theatre Collaborations is a curious one to review, as I didn't see all of it. PROJECT 25 you see is an immersive, interactive play, where we the audience become very much part of the emerging story. We are introduced, after being name-checked and tagged, to The Platform, a pharmaceutical company that has come up with the perfect drug that could save the health care system. Or so they say. The play launches with a smart little-choreographed routine from the cast (and some extra actors), which culminates in company staff member Amy Brown (Jemma Bentley) being sacked and expelled from the building. As Bentley is a cast member, we, of course, know that her return will happen, but in what form? Bobbie-Lee Scott After this neat and impactful opening, we are led into another room and presented with a glossy and technically impressive launch from the company team Pandora Pearson (Bobbie-Lee Scott) and James Van Laren (Daniel Peace). Following ...

I have to say as an unreligious person, I approached W?nder with a certain amount of trepidation. Performed by Naomi Hollands, an evangelist in training, as well as an actor, it comes from her theatre company Lamplight, which has in its description that it aims "to give the student population a chance to explore Christianity through the use of theatre". It was though slightly less of a concern, in reality, this show is presented at a nicely balanced level, which explores more what we find ourselves in life as things of "wonder". We are asked to write down on a piece of paper at the start of the show, where we see the wonder in life. It's an idea that is briefly used later in the show, as Hollands reads out three random ones from the bowl. However, it gets you thinking before the show proper begins. Hollands takes us through several characters including a young child and an older, more officious and organised person, before finally falling into a very pers...

In the Balm In Gilead , Bethany Williams, the solo performer in Set It Straight Theatre's Only The Introverted , was a quiet force to be reckoned with, creating a delightfully gentle character within an often cruel and violent world. In Only The Introverted , she explores a world, that I personally am very familiar with, as if anyone ever wished to diagnose me, I think I would be declared an introvert. This whole play from its opening of the emergence out of her shell and to its end is actually just sweetly created. The bursting forth of a million little beeps from a phone is an understandable thing in all of us now, and the response that this introvert character has to this is equally understandable. Even the daily grind of life, travel to, and travel home, from the eyes of someone who may need to live in this world, but doesn't really wish to, is lovingly created. The arrival of then perhaps the crowning glory in Shelly the tortoise is only going to enforce the loving ...

Thug from Ekdikesis Theatre and it's solo performer Rhianne Brown brings an uncompromising and challenging piece of theatre to the stage. Based on the Angie Thomas book The Hate U Give , it explores the treatment of black people in society, most especially the constant suggestion that they are the main culprits of crime. This is a tough watch for someone like me, and not because of any form of guilt. Without boasting, but perhaps somehow needing to state, I have never in my life had any racist, gender or any such opinion, therefore to listen to thirty minutes of the issues of being black and those problems around it, and the white privilege issue is a challenge. It makes you uncomfortable, and sure that is the point. For a theatre piece to generate a paragraph above is wonderful though, in so many respects, Thug challenges everyone in the room, and let us hope that it lies on the thoughts of just one person who has perpetrated any hate in any way. Brown is a tour-de-force i...

Way back in April 2014, No Way Out was the first production that I saw from local amateur group Masque Theatre, it was a version of Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis Clos (No Exit) , and four years later, the University of Northampton group Flux Theatre provide another version, presented in a far more claustrophobic style and modernised considerably. Seated in a circle, barely more than five metres in diameter, the three actors. Amber Jade Harrison, James Grayson and Ross Bayliss perform an adaptation of Huis Clos , titled Lawmen . This becomes perhaps one of the closest proximity productions that I have ever seen, and likely to, so much so, that often the actors are even seated in adjacent seats. to the audience. James Grayson We, the audience, are not there, of course, it may be close contact, but these three characters are in their own world. These three have been thrown into this Sartre inspired world of lies, and deception. Who are the truthful ones, who is the controlling me...

It is just over four years since I first saw a performance by the University of Northampton BA Actors ( Animal Farm ), and next month I shall be attending my fifth Flash Festival, where the BA Actors do their dissertation pieces ahead of graduation. However, this is my first Fringe (and the first one to be held in fact), and this is formed of a separate branch group, following what is known as the BA Acting & Creative Practice course. The slight difference of this course lies in the creative aspect, where there is more emphasis on the "creation" of theatre, as opposed to just being a performer on stage or screen. Freya Mawhinney However to the outsider, like myself, and any that have attended the Flash Festival before, there is very little difference to what you get to see on this new Fringe event. Performances are slightly shorter on average than Flash, at thirty to forty minutes. However, very much like Flash, they are created by theatre groups set up by either ...