A Small Mind At The Theatre

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 ...