A Small Mind At The Theatre

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 the first ten minutes of Forever Looking Up from Illicit Theatre, I have to admit I wasn't really enjoying it. It was admittedly bold and clever to have us enter in near darkness and the truly superb set did create a wonderful atmosphere. However much of the early part of the story of these fives journey to Mars One to colonise was attempted to be told through physical theatre. Now anyone who has read my reviews in the past will know absolutely that I love it, these are the moments in theatre where the hairs on my neck truly stand up. For me though, a lot of the early part of this in Forever Looking Up feels unnecessary and added simply because they can do it (and this group sure can). I would never have suggested that it be gone altogether though, just toned down a bit. However when the story is allowed to evolve a little more relaxed in movement, this play for me becomes something really very special. It helps that this cast features a few of the best from the year group. W...

Following the rather poor play in the form of Days Of Significance (and a little bit of minor social media storm), I am happy to say that the third and final outing from this years third year uni shows was a much greater success. This despite the fact that Greek themed plays are well down in my own personal favourites. Written by Moira Buffini, Welcome To Thebes is an exploration of an encounter between the wealthy state of Athens under leadership of Theseus (Vandreas Marc) and the substantially poorer Thebes of the title under command of Eurydice (Sharni Tapako-Brown). Lurking in the background are Prince Tydeus (Charlie Clee) and lover Pargeia (Kathryn McKerrow) seeking to snatch power through their own stirred up anarchy. The direction from Eva Sampson is for me the best of the three plays, superbly whipping the audience into the world of Thebes with opening tension in the stalls of the Royal. Three soldiers; Megaera (Madeleine Hagerty), Scud (Daniel Gray) and Sergeant Miletus (...