REVIEWS Archives - Page 331 of 340

25Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Being Posy – Four in a Bed Theatre

Being Posy is a coming of age performance by 18-year-old Posy O'Rourke, filmed in her bedroom and accompanied by self-written music. She explores the themes of coming out and growing up in a light-hearted and friendly way, which resonates with the audience despite some of us being well past our teenage years! Posy jumps between monologuing to the camera and singing with an array of instruments in a style reminiscent of Eliza Doolittle. I'm not sure how this would translate to the stage, but it feels fitting in a bedroom setting, and similar to a YouTube vlogger. It's fresh and honest, and at just under 12 minutes long, an easy watch. Posy certainly has a lot of potential at her young age and has successfully adapted to the online theatre challenges of this year's EdFringe. Altho...

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

Defying GraviTT – Online@theSpace

One of the best things about fringe festivals is that you get to experience a range of shows that cannot quite be boxed into one category. One day it might be jugglers or the circus, the next a political rant or an intense two-hander about the restaurant provision for vegans. As shows have gone online during the current pandemic, they have attained an additional status from performers isolated from others by necessity, not always from choice. Boundaries have increasingly become blurred as creators experiment. In Defying GraviTT, The Fabulous TT aka Tish Tindall brings her wry observational skills and musical prowess to a one-person show which considers lockdown from the perspective of “a menopausal madwoman”. Part video diary, part song cycle, part cabaret, Tindall’s piece has to...

The Plague Thing – Putney Theatre Company Online

21Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Plague Thing – Putney Theatre Company Online

Putney Theatre Company are an amateur company who encourage a feeling of community. The theatre company was originally two separate companies Group 64 which is their youth theatre section and Putney Players (previously Putney Amateur Dramatics Society) but they merged in 1999 to enable them to pool resources and work together. In this short vignette lasting 6 minutes, we hear from Enid (Carol Hudson) who lives in a care home and new lockdown rules have been introduced due to the pandemic. She is no longer able to go the community lounge, but must stay in her room, even for meals. As she states, “This is it – my room, my life!” Enid has dementia and her eyesight is not what it was, so she struggles to even watch TV. Just from this short statement we ...

Watching Rosie – Original Theatre Online

19Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

Watching Rosie – Original Theatre Online

Original Theatre Company have led the way in producing high quality online productions during the pandemic. They swung into action quickly with the streaming of The Habit of Art, the Croft and Birdsong, all extremely well-presented plays and were very well received. Now Original Theatre Company have joined with writer Louise Coulthard who has adapted her play Watching Rosie for the digital audience. Rosie (Louise Coulthard) is used to seeing her granny most days, but because of the pandemic she has been resigned to communicating digitally. Her granny Alice (Miriam Margolyes) is suffering with dementia and Rosie is worried about her being on her own, Alice’s husband Arthur died some years ago and she misses him terribly. Alice worries about her granddaughter as s...

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

At the Ghostlight: Online@theSpaceUK

Blue Fire Theatre have had two shows in planning for some time, focusing on household names of theatre past. In Kemp’s Jig, the spotlight falls on Will Kemp (c1560-1603), jester and low comedian for William Shakespeare’s company. In Marie Lloyd Saved My Life, we meet the Victorian music hall male impersonator Nelly Power (1854-1887). These shows would have opened at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, but instead the characters meet, backstage, in a short piece entitled At the Ghostlight. A chatty piece in which these two ghosts of the footlights meet in a deserted backstage area in a theatre, At the Ghostlight may be short at just under twelve minutes, but in J.J. Leppink’s thoughtful and funny script, it brings together two performers hundreds of years apart into a contemporary space to ...

The Murder(ed) Musketeers – The Space UK Online Festival

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Murder(ed) Musketeers – The Space UK Online Festival

As the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was not able to go ahead this year, venue ‘The Space UK’ have devised a replacement online festival to allow the artists who were due to perform at this year’s festival a chance to show off their production and to earn money via donations. Theatre company Highly Suspect, are more than just a theatre company, they also specialize in staging murder mystery events and given the fun injected into this production, I am sure their murder mystery evenings are equally packed with jolly japes. Before you begin to watch, it is a good idea to wander over to their website, as during the play, you will be asked to view the evidence to help in your quest to solve the crime which is saved on their website, it is a good idea to have access to this before you start.&...

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Albion – Almeida Theatre

Mike Bartlett’s Albion was first performed in 2017 and this first revival from director Rupert Goold, recorded live in February 2020, features many of the original cast. Very much a country house drama and reminiscent of The Cherry Orchard, it is as much a satire as a re-enactment of middle-class England. It’s a new start for successful businesswoman Audrey Walters (Victoria Hamilton) who has upended her family from the comfort of their London home for a new start in the country home of an old and unspoilt England, and which contains extensive gardens, once the design of a celebrated gardener that she hopes to restore to their original glory with the support of husband Paul (Nicholas Rowe) although daughter Zara (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is less keen on the move away from the capital’s life ...

After the Turn: The Mystery of Bly Manor, Online @theSpaceUK

17Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Scotland

After the Turn: The Mystery of Bly Manor, Online @theSpaceUK

Nine Knocks Theatre’s After the Turn: The Mystery of Bly Manor is a modern retelling of Henry James’ classic novella, The Turn of the Screw. Written and directed by George Cooper and Ellie Hardwick, it is a delightfully creepy interpretation of a classic and well-loved ghost story. The piece opens with a black screen and overlapping voices giving an ominous feeling from the start. Presented as a series of filmed interviews edited in a documentary style, the show ingeniously incorporates the framing device used in James’ original work, incorporating the first person narration of Theodora (Eilidh Gibson) as a series of video diaries presented to the programme by her friend, Marcus Bryson (Brian Weldich). We learn that Theodora was hired as a Nanny by Jonathan Bly (Stan Wildish) to...

17Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Recreation – Manchester Collective

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Manchester Collective perform over the last three years, indeed one of my final live reviews prior to lockdown was their ‘Cries and Whispers’, an eclectic collection of music to move you, scare you, and inspire you in equal measure. Used to performing in small, intimate venues, the advent of social distancing has seen them turn instead to the recording studio for their debut EP, ‘Recreation’. Due for release on 4th September, I was thrilled to receive an advance copy to review. Founded in 2016 by Rakhi Singh and Adam Szabo, Manchester Collective is a daring and disruptive arts organisation unafraid to challenge convention with their fearless programmes of classical and contemporary music. Famed for their frenetic and frenzied performances of lesser kn...

Medusa the Musical – Manchester Musical Youth

14Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

North West

Medusa the Musical – Manchester Musical Youth

It has to be said that 2020 hasn’t turned out the way anyone expected and one of the hardest hit sectors is the theatrical industry, who are having to come up with imaginative alternatives to performing shows with a live audience in order to keep theatre alive in people’s minds and hearts. The show must go on! Manchester Musical Youth have risen to the challenge with their home grown production of “Medusa The Musical” which premiered tonight online. Written by MMY founder and Director, Dave Holden with musical direction from Kimberly Holden, this musical tells the story of Medusa and how she became the monster with a lethal icy stare and how and why she met her fate. The only thing I knew about Medusa was that she had a head of snakes and met her grisly end at the hands of Perseus. ...