Friday, December 5

Tag: Chloe Arrowsmith

Little Gem – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse
North West

Little Gem – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

Given it is the size of a generous living room, the Garrick Studio has proved the perfect venue for Elaine Murphy’s wickedly funny portrayal of three generations of Dublin women navigating the chaos and camaraderie of everyday life. Little Gem, tonight under the steadfast direction of Meg Brassington, is a play that thrives through its raw emotional proximity and conversational style. Through a series of alternating monologues between the three women we are given a whistlestop tour of love, loss and resilience. With a well-planned static set and judicious use of props, the focus is solely on the three actors and the life that they breathe into Murphy’s rich (and raucous) language. And in our actresses tonight we have three uniformly strong performances. Chloe Arrowsmith, as teenag...
Let The Right One In – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse
North West

Let The Right One In – Altrincham Garrick Playhouse

Let The Right One In is an adaptation of a book by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist of the same title.  It has also been adapted twice into film, one in the Swedish Language and one American produced.  It has also been adapted for the stage twice, once in Swedish and then English.  This is the Jack Thorne English adaptation rather than a translation of the Swedish version.  Unfortunately, the fact it is an adaptation of a complex storyline is all obvious within the first five minutes. The show suffers badly from far too many micro scenes.  In a two-hour play there are probably less than ten scenes that even make it to five minutes long, many are sub one minute.  Between each scene the stage has to go dark allowing for props to be brought on and off the ...