theSpace on North Bridge Archives

Cicada’s Children – theSpace on North Bridge

19Aug

By Melissa JonesNo Comments

Scotland

Cicada’s Children – theSpace on North Bridge

Anna Freeman’s black comedy drama Cicarda’s Children stars Mark Jones as footloose and fancy free Danny who’s unwittingly fallen for a surviving member of a now defunct cult, Cicarda’s Children, Bella (Anna Freeman). Duped into believing Bella into launching a coffee shop, Danny spirals into a descent that involves relinquishing every aspect of his 2022 identity. At only 50 minutes long, this short production is a mere taster or perhaps even portfolio of what Freeman as actor and writer are capable as writer and actors. Or perhaps a vignette of a wider on-going story. So, the Fringe is the perfect frame to perform this short one act play that has ‘A Play, A Pie and A Pint’ quality to it. At the centre of this weirdly charming piece are Jones and Freeman, whose consummate unforced nat...

Things We (Never) Learned in Sex Ed – The Space On North Bridge

You can probably guess what the show is about from the title, though a slight distinction must be made. As the show itself states, this isn't about covering the biology or, as it were, the ins and outs of the thing, as these things are the closest thing most education systems get to covering well. This show is more about the other stuff, like how puberty affects your (and other people's) relationships with your body, consent, pleasure, and many other non-penetrative aspects of sex. Though of course those, and other sexual acts, are also dealt with. This is done through songs, sketches, stories told directly to the audience and discussions between the creators/performers, Lindsay Spear and Lea Sheldone. It's a mix of the personal and the general, of the comedic and the educa...

Hens and Heroines – theSpace on North Bridge

It should be inspired by Ovid's Heroides, Hens and Heroines, and mark the debut of the Bristol Badminton School at the Fringe 2022. It should interrogate the audience with atavistic dilemmas concerning life and death, fate and free will, desire and duty. Yet the only dilemmas it is able to raise seem to be those about the why of its own production, about the ultimate meaning of what it wants to convey, arousing a general perplexity about what the audience is watching. In spite of the limited half-hour on stage, the play strikes with force for its lack of coherence and credibility, for a poor script and for forced and awkward acting. As much as one can appreciate the effort of the seven girls involved in the production, some of them very young, the play appears as a badly cut plot, w...