Author: kristobel

Review: Contact Young Company & Hetain Patel: Oh Man

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Oh Man
CREDIT: Contact Theatre
Upstaged rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Daniel Shipman

Having celebrated the suffragette movement with She Bangs the Drums earlier this year, Contact’s young company now turn their attentions to the altogether more controversial topic of masculinity.

Created in collaboration with Hetain Patel, the show takes place at a secret location, the outside of which is covered in handwritten responses to questions such as ‘what is masculinity?’ After being given a little too long to read these, the audience are ushered in to the space by a chorus of rhythmic chanting, stamping and banging on tin cans. The aggressive tone works as an attention-grabbing opener, and we all take our seats and wait for the tone to let up and explore the complexities of the subject matter.

Unfortunately, this moment never really comes. Whilst Oh Man is great at showcasing the ill-effects of masculinity, there is almost no attempt whatsoever to explore how traits such as violence and laddish behaviour are handed down through generations. This leaves the end product feeling a little unfinished, and it undersells the complications and contradictions of masculinity.

The company themselves put in a series of great performances, expertly juggling moments of tenderness with the impressive, high-energy set pieces. However, there is no escaping the fact that they are let down by their material. This is perhaps a risk when working with verbatim responses, but here it feels as though the material has been edited to avoid the more difficult questions.

Overall then, Oh Man is a missed opportunity to delve deeper into the subject of modern masculinity, but the cast ensures it is still an entertaining watch.

Oh Man runs at a secret location in Manchester’s city centre until Sunday 2nd September 2018.

PREVIEW: Paines Plough Roundabout in Ordsall Park | The Delightful Sausage

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Credit: Paines Plough Roundabout: Richard Lakos
Credit: Paines Plough Roundabout: Richard Lakos.

We preview The Delightful Sausage ahead of the performance at Paines Plough Roundabout, Ordsall Park.

Surreal laughs from Yorkshire’s finest, meat-themed comedy duo.

The Paines Plough Roundabout is a truly magical performance space. An intimate, vivid in-the-round pop-up theatre. This space-ship style theatre lands in Ordsall Park from Thursday 6th – Sunday 9th September 2018. Along with comedy, spoken word and live music, Roundabout will bring the best in new writing from Georgia Christou, Simon Longman and Vinay Patel.

Island Town, written by Simon Longman is set in a dead-end town and tells a bittersweet story about friendship, hope and dreams of escape; BAFTA nominated Vinay Patel’s Sticks and Stones is an incisive satire on the modern condition and finding the right word, and families will love Georgia Christou’s How To Spot An Alien, a rip-roaring space odyssey suitable for space cadets aged five and up.

Produced by the Lowry, Roundabout also features a host of community events and comedy from Barbara Nice and The Delightful Sausage.

The Delightful Sausage
The Delightful Sausage

 

Our guest reviewer Gemma Hepworth visited Edinburgh Fringe and saw The Delightful Sausage at Monkey Barrel:

“It’s a madcap adventure through the crazed minds of two Yorkshire hopefuls who inexplicably expect their imaginary hamlet of Ickleton to be nominated as a city of culture.

What begins ostensibly as a village meeting of ‘P.W.I.C.S- Precinct of Wider Ickleton Community Saviours’, swiftly descends into a crazy mix of characters, audience interaction and abstract storytelling.

The purposeful lack of finesse, the superb OTT character costumes, absolutely bonkers content (adverts of pretend sponsors, songs, out of character interjections) and side-swipes at their craft and the fringe only serve highlight how much they understand their audience and how much this camaraderie builds empathy and humour. Like The Mighty Boosh but with humility!

I LOVED the daft-ness and delights of Delightful Sausage! I was laughing out loud for a good twenty minutes after walking out of the venue!”

The Delightful Sausage plays at Paines Plough Roundabout in Ordsall Park on Saturday 8th September 2018. Click here to find out more about the other events at Roundabout.

Review: Burnout at 3MT

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Burnout at 3MT
Burnout at 3MT
Guest Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Mental health is a tricky subject to write about in any context, let alone make theatre about. And yet, despite this difficulty, we all know that it is necessary to keep talking about it in order to dispel the myths and the stigma surrounding the topic.

With Burnout, emerging playwright Selina Helliwell does a great job of dealing with this problem. The play follows one night in a 24-hour gym as the members and the staff come to terms with the disappearance of Raf, a regular gym-goer. Whilst the reasons for his disappearance remain ambiguous, the strain exposes the problems and fears which the characters have been hiding. Despite this dark set-up, Burnout juggles humour and pathos to keep the audience entertained without straying from the central theme. This is helped by a well-paced script which never lingers too long on any character.

If anything, this does become a problem after a while. The play touches on the struggles faced by all seven characters, but a short running time of just over an hour meant that some relationships felt rushed. I wanted to spend more time getting to know the characters, and so the play would perhaps have benefitted from having a smaller cast.

The performances are strong, with Elise (Helliwell) and Daniel (Tom Sullivan) forming a solid core for the cast to work around. Whether talking to each other or directly to the audience through monologues, each performer expresses the worries of their character in a way that allows the audience to understand and identify with them.

Burnout is not without its problems, but it is a great example of how theatre can deal with challenging issues and still entertain.

-Daniel Shipman

Burnout runs at 3MT, Manchester until Saturday 25th August 2018. 

REVIEW: War Horse at The Lowry

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WAR HORSE UK Tour 2017
WAR HORSE UK Tour 2017/18
Credit: Brinkhoff/Moegenburg
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You must have had your head stuck in a bale of hay since 2007 if you are not familiar with War Horse. The production has racked up a phenomenal 25 awards, including the Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway and has been enjoyed by over seven million people across the world. Originally a children’s book written by Michael Morpurgo, War Horse is set to the bloody and brutal backdrop of the First World War and tells the remarkable tale of a boy, Albert and his beloved horse, Joey.

Adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford, and in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, War Horse is a completely unique performance experience. Puppeteers, set and sound designers, choreographers and performers work together to create living and breathing equine giants – fully articulated, meticulous, whinnying, snorting hulks of horse. The structures are like beautiful machines and are moved and manipulated by a skillful team of physical performers.

The staging is beautifully clean, performers with props set the scene throughout, which allows the beasts and birds with their puppeteers to shine. Film is projected onto a backdrop of torn paper – changing throughout the show to reflect the setting – the audience is transported from idyllic farmland to the bloody fields of battle.  

The cast are pretty amazing too with Thomas Dennis (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) taking on the lead role of Albert Narracott – his relationship with Joey resonates tenderly and he plays the role with spirit and youthfulness.

The National Theatre’s War Horse certainly lives up to all of the hype. This was my first time to see the production – I’ve watched the trailers, read the reviews and bawled at the 2011 film – I thought I knew what to expect. I’m a hardened theatre critic, aren’t I? However, like most of the inspired audience, I was brought to my feet, and to tears, by this magnificent production.

-Kristy Stott

War Horse runs at The Lowry until Saturday 30th June 2018.

REVIEW: Toast (part of Week 53) at The Lowry

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Toast at The Lowry Credit: The Other Richard
Toast at The Lowry Credit: The Other Richard
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The theme for The Lowry’s Week 53 Festival is ‘Coming of Age’ and Toast, the award-winning food memoir by Nigel Slater, fits the bill perfectly. This moving autobiography, exploring the formative years of one of the nation’s favourite foodies, has been adapted for the stage by Henry Filloux-Bennett. Told through the eyes of a young Nigel, the playfulness of the writing translates flawlessly to stage in this striking, incredibly moving and always relatable production.
This production is beautifully sentimental and laced with nostalgia – every detail within the writing is brought out through the clever design and staging. An assortment of kitchen chairs make up the seating for the audience – jam tarts are delicately placed on each chair giving the audience an inviting welcome. Libby Watson’s set is beautifully childlike and twee as if it has been peeled from a warm and fuzzy memory. Kitchen cupboards open, shut and slide to create fluid scene changes – there really is some delicious choreography here.
All of the cast are astounding: Sam Newton (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) is instantly likeable as Nigel and plays the part with just the right amount of precociousness. Addressing the audience directly and frequently breaking the fourth wall, Newton is utterly charming and comical. The other members of the cast play a number of characters each – Lizzie Muncey shows great emotion as Nigel’s mum at the start of the play before swiftly taking on the playful role of Nigel’s school pal and his harsh but hilarious school teacher. Marie Lawrence really shines as Aunty Fanny, with her squelchy jelly secrets, and Nigel’s detestable step-mother Joan. Stephen Ventura puts in an excellent performance as Nigel’s dad and Andy Brady plays a range of roles demonstrating his versatility as a performer.
Director Jonnie Riordan has worked with Food Director James Thompson to incorporate smell and taste into the performance and this is a complete multi-sensory triumph. There are some sweet treats for the members of the audience – no spoilers here – but there is a wonderful Walnut Whip moment.

Toast will be sure to evoke foodie memories in all of us – whether that is sherry trifle, old-fashioned corner shop sweets or Angel Delight. Food has the ability to transport us to a memory or safe place. Toast is also much more than this – it’s about love, loss, family and growing up. A beautiful production that will warm your cockles like a freshly baked jam tart.

-Kristy Stott

Toast runs at The Lowry until 2 June 2018.

Review: Happy days at the Royal Exchange

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Happy Days at Manchester's Royal Exchange Credit: Johan Persson/
Happy Days at Manchester’s Royal Exchange
Credit: Johan Persson/

Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Days is one of the jewels in Samuel Beckett’s mightily impressive crown. A two-hander which primarily focuses on the simple but comforting routine of Winnie – who is buried up to her waist, then up to her neck in soil – it presents a mammoth challenge to any actress. As you might expect, Maxine Peake, under Sarah Frankcom’s direction, meets this challenge head-on and gives a perfectly-measured powerhouse performance.

The huge mound of soil necessary for this play makes it a bold choice for the Royal Exchange’s in-the-round stage, but Naomi Dawson’s set design makes light work of what could have been a major problem. The rotating set and camera trained on Peake’s face ensure that every seat feels like a front-row without sacrificing the liveness of the theatrical exchange.

The slowly, constantly turning mound perfectly echoes the circular nature of the character’s dialogue, and indeed her life – slowly accumulating soil, like emotional baggage, until she is quite literally up to her neck in it. This also acts as a subtle memento mori, lending the evening an almost imperceptible air of sorrow and impending doom that intentionally never quite materialises.

The tight close-up on Peake’s face in the second act raises a tricky mix of the challenges presented by both live and filmed acting, but she relishes this challenge. Here, Winnie’s discomfort is palpable despite the rictus grin she occasionally plasters across her face in a vain attempt to disguise it. She is torturously close but physically unable to reach the comforts of routine provided by her bag, or even the possibility of final release offered by her revolver.

Beckett’s penchant for repetition is deployed perfectly, giving rise to comedy in the first act and pathos in the second. The production pulls off this impressive tonal shift without losing the heart of the characters. Remarkably, Peake even transfers Winnie’s nervous shake from her upper body in to her jaw.

Some of the potential tenderness of Winnie and Willie’s relationship is sacrificed in the first act in search of laughs, and this puts a small dent in the emotional sledgehammer that is the second act. But realistically, you’re unlikely to see a finer performance all year.

-Daniel Shipman

Happy Days runs at the Royal Exchange until 23rd June 2018.

Brighton Rock – Week 53 at The Lowry

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Brighton Rock - Week 53 - The Lowry
Brighton Rock 2018
Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The Lowry’s Week 53 festival continues with this new adaptation of Brighton Rock. The festival theme of ‘coming of age’ seems to have been stretched pretty far in the search for content – I’m not sure Pinky’s violent adolescence speak to many people as a coming of age – but that doesn’t necessarily stand in the way of a good night of theatre.

Bryony Lavery’s snappy adaptation sheds light on the character of Ida, and Gloria Onitiri does this great justice. I’ve never been a huge fan of Brighton Rock as a novel or a film, but this foregrounding of a previously smaller character made the story much more accessible. The women of the piece are given an equal footing here where in the past they have been second class characters, and the story benefits hugely.

Sara Perks’ dynamic set design is used to great effect by the cast to tour us through the parades, pubs and piers of Brighton. This is topped off by Adam McCready’s evocative sound design, which fills the gaps left by the sparse, highly moveable set. Hannah Peel’s compositions alternately complement and overwhelm the scenes which they feature in – sometimes feeling perfectly at home and at other times lending the whole piece a slightly comic, over the top atmosphere.

The first act is excellent, but after a strong start, the second act loses some of the vital pacing and soon begins to drag. It doesn’t quite spoil the evening but it certainly had me checking my watch. The show is worth a visit for the new perspective it brings to the story, but be prepared for a slow second act.

-Daniel Shipman

Brighton Rock runs at The Lowry, as part of the Week 53 Festival, until  Saturday 26th May.

Review: #BeMoreMartyn – The Boy with the Deirdre Tattoo at Hope Mill Theatre

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#BeMoreMartyn at Hope Mill Theatre
Credit: Lee Baxter
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

On the 22nd May 2017, 22 people were killed at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena by a suicide bomber. One of those people was 29 years old Martyn Hett – a Coronation Street obsessed PR specialist – unique, effervescent and determined – who had a bar in his Stockport flat,  a cat called Emily Bishop and a life-size cardboard cut-out of Gail Platt. In a tribute to Martyn and everything that he stood for, Hope Theatre Company set out to find out more about Martyn, the lives he touched, his friends and the experiences that they shared together through a fascinating, though heartfelt, verbatim performance.

Hope Theatre Company spoke to eight of Martyn’s closest friends and then used their exact words to present Martyn’s story and persona on stage. #BeMoreMartyn takes the audience on a journey through Martyn’s life – from Canal Street to Coronation Street, trips to Blackpool and his schooldays – celebrating divas on the way.

Gold lettering hangs at the back of the stage spelling out ‘The Frigg’. Apparently, Martyn had a bar in his flat where all his friends would head back to after a good night out. You can even tag yourself here on Facebook. Martyn really was a one-off – he was unafraid, he was bold and he celebrated life. Two television screens further aid the verbatim performance with clips of Martyn’s dalliances on TV, his soap icons and also footage which he had filmed himself.

The performance is genuinely funny, Martyn’s vigour, zest for life and mischief translates perfectly as each story unfolds. The cast of eight are all fascinating to watch – the authenticity and weight behind the words is palpable as each tries to capture the emotion, idiosyncrasies and stumbles in speech – this heightens the emotion particularly during the sad moments of reflection.

Ultimately, #BeMoreMartyn celebrates the life of one extraordinary person who touched the lives of so many people. People in the audience were audibly moved by the performance at points – there was laughter, the sound of deep sorrow and resolute nods of pride. One thing is for sure, following the tragic loss of Martyn, his friends have joined together to forge tenacious and supportive friendships. In the words of one of Martyn’s friends, “#BeMoreMartyn means to be fearless, be yourself and be proud of that.”

-Kristy Stott

#BeMoreMartyn runs at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester until Saturday 26th May 2018.

Review: Hikikomori – The Shelter – Week 53 at The Lowry

kristobel
Hikikomori Création 2015 - TNG - Centre Dramatique de Lyon Mise en scène : Joris Mathieu Dispositif scénographique : Nicolas Boudier et JOris Mathieu CRéation Lumière : Nicolas Boudier
Credit: Nicolas Boudier
Reviewer: Daniel Shipman
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It’s an exciting time to be a theatre goer. Technology is rapidly changing what it is possible to achieve on a stage, and companies like Haut et Court are making full use of these new opportunities with shows like Hikikomori.

The plot revolves around Nils – a teenage boy who decides to lock himself in his room – and his parents, but the plot here takes a back seat to intelligently designed atmosphere. Upon entering the theatre, audience members are given a headset which plays the interior monologue of one of the three characters, but you don’t know which until the show begins.

This lack of narrative or certainty creates a productive disorientation – it allows you to empathise with Nils’s isolation or his parents’ confusion so much more deeply than even the best acting, as you are sincerely feeling those same emotions yourself.

You quickly become invested in your assigned character – knowing only their thoughts and motivations and being forced to guess those of the other characters. This emulates the frustrations of real adolescence. My headphones were linked to Nils, and his justifications made his outlandish behaviour seemed almost normal, whilst those listening to other narratives perhaps thought he was a cruel monster to his parents.

The acting is almost secondary to this genius device, but the delicate touch which all three performers apply compliments it perfectly. Marion Talotti as the mother is a particular joy to watch. Similarly, Nicholas Thevenet’s score – a gentle hum of electronic rhythms and broken melodies – provides the ideal aural complement to the sparse set (Nicolas Boudier, Joris Mathieu).

Hikikomori is a sonic, visual and theatrical feast – the absolute best of what you want to see when you take a chance on new theatre.

-Daniel Shipman

Hikikomori runs at The Lowry’s Week 53 Festival and you can check out full festival listings here.

 

Review: Seven Inch (Week 53) at The Lowry

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Fat Roland - Seven Inch - part of Week 53 at The Lowry
Fat Roland – Seven Inch – part of Week 53 at The Lowry
Reviewer: Demi West
Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fat Roland is a comedic onslaught of musical puns, cultural references, and audience interaction. Taking place in a single, hand-scrawled, cartoonish set, the monologue leads the audience through a narrative centred around the trials and tribulations of being a record shop owner in the digital age. Throughout the performance, we’re guided through Fat Roland’s internal debate surrounding updating his shop to something more fashionable and millennial-friendly. Slop anyone?

Before the show even begins, the audience is fascinated by the set design, which is simple but complex, the black and white squiggles being plenty to look at before the spoken-word artist comes onto the stage. The bold shapes and thick outlines on the shop’s furniture are reminiscent of something that 80s Will Smith would have rapped in front of for a music video, giving the performance an air of nostalgia. Fat Roland works in unison with the unique set design, tying in the records titles on display with his narrative, utilising everything that was visible to the audience. Whilst the set doubles as props, Roland has his own collection of 2d drawings, including realistic photos of popular celebrities, ensuring that the jokes are perfectly supplemented throughout.

The sound design for the performance works well, as it’s synchronised with the narrative and Roland’s movements. From songs that complement specific pieces of the narrative, to an advertising piece that seems too eager to wait its turn, the sounds amplify the comedic effect of the overall show and stay true to Fat Roland’s previous career as a DJ. Fat Roland holds the show together with impeccably timed reactions to the sounds being played, provoking an impressive response from the audience.

A casual mood was upheld from start to finish, with the audience being invited to answer questions, participate in pieces of the narrative, and even look after some of the props. It is clear that Fat Roland is more than familiar with performance, knowing exactly how to get the room roaring with laughter, from start to finish.

To conclude, the show is a fantastic combination of comedy, cartoons, and creativity, and is great for those looking for something uplifting and entertaining throughout. The independent nature of the show gives it a refreshing, homemade feel that makes it refreshing and engaging.

Check out full Week 53 Festival listings here.