Monday 19 November 2012

The Effect, National Theatre

Not much time to type but need to recommend this. Unbelievable. Probably the best play I have seen this year.

Simply incredible, moving thought-provoking writing from Lucy Prebble. It's funny, disturbing, current, just simply brilliant. Acting is top-notch too and the whole thing looks amazing.

Sell your granny for a ticket. Hopefully it will transfer into the Olivier but it won't be quite as good. May well queue for returns and see it again.

Earthquakes in London and now this, Headlong might just be my new favourite theatre company ever.

Sunday 23 September 2012

Discovering Howard Barker; Bench Theatre, 13 Objects

I'm aware that I have not written on this blog for a while. Rest assured I am still going to the theatre as regularly as I can though not as regularly as I would like. Plays I have recently enjoyed but didn't have anything blogworthy to say about, have been Birthday at the Royal Court, an excellently performed Winter's Tale from the Rough Mechanicals and a precise and beautifully designed Calendar Girls at the Miller Centre.

But yesterday I came down to Havant to see Bench Theatre perform 13 Objects, directed by Damon Wakelin. And not having seen a Howard Barker play before I wanted to record what I thought of it.

This wordy, philosophical play is just my cup of tea. It consists of 13 short plays each centred around an object. The Bench performed the play with a cast of 13 which was apt. The language is incredible, it washes around you like word soup. It is like listening to a poem and then fragments of the text jump out at you, by turns horrifying and funny, profound and absurd. By showing you snapshots of widely varying characters the play captured the many contradictions, the joy and futility of human existence.

Above all though, this was an acting triumph. We watched one brilliant, honed performance after another trotted out like a feast. I can't possibly give all the actors credit here, the quality of all of them was startling. I watched actors I have admired since I was a teenager give performances I didn't know they had in them.

I won't go through all the plays but just give some examples to demonstrate the contrast. The first play is about death, a nightmarish 'officer' ushers in two crying women and urges them to dig their own graves. He plays with them, perhaps he will kill one of them, or both. Neil Kendal played the murderous officer with relish, at times almost Dickensian. Not knowing what to expect and quite horrified by this grim start the audience was carried along through his monologue by his magnetic stage presence and casual brutality. Julie Wood and Claire Lyne cried through this whole first play, the crying became like background noise setting the macabre tone for Kendal's monologue.

Then the second play started in a bright coffee house and Alice Corrigan gave a incredible performance as a prim slightly unhinged lady who had lost her lover. She delivered a monologue about how many of the cups in the cafe had been touched by his lips, throwing one on the floor to break it as she dryly observed 'one less'. It was funny and touching and, like so many of the performances in the play, completely spot on.

I wish I could write about everyone. Julie Wood's petulant and dimly disturbing Queen Elizabeth, Sharman Callam's old woman, Robin Hall's understated adulteress, Kathryn Godwin's manic optician, (whose lines about our gluttonous desire to see everything, shoving sights into our eye sockets pretty much summed up how I felt watching this play.)

I particularly found Terry Smyth's billionaire who buys a painting for £4.5million and destroys it electrically entertaining. Like many of the plays it dimly reminded me of something else, in this case a Roald Dahl short story. As I watched the whole play images of other things flashed into my head: Blackadder, Cloud Atlas, Brecht, Amelie, 50 Shades of Grey. I think that indicates how wide the scope of the play is. To say this was an ambitious play to take on is an understatement.

One thing I found surprising about the play was how much the emotions and thoughts of the characters were spelt out in the script. Lines like 'I'm crying,' 'I am not unmoved' seemed superfluous with such precise acting performances. I particularly felt this in 'Cracked Lens' where the idealist photographer, unable to bring himself to photograph anything finds the camera turned on himself and this time agrees to a photo. He didn't need the lines about being trapped into exposing his idealism as narcissism, we already spotted that as soon as the girl took the camera from him. Strange that Barker felt the need to spell everything out rather than trust the actors to show it when he gave the actors so much freedom of interpretation in other ways, minimal punctuation leaving director and cast to make their own choices about rhythm, emphasis and pauses.

I can't finish this rather long and rambling post without mentioning the inspired staging. This is the first time I have ever seen a company rearrange the seating of The Spring's studio theatre into the round and it was inspired, making the plays incredibly intimate. The way the actors had to keep moving around to perform to all four sides also gave a natural energy to long monologues which added to the feeling of a play crammed full of life.

The positions and paths of the 13 objects were marked out on the bare black floor with different coloured tape. The genius of this idea was that while you were watching one play, you were also remembering the previous objects, and anticipating those to come. The stage was transformed into a palimpsest, not only tying the plays together but elegantly demonstrating the idea of these objects leaving indelible traces in the characters' lives. The minimal set and stylistic setting meant that the 13 objects themselves shone with so much more significance as soon as they arrived, because they were the only objects to focus on. It was as if nothing else existed.

Bench Theatre, you clever, clever people.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Blackadder on stage, The Chichester Players, New Park


When my little sister Daisy asked whether I would write a review of this production I was a bit apprehensive. Anyone who knows me will know that putting TV or film onto the stage just isn’t my thing. I’ve been criticized for being too harsh in the past about stage productions based on screen. Basically I love theatre, there are thousands of brilliant plays which don’t get performed enough. With all those on offer, I don’t understand why you would decide to perform something that anyone can rent on DVD, or just watch on YouTube. Particularly amateur theatre groups. The Miller Centre performed a great Swimming with Sharks last year but it’s hard to concentrate when you know you have a DVD of Kevin Spacey performing it at home. I was just sitting there thinking, “Really? Do you think you have something to add to this that Kevin Spacey missed? No? Then …why?”

So that was my initial reaction when Daisy told me she would be appearing in Blackadder on stage with the Chichester Players. But I figured, I’ve only ever seen the Chichester players once before and it was a great production of The Crucible which I enjoyed immensely. And, I might be a tiny weeny bit biased, but Daisy is brilliant on stage. She is, she’s brilliant. OK none of our family are exactly Dame Judi but Daisy has a concentration of her character and a uninhibited confidence on stage that makes her an asset to any production she gets involved with.

Bearing this in mind I headed down to Chichester to see Blackadder. And realised I had forgotten something else about this kind of ‘fan fiction’ production. The infectious joy of it. When you watch people performing something they love, that energy sparks off stage and makes you happy. And you can forgive little things like a couple of the actors being a bit quiet (not so bad for me as I was near the front but I felt a bit sorry for those at the back at points) and missed lines, and even bigger things like the use of a prompt and clunky scene changes.

OK I can’t quite ever forgive clunky scene changes. During the last hospital episode, the two hospital beds were loudly dragged out and off again about every 2 minutes, the change lasting longer than some of the scenes. By the end, this was making me giggle more than some of the play. I strongly feel that the director should have had some weary characters (perhaps Baldrick?) bringing the beds on and off again with a weary ‘oh we’ve got to bring these beds on again’ look at the audience, it would have brought the house down. Elsewhere there was some clever use of curtained off areas of the stage so different scenes could emerge and disappear, which worked very well in places, like in the first episode, Beer, where Blackadder had two parties going on in different rooms of his house. At other points, lighting different areas of the stage would have been more effective and less clunky. Better still, the play could have used some editing to be more like a play with longer scenes and less like a screen play where, of course, you can cut to another scene every few lines as and when you feel like it.

Even better than that would have been a theatrical framing device where Blackadder and Baldrick enter at the start of the play and introduce it, explaining that they are going to re-enact some of their adventures for you, maybe some jokes about Baldrick always wanting to be an actor, and a call to turn off mobile phones because they haven’t been invented yet etc. That would have set the scene, given it a theatrical setting and brought the whole production together as a play.

Anyway. While the staging was a little clunky the costumes were marvellous, taking us through the different historical periods without the need for complicated scenery. Queenie, played by a polished and very endearing Carrie Allen wore a large Queen Elizabeth dress, making her being chucked in a cupboard at least 30% funnier.

They wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without some excellent lead roles who were cast so well you couldn’t help but wonder if the company were performing this play because a lot of them looked a bit like characters in Blackadder. Tom Worthen did very well as Blackadder, he reminded me a lot of Rowan Atkinson and even had the mannerisms right. He had a tendency to mumble some of the longer lines but on the whole it was an expert performance. James Allen was also a great Baldrick, he had his comic timing spot on.

Although he was a little quiet, I also loved Steve Jupp’s delightfully dotty Prince/Lieutenant George. Especially his kind of vacant look when he wasn't talking and didn't really know what was going on. At the end of Act 2 my mum, who doesn’t remember Blackadder very well, said to me ‘Prince George just looks ridiculous’ I said ‘yes, he’s meant to be like that.’

Roddy McKerrell turned a brilliant shade of magenta as the angry Captain Darling which was most entertaining. David Brown had a great line in Stephen Fry-esque acting with a fabulous moustache which I was sorry to see that he shaved off immediately after the last performance! Young boys Nick Holland and Wilf Bond as Pitt the Younger and Pitt the Even Younger did magnificently on their lines and volume. The poker faces of Lord and Lady Whiteadder in Beer were great too. I really can’t go through and mention all the actors but special honourable mention to director Mark Clark, forced to take on several of the smaller comical characters as one of the actors had hurt his back. I thought he was hilarious.

On the whole while this wasn’t the most polished production I’d ever seen it was fast paced and entertaining with some great little touches, like Baldrick on a spit with an apple in his mouth. The fun the actors had creating it was infectious and we had a very enjoyable evening. And my sister was brilliant, naturally.

---------------

NEWSFLASH


While I was writing this entry I got an email from the National Theatre reminding me that London Road is coming back! If you missed this amaaaaazing production first time round have a word with yourself and go and see it this time. Book it, book it now

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In case you would like to see them, here are the episodes of Blackadder which the Chichester players put on stage:


Wednesday 9 May 2012

How can we save the Warehouse Theatre in Croydon?

Argh Blogger has changed the layout of this page where I post my blog and I DON'T CARE FOR IT! Changing fonts in self defence.

So this week's sad news from the Croydon Guardian is that the Warehouse theatre in Croydon is in administration. So, you may ask, why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble? Here's what I think:



Why is a nice little theatre right next to East Croydon station in trouble?


1. Because of cuts to Arts Council funding 
Remember the Arts Council having to cut everyone's funding because the government decided it cares more about the people on the Times Rich List than the UK's position as a leader in the world of arts and theatre? So it kept funding amazing big places like the NT so people wouldn't get too angry and instead cut off the life blood of smaller local projects that it thought fewer people gave a crap about. If you don't remember you should have been paying more attention.


2. Because Croydon Council decided not to fund it either 
Because Croydon Council have higher priorities like their own pay rises. Also they are only really interested in helping out Fairfield halls because that's the place that makes the money (largely it seems to me by billing racist comics and sick 'mediums' who con large amounts of cash out of the bereaved by pretending they can talk to dead people because there are some people in the world that hell, if it existed, would be simply too good for. But I digress.) Also isn't Fairfield where the wives of people in Croydon Council work? And isn't one of the Councillors on the board there or something? That might be wild speculation which is allowed because this is a blog but ANYWAY the Tories in charge of Croydon, like the ones in charge of the country, only consider the arts worthwhile if they make money or win votes, preferably both. Fact.


3. Because The Warehouse Theatre is sitting in a building site
That can't be good for business. The situation as I understand it is that the Council tried to move the theatre but they elected to stay put. So they were promised a swanky new building as part of the redevelopment. The redevelopment hasn't happened (so far) because they can't sell/rent the office space because Croydon is already basically a graveyard of empty offices. So the theatre has been housed in a run-down building in a building site for years and years. It looks like that old bloke's house at the beginning of Up. Sadly, it seems they can't afford any balloons.


4. Because The Warehouse Theatre is badly run
This is based on my experience of the Warehouse which is limited. The reason my experience of the theatre is limited is because it is badly run. I go to the theatre A LOT. I live in Croydon. Take a look at how many of the 52 plays I saw last year were at The Warehouse, the closest theatre to my house. ONE. It's not for want of interest. I went to see a play there right at the start of the year. Looking for ways to see 52 plays over the year, I spotted a poster that said they were looking for Front of House volunteers. I spoke to the lovely lady at the desk, explained that I lived just up the road, had previously worked as a Front of House usher at Chichester Festival Theatre and would love to volunteer. She seemed interested and took down my details to pass on to her manager. I never heard anything. I went back and repeated this process three more times, spoke to three different people all of whom said someone would get in touch. Nothing. Why put a poster up? 


Hearing nothing from the theatre is something I have got used to. I don't get any emails from them (I've booked online so must be on their list) I spend half my life on events websites and never see them mentioned. They have never requested a review from RemoteGoat (unlike most other local fringe theatres like the Brockley Jack and indeed Fairfield Halls who do so every time they have a professional play on.) I don't see posters or ads, I get nothing through my front door or through Facebook. I go to the theatre all the bloody time, I get an email about a new show somewhere in London about every 5 minutes. If the Warehouse are not marketing at me, who are they marketing to?

5. Because The Warehouse Theatre is not engaged with the local theatre scene

Maybe there just isn't the demand for a small theatre showing professional shows just up the road from Fairfield and right next to a station from which you can be in the West End in 15 minutes. OK. But there is a screaming demand for a space that the many high-quailty non-professional Croydon-based theatre groups can hire to perform. Breakfast Cat and Exit have to go out to Carshalton to perform at the Charles Cryer, while CODA continue to bankrupt themselves hiring the Ashcroft.


Why on earth couldn't The Warehouse rent out it's theatre for a week once in a while to these groups? I think their audience would have loved Macbeth. We could have done it for a few nights at the Ashcroft and a few at the Cryer. It would have sold out, we would have paid them for the space AND, importantly, it would have brought to the theatre a wealth of new local audience members who they could have marketed all their other shows, professional and non-professional, to. There is no reason a theatre can't show both quality local theatre and great professional shows. The Spring in Havant might not be perfect but it has a theatre programme The Warehouse should be green with envy at, everything from Brecht from The Bench, improv comedy from SOOP, internationally renowned companies on tour like Faulty Optic, and Proteus and more than one cracking young people's theatre group too. The Spring (or Havant Arts Centre as it used to be rather more sensibly known) and the amazing groups who perform there are the reason I am interested in theatre today.




People reading this might be muttering to yourselves that I don't understand what The Warehouse is about. I'm not the target market. It has a closed membership. Explain it to me. Explain why, for me, this little theatre in my town is not the beating heart of my theatre world. Because I should love it. I should be furious that it is closing. And I am, but I am as furious with them for failing as I am with Croydon Council and the Arts Council and the businesses who are not renting office space in Croydon and the businesses flogging the offices making them too expensive so companies like the one I work for decide we can only afford to operate in East Grinstead and relocate. I have enough rage to go around, believe me. 


The only thing I love about living in Croydon* is the community of friends I have in the local theatre groups. The Warehouse could be a centre for this love and community. It would make people's lives better, it could reduce crime, improve Croydon's reputation, boost the local economy and make hundreds of people happier and prouder to live here. Sounds far fetched, but imagine Havant without The Spring. That should make The Warehouse a priority. So let's save it ...and change it! This is my wishlist for The Warehouse:


What I would do if I was God and could do whatever I wanted with The Warehouse Theatre
- Relocate it to the Croydon Clocktower
- Have a resident non-professional local theatre company who perform there 3 times a year
- Rent out the theatre by the week OR by the hour to local non-professional companies
- Offer a programme of touring theatre companies and professional shows, including popular favourites like Dick Barton and plays which are on the syllabus in local schools 
- Hold live music events
- Extend the existing young people's theatre club to start from age 7, a younger group meeting separately to the older group.
- Hire Stephanie Darkes to market the theatre to the Croydon community
- Relaunch with a Croydon Playwriting competition in which plays written and submitted by local writers are performed by the resident theatre company and the winner is voted by the audiences
- Install a second hand book shop in the theatre with an extensive play section
- Get rid of the local Council and instate some people who cared about the arts and could see the benefit of the above to the local community so they would fund it
- Hire myself to run it all


Anyway that's enough ranting blog for today. If you disagree with my condemnations of The Warehouse, the Council or the Government please do comment. In my opinion the internet is all about creating a massive argument. And your views are as valid as mine, unless or course you're wrong which I'll happily point out for you. Also do you think this font is easier to read?




*Apart from the excellent transport links to London and the rent being cheaper than nicer places.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Macbeth in Croydon: Using my own words

The reason we need writers is because sometimes even the most eloquent of us have feelings and thoughts that we can’t express. We find someone who has written something that says what we are feeling and we empathise with it, we recommend that book, we perform that play, we ‘agree’ with that Guardian article and share it on Facebook.

But sometimes we can be guilty of trusting these writers too much and thinking they will instinctively see what we are trying to say and turn our stilted interview or clumsy press release into the words that are in our hearts. And by we, I mean me. I. I am guilty of that.

At the moment I am performing in a production of Macbeth with the Breakfast Cat theatre company. I’ve done some assistant directing of the production and lots of promotion for it. And I love it. I am so proud to be a part of this production because it is everything a Shakespeare production should be.

This production of Macbeth is set in Croydon during the riots last year. Because this is topical some of the local press have picked up on it and written stories and blog posts about it. All of this coverage is welcome because it all helps to spread the word about the production and we love it when local people are interested in what we are doing. But that doesn’t mean we have to like the coverage. Some of the stories have made me feel uneasy and a bit sick. One of them made me cry. But that isn’t their fault, it is mine.

The people writing these stories and those reading them and the people who read my tweets and emails about the production think that a Macbeth set during the riots is a novel idea. They think we are linking the production with certain specific violent episodes in Croydon to sell tickets, to make a point about Croydon. That isn’t it. They have missed the point because they have not yet seen the play and I have not been clever enough to explain to them why I think this production is great, not because I am involved with it but because I love it. If someone else had created it I would love it too.

To help me explain this I am going to use a clever writer’s words again. Here is Tim Minchin, who I adore beyond all reason:

The point is that humans are humans. Macbeth is not about some Scottish bloke in a field wanting to be king. If it was we would not still be performing it today and Paul would not have been so excited to direct it. It is about that feeling you get when your world is being pulled apart and nothing is certain any more. My character says in the play “Cruel are the times when we are traitors and do not know ourselves. When we hold rumour from what we fear, yet know not what we fear but float upon a wild and violent sea each way and move.”

Because Shakespeare was a clever and eloquent writer, those words portray exactly how a medieval Scottish Thane would feel if his king, who he thought was God’s representative on earth, was violently murdered. And then succeeded by a man who the Thane has previously thought was a great guy but was now systematically killing all their mates and shouting about ghosts over dinner.

But because Shakespeare was a genius those words also describe how I felt as a Croydon resident when the riots happened last year. I was angry. I was sad about a negative image of our town being confirmed. I was confused about whose side I was on and I was frightened because our house smelled of smoke and the world was burning down.

That’s why I believe that by setting Shakespeare in our own time in a tragedy that we lived through we are doing it right. There is no point performing Macbeth in Scotland hundreds of years ago because you are taking what the play is about, the feelings and human reactions and distancing your audience from them by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years.

I’m sorry, and I wish I had written this blog sooner, to tell you in my own words on my own blog why you should come and see the show. But it is not too late, you have until Saturday to come and see us!

Come and judge us for yourselves. And please don’t judge us merely on our acting, we are non-professional actors doing our best to do this play justice, (although happily many of the cast are brilliant actors too!) Judge us on our decisions, on our ideas and on our passion.

Above all, don’t judge us on the articles and don’t judge us on this blog. The play’s the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Thanks.

Sunday 25 March 2012

I like the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I like Propeller. But which is better? There's only one way to find out...

This week I read in the paper something we audiences have been thinking for a while. A quote from the Observer’s theatre critic Susannah Clapp (always thought that was an awesome surname for a theatre critic) who says the Royal Shakespeare Company is “No longer unassailable as the prime interpreters of Shakespeare”.

And it’s true. If I want to see high-energy, brilliantly interpreted Shakespeare I go to see Propeller. If I wanted authentic, faithful productions I’d go to Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. If I could stump up the cash and wanted to see a celebrity with a careful setting and a great atmosphere I’d head to the Donmar or the Old Vic (Yeah I know, cheaper tickets are available, has anyone actually got their hands on them and still been able to see the stage?) I don’t think of the National for Shakespeare but if there is one on I’ll go because I have never knowingly regretted a trip to the NT.

But the RSC? Thinking about it I do tend to go to RSC productions because they are doing a play I want to see, not because they are the RSC. And they know what they are doing, no question. But I love the RSC best when they take risks and can invest in new ideas. I will love them forever and ever for giving us Matilda. And Oh Lies at Latitude Festival in 2008.

I’m thinking this about the RSC now because they have this week named Gregory Doran as their new artistic director. And I’m a bit nervous that they might take fewer risks from now on with their Shakespeare interpretation.

I need more innovative Shakespeare performances than the two a year we get from Propeller, which I tend to binge on by seeing both in one day, like a weightwatcher given a box of crème eggs, leaving me with a brilliantly happy feeling of being replete, tinged with regret that it’s a long wait until next year.

Doran’s Hamlet with David Tennant was brilliant. Even though, after a fruitless 6 hours in a phone queue on the day the tickets went on sale, I had to wait and watch it on TV. I could watch it again and again. But it wasn’t offering me anything new.

This week I went to see the RSC’s Taming of the Shrew. I liked the production a lot and it had ideas I hadn’t seen before, the set was a huge bed which meant the violence was safe, and therefore funny, and the sexual tension between Kate and Petruchio was palpable. The rough and tumble showed that Propeller do not have the monopoly on physically energetic Shakespeare.

But yesterday was Propeller binge day and after a glorious double bill of A Winter’s Tale and Henry V I realised that I still found these productions stronger.

I think it’s Propeller’s speed that makes their comedies brilliant. When I’m watching one of Shakespeares comedies I always get a sort of malaise about 20 minutes before the end when I realise all we’re heading for now is the reveal, the dullest and most inevitable part of the play when the other characters find out the deception or device that we’ve been laughing at all along. I felt this in Taming of the Shrew when, after an entertaining couple of hours of shouting and hitting and pissing and fibbing the time drew near when Petruchio spends a tedious and slightly uncomfortable scene showing everyone how tame Kate has become. Yawn.

Propeller understand that you have to rattle through the dull bits. They will slow down for the jokes and the great bits of poetry and then dispense with the reveal, as they did in A Winter’s Tale, with the closest the stage can get to a montage, reeling off the exposition at speed, dressed up with some illustrative tableaux. And that’s what I want when I’m watching it. There’s no need to revere Shakespeare’s words to the point of tedium.

So The Taming of the Shrew is hilarious, clever and well worth going to see, but I would have shaved 20 minutes off it. I hope that Doran will inject some Propeller like bravery to the RSC and get them roughing the plays about a bit, throwing in extra lines like “Take it away, saxophone sheep” when necessary.

Or maybe Propeller can only do this because they are not the RSC? They warn you with their name; they rattle off Shakespeare at whirring speed. Maybe the RSC audiences are not ready for so much deviation from what you expect of a Shakespeare play.

God I love Propeller, do we really have to wait another year?

In the interests of not sounding like a Propeller groupie yet again, there are weaknesses in The Winter’s Tale and Henry V. I am allowed to rave because this is a blog and not a review but I want to prove that I can look at my favourite companies objectively. And I didn’t think this year’s double bill was as strong as last year’s.

A Winter’s Tale was a great production but it’s just not a good play is it? Even Propeller can’t make the end of A Winter’s Tale satisfying, it is ridiculous. I’m going to rewrite it one day and have the bear kill everyone off, or at least that bastard Leontes. Argh that bloody scene with the statue coming back to life where no one says anything remotely approaching what you would actually say in that circumstance and just go on and on about how THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT EVIL WITCHCRAFT BY THE WAY proving that this ending did not work for a superstitious Elizabethan audience either. A Winter’s Tale is an interesting insight into Shakespeare’s experimentation with theatrical and literary convention, but it an experiment which fails. It does nothing you could not do 100 times better with a double bill of Othello and A Comedy of Errors. And yes, that would be an incongruous double bill but not as incongruous as merging them into the same play and pretending that’s acceptable if you go on about Apollo a few times.

Henry V is a much better play even if the hero worship of Henry doesn’t make as much sense to a modern audience. Propeller conjured up the atmosphere of war so effectively that the pleas in the text for us to use our imagination sounded like they were fishing for compliments. I was surprised at how much from this play was relevant, the questions of accountability for the man leading other men into war to die were particularly poignant, I suddenly thought of Iraq and felt a bit sick. The only aspect of this production I felt was less than successful was the way in battle a punch to the boxing gym punch bags on the side of the stage translated to a punch to a man on the floor. The separation of the violence from the victim, while expertly executed, didn’t fit in with how well conjured everything else was and I felt the device was introduced to the play too late and took me out of the action which I had been absorbed in. The music was brilliant though. And the French scenes were hilarious and... OK I won’t start gushing again.

So yes, go and see all three of these productions, please! And let us keep an eagle eye on Doran’s impact on the RSC when he takes over in 2014.

Sunday 12 February 2012

Shakespeare meets the Blair witch - Macbeth. Pistachio Choice at the Drayton theatre

I jumped at the chance to review another production of Macbeth as a chance to refresh the play in my mind as we're starting rehearsals for Breakfast Cat's production this week. Here's the review I wrote for Remote Goat.



I've seen Macbeth three times in the last year and this was certainly the most immersive. The audience sits on three sides of the space on a single row. This meant we were all on the front row which not only makes the ticket price an absolute bargain but means you feel very involved in the action as you're almost sitting on the stage. This effect was compounded by many scenes where actors appeared behind the audience benches on stage right and left, veiled by a black curtain which became semi transparent when the area beyond it was lit. This device was used very cleverly for the visions to appear to Macbeth when conjured by the witches.

I particularly liked the staging of the banquet scene where members of the court appear behind the curtain stage left accompanied by restaurant noises. Lines involving the court were delivered in the restaurant space, but when Macbeth was disturbed by Banquo's ghost he emerged out into the main space to be berated by his wife out of view of his guests, as if they had come out of the restaurant. This set the scene in a way the audience could relate to which was much more effective and contemporary then the usual theatrical asides taking place in the same room.

This production excelled at creating atmosphere. As we arrived the simple black stage was set with a figure covered in a white sheet lying on a large metal trolley. In the first scene the weird sisters emerged in darkness wearing white nightdresses and large glasses. They were lit only by torches which they shone on each others' faces. Many scenes through the play were lit in this way which gave a distinct feeling of unease and rising fear and panic, which reminded me of watching a creepy film like the Blair Witch project. When this first scene ended with the bloodied captain awaking with a scream I jumped in my seat.

The cast of 6 played the full contingency with full costume changes very well. Different characters were also given very distinct accents which helped distinguish them very clearly from each other and I didn't feel there was any confusion about what was going on. Because actors were constantly rushing on and off the stage as different characters the pace of the play was fast and high energy which added to the feeling of adrenaline created by the atmospheric staging. We felt a bit like we were at the London Bridge experience with characters emerging from ever direction.

The lighter comedy moments which would have broken this atmosphere were skated over somewhat. The Porter, played by Michael Loughton, was not played as comically as usual which I think was a good decision in the context of this production. Loughton also gave us a regal and likeable Duncan who I felt sorry to see dispatched and an excellent murderer

This was a real ensemble production and I felt all the actors really excelled in their roles. Tim Wyatt as Macbeth was particularly impressive though, his reactions and descent into madness were compelling.

Emily Woodward was also particularly good, giving very distinct performances. I loved her frantic and heart wrenching Lady Macduff, followed seconds later by a calm and measured Malcolm after a swift backstage costume swap. Her face as Malcolm when she was informed of her father's death really stuck with me.

I also really liked Charlotte Donachie who played the difficult 'I've come to give you some exposition' roles with aplomb and gave real character to Rosse without detracting from the main action.

Rebecca Powell was a rather less sympathetic Lady Macbeth than I have seen recently, a more traditional unmitigatingly hard and controlling spouse. I felt that her gestures and reactions were a little overplayed for a smaller theatre space where we were right in front of her, and this didn't quite go with Wyatt's performance which was more expertly reigned back. I actually enjoyed her performance more as the weird sister and as the young Fleance where her energetic style brought life to the characters. There was a very nice moment though, when Macbeth is 'crowned' at Scone, usually not depicted on stage. Rank and title were represented by pin badges on the lapel and we were shown Lady Macbeth emphatically forcing the badge onto Macbeth's lapel watched by Rosse. I thought this, and other little moments which were occasionally added were great, added to the pacey feel of the play and gave us some extra insight into the characters.

The one think which I thought let down this production was the costumes. There was a strange mixture of contemporary and more traditional dress which was confusing and made me feel like the director had not made clear decisions about where and when this was set. For example Malcolm made a nod to the military with a modern blue military style coat, while Macduff wore khaki green army uniform complete with beret. And while the Weird sisters looked suitably creepy in their nightdresses and glasses, this Psychoville look did not tally with Macbeth's simple suit. Overall it felt like the costumes had been picked for convenience in terms of costume changes rather than thought about as an important part of the visual theme which was a shame when the staging and lighting were so spot on.

We particularly disliked the beret which William Reay wore as Macduff which was an irritating distraction from his otherwise very moving and charismatic performance. His final fight with Macbeth was brilliantly choreographed and dramatic. It was a great decision to lose the knives and have them punching and kicking each other which as such close quarters was far more disturbing and realistic than a knife battle would have been.

If you like your Shakespeare gripping and atmospheric, keep an evening free to go and see this, you will not be disappointed.




What I didn't say on Remote Goat because I thought it would be pretty irrelevant and because the review was already far too long and rambling was: Is it me or is Lady Macbeth getting younger? I have seen 3 Macbeths in the last year, not one of them had a Lady Mac over 30.

A couple of years ago at the British Shakespeare Association's Hamlet conference in Denmark, Trevor Nunn told us he thought Hamlet was not 30, as the gravedigger tells us but younger. Look at the text carefully, Nunn argued, and it's obvious that Hamlet is a young student, early 20s max. Some scholars, and many actors (who like to still have a chance of playing Hamlet well into their 50s) disagree. Which is a shame because I'm inclined to agree with Trevor Nunn on this one.

But I'm seeing the opposite effect with Lady Macbeth. She's getting younger and younger because younger actors want to have a go at it and are not inclined to wait until their 40s. When I auditioned for Breakfast Cat's Macbeth I thought I'd be too young to be considered for the plumb role. But as it turns out the excellent Helena Natrass who has landed the role is the youngest Lady Mac yet, barely old enough to drink in the pub we rehearse in. Twenty six would be considered a pretty old Lady Mac these days. How depressing.

Now, many of these Lady Macbeths are excellent. But their youth means the underlying tensions in the relationship between Shakespeare's most ambitious power couple are skated over. Lady Macbeth has lost a child in the past "I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me", and Macbeth's main preoccupation for most of the play, once he becomes king, is with lineage. The weird sisters as quite clear that Banquo's progeny will inherit the throne. No children for Macbeth. This is what drives him to murder his friend. With this aspect of the play played down, the productions necessarily put more emphasis on the act of murdering Duncan corrupting Macbeth's soul and piece of mind and sending him mad, driving him to further murders.

Unfortunately this theme of Macbeth's "eternal jewel" being warped beyond repair by the act of murder is actually much more feasible to Shakespeare's devout Elizabethan audience. Today's secular audience have seen too many serial killers and psychopaths on the news and in films who murder and manage to present a perfectly normal facade to the rest of the world to entirely buy into this idea. Meanwhile, the childless couple driven by grief to mad and violent acts crop up on Eastenders every other Christmas.

I'm not saying Duncan's murder should be played down as a catalyst to Macbeth's unravelling. There are still examples of modern audiences being affected by damage to a character's soul. Andy pointed out to me when we were discussing it at the theatre that Macbeth is comparable to J.K. Rowling's Voldemort splitting his soul to create Horcruxes. And we certainly still squirm at Dorian Grey so we still understand the concept of someone who has done evil things being tainted. I just feel that this as a single or main explanation lacks the depth you get from a combination of a character's worldly worries for the future of his lineage, his human instincts to love and protect a family plus the supernatural concerns that he has done something abhorrent to his immortal soul.

Because of this there are two Macbeth productions I'd like someone to produce next. The first is a contemporary production with an older couple which puts the question of childlessness and succession back centre stage.

The other version I'd REALLY like to see is one of these younger Lady Macs who is visibly pregnant. Imagine the highly charged paranoia of the play, with this added dimension. How gruesome to hear Lady Macbeth talk about dashing a baby's brains out when she is pregnant. It would be like that feeling of disgust and despair you get when you see a pregnant woman smoking on the street, only more so. How much more terrifying for Macbeth to hear that he is to have "a fruitless crown" when he is expecting his first baby, after his last baby died. That's the kind of stuff that sends characters mad in this day and age. More gruesome, more modern, more innovative. Someone do that please. And let me know if you do so I can come and see it.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

How I learned to love performance art

There are those of you who will think I am raving but I just wanted to admit to you all that actually, I love performance art/ conceptual performance/ surreal theatre or whatever you want to call it.

Now OK I don't think I'm ever going to want to go and see Franco B bleeding all over the floor or Carolee Schneemann pulling scrolls out of her lady garden. But I love going to scratch events like Show Us Yer Bits (curated by GetInTheBackOfTheVan) which I went to last week because my friends Sedated by a Brick were performing a first peek at some of their new work.

Sedated By A Brick presented some really poetic work which reminded me a bit of doing Burglers at school (remember that? "What have the vandals done with my sandals?") They need to do some work to combine their new work with language with the impressive physical work they have done before but I think they will work this out and create something strong and affecting if not particularly comprehensible.

Next up was Sarah Bell who presented a really cute piece about her revisiting a film about the moon landings which she loved as a child when she wanted to be an astronaut. I thought this was very affective because it made me feel awe and wonder about men landing on the moon which I don't really feel normally. It also had loads of room for her to explore further the ideas about forgotten childhood dreams, nostalgia and media.

Lastly we saw a very funny piece by tatty-del exploring their competitive/bitchy relationship with each other. I thought this was an honest piece which I found very authentic. Some of the scenarios they played out I recognised from my own relationships with my family and female friends which made me think about myself and how I interact with people.

So an enjoyable evening all round. If you're still sceptical about going to see any theatre that doesn't have a playwright's name on the poster, here are a few reasons to give an alternative type of theatre a try.

1) If you enjoy surreal comedy like the Boosh or Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy there is no reason to assume you won't enjoy a similarly weird experience in a theatre.

2) I've had a depressingly large number of people in work and on dates ask me what my star sign is recently. Obviously people who 'believe' in star signs either are really stupid, want you to think they are really stupid, or have cunningly turned their brains off in order to avoid dealing with large difficult questions and help them to reduce the world to small manageable chunks. This is a talent I find both dangerous and enviable. If, like me, you occasionally find yourself so choked with the surrounding stupidity it is hard to breathe, I guarantee you will find some challenging theatre created by people who are really doing something with their brains very refreshing.

3) People who make this kind of theatre are lovely people who want to know what you think. You might expect them to be arrogant, annoying, North-London-Hipster type people and ok some of them are. But the majority in my experience are crafting their work to communicate with the audience member in the most effective way possible. They are far more open to suggestions and constructive criticism that any other type of artist, playwright or musician that I have ever met.

4) Don't knock it until you've tried it. I took my friend Faye to see DV8 a few years ago, nervous that she would hate it and think I was mental. She turned to me when the lights went up and said 'That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.' Now we regularly go and check out contemporary physical theatre/dance productions at Sadlers Wells and elsewhere and have had many more amazing evenings.

5) Nothing will ever make you sound more impressive at dinner parties than up-to-date knowledge of cutting-edge theatre.


I'm not saying you will like everything you see. Some of it is pretentious twaddle which will leave you cold. But I could also say that of many Shakespeare adaptations.


Thanks to Rob for coming with me to Show Us Yer Bits. I think he enjoyed it.

Monday 9 January 2012

On the radio




On Sunday I was a guest on the Nat Nollid show hosted by the lovely Rebecca Burge on ONFM.

The main guest on the show was Justus Emman, a fascinating guy who writes books and was on the show to talk about Voodoo. This meant that as well as theatre I had to talk about my opinions on Voodoo and its practice in the UK.

So for interested parties I include below a cut down version of some of what Mr Emman was saying, with my contribution towards the end:

Discussing Voodoo on the Nat Nollid show with Rebecca Burge by Ellie Dawes

And here is a recording of our discussion of this blog, theatre and what to look out for on the stage in 2012!

Ellie Dawes discusses theatre 2012 on the Nat Nollid show with Rebecca Burge by Ellie Dawes

I talk about this production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Haymarket's Tempest and The God of Soho at the Globe. I also naturally plug Breakfast Cat Theatre's upcoming version of Macbeth!

The Twitter account I'm talking about, which I've set up to promote Macbeth, can be found here, please follow and retweet it!

Please forgive my clumsy editing! You can listen to the whole show, with the full fascinating discussion with Justus, on Rebecca's website.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

52 - Aladdin, Ashcroft theatre, Croydon

52 plays!! I realise this might lose impact as I am blogging a few days after seeing this last production of 2011 on New Year's Eve. But believe me dear reader, I saw this (and The Borrowers) in December 2011. Which makes my challenge complete.

I was pleased to see a panto as my final play. You might think a panto is slightly less worthy than some of the other plays I have seen over the year. You are wrong. Pantomime is the greatest example of British culture I know.

Try seeing a Pantomime outside of the UK and you will run into problems. Then try explaining Pantomime to a German, an American, an Indian and witness the look of bemusement.

To me the clever puns, cross-dressing, colour and nonsense you see in a pantomime demonstrate the wit, diversity, exuberance and eccentricity that make up our national identity.

Look back in time and you can find the pantomime's ancestors in mummer's plays and even mystery plays. Look forward and find its children in modern films like Shrek (people think the idea of having innuendo and cultural references for the grown-ups in children's films is new. I'd say American cinema is just catching up.) Naturally as a leftie British person I usually treat patriotism as an embarrassing and rather dangerous disease but actually I do think that our literary and cultural heritage is something we can be proud of.

Now usually I'd advocate forgetting the celebs and patronising the smallest local pantomime you can find for maximum community feeling and naughtiness. But I did think this Aladdin was particularly good in terms of sheer volume of cheesy jokes. My favourite:
"I just saw Michael J. Fox down the garden centre"
"How did you recognise him?"
"He had his back to the fuchsias"

I also thought the set was lovely and glittery, the dancing impressive and the actors full of the essential energy and mirth. Wishy Washy (played by that geeky new bloke from Hollyoaks) was the star of the show, interacting really well with the kids, delivering exposition at roughly the speed of sound and jumping around the stage like a mad thing.

Something I would have liked to see improved somewhat would be the costumes. Pantomime dame costumes can be really magnificent and silly and although Twanky's were colourful I thought they could have been slightly more inventive and daft. The exception to this was the cool ming vase dress 'she' wore in the finale complete with a hat that looked like a lid so she could shrug her shoulders and draw her head in to make her head disappear. That was awesome.


I feel a bit sad now my 52 plays resolution is complete. Obviously I'd like to go to the theatre a lot in 2012 too, but with a new resolution to save some money and go on holiday to India I suspect my theatre trips might become less frequent. When I see something particularly great or awful, I'll definitely keep posting on this blog, it has been nice to practise writing down my thoughts and ideas.

Anyone considering upping their experiences in 2012, I can't recommend the 52 plays idea enough. I can honestly say it is one of the best things I have ever done. I feel like I know much more about theatre than I did 12 months ago, I see plays in a wider context and have a far better idea of what kind of theatre I really love. Instead of setting yourself the usual dull dieting or sporty challenge this year, why not embark on something that will improve your mind instead of your body? Watch 52 films, see 52 plays, read 30 books (52 books seems a bit much to me), go on 52 dates, whatever. Choose something you are passionate about and learn more about the thing that you love.

Above all my lovely blog readers, I hope you find a way to have a happy, constructive and successful new year. Noone else can make this happen but you.