42 - The Mummy's Tomb, Exit Theatre at the Charles Cryer, Carshalton

I really enjoyed the big colourful characters in this production, but probably would have cut it down as it lacked the substance needed to keep our attention for such a long play.

This typical egyptian Mummy story sees an egyptologist, his daughter and her suitors on a quest to discover a lost tomb, only to uncover a cursed undead Mummy.

The best performances were those played in the required cartoonish style, so the characters which really shone were inevitably the baddies. Scott Nicholson was very funny as a posh trigger-happy Lord Soaper, but I did think a comedy walk would have completed the character. Sarah Jane was a real gem as the evil Egyptian queen and dominated the stage. James Farr played an excellent Nazi villain with a great stage presence who perhaps just needed to be a bit louder when talking in Arabic gibberish to the Egyptians.

The fights and action scenes should have been more cartoonish too to give a definite style to the whole thing, the best parts were the comic punches where there was a batman style sound effect.

Overall the acting felt like the actors had been asked to reign in the ott characters to make it more naturalistic like Indiana Jones, which didn't work. We didn't sympathise with the one dimensional characters, so we just wanted it to be funny.

This was one of the things which gave me the feeling the director, Graham Butler, did not seem to know what he was directing. The play was billed as a farce in the literature which it definitely wasn't. If anything it was a spoof, but not one which made any particularly knowing comments or jokes on the genre. The script was a melodrama, but Exit had cut out the songs so it no longer held together as one. It did occur to me that perhaps it was a family production for kids, who might have enjoyed it if it had been cut down a bit. However the promotional material did seem to be aimed at adults so I was left a bit bemused about who the target audience was, and what we were supposed to be watching.

There was some clever set construction, I particularly really liked the boat which folded up from the raised back area of the stage with the black curtains at the back pulled apart in a triange shape so the white wall behind created the appearance of sails. There was also a scne in which Lucy Hamilton as the archeologist's dim but attractive daughter was shown in silhouette in a tent being attacked by a snake which was very well executed technically and ended with a hillarious rescue with James Farr fighting a toy snake.

Overall this was fun but too serious at points and far too long, there is a reason Scooby Doo is only a ten minute cartoon and we grew rather weary by the end of the show!

39 - The Merry Wives of Winsor , The Rough Mechanicals at the Charles Cryer

I hadn't seen the Rough Mechanicals before, apparently they perform a Shakespeare every year at the Cryer and I'll definately try and catch them in future.

Some great casting and talanted leads made this a really enjoyable romp through one of Shakespeare's more tedious plays. Falstaff looked like he'd just walked out of a pub sign and his jolly mischeviousness helped carry the play along.

There were a few line slips from the actor who played Mistress Ford but she didn't let it slow her down and was helped along by other cast members. The feeling I got overall from this production was the cohesion between th cast members, I really felt like they were having a good time. This along with the fact that they clearly knew and understood the play made this well worth watching.

I also thought the set was fabulous, with the bar in the middle of the stage right at the heart of the action and different locations around it, helping to keep scene changes to a minimum.

28 - Confusions, Charles Cryer

James and I directed this and I was really pleased with how it went. Clearly I can't write a review of my own play so here instead is someone else's:


Not sure what to make of 'competently directed' and would have thought he might mention our scene changer skits in between plays and other clever things we added to the script. However it is a positive review and mentions a few of the actors' names which is the important thing. On the whole I'd describe this as competently reviewed.


Here are some pictures, taken by Rafal Lacki http://photo.mackraph.co.uk:

Apology

I'm sorry my last few blog posts have been rather rushed. As you can see, I am keeping up pretty well with seeing the 52 plays, but finding the time to write about them is proving rather more of a challenge.

Please bear with me and stick with this blog, the entries will get better again, I promise! The reason this was been rather more rushed recently is because I am co-directing a play with Breakfast Cat Theatre Company. My co-director is my clever boyfriend James.

The play we are performing is the classic Confusions by Alan Ayckbourn. Here's the sell:

Confusions, from one of England's most popular and prolific playwrights, uses five inter-linked one-act plays to cover themes of obsession, isolation and human desire for companionship, all played out against a backdrop of the British suburban middle class. From frenetic farces to melancholy pieces, it is engaging, funny and occasionally touching. With a strong cast of Breakfast Cat regulars and a healthy dose of new faces, this production promises to be the highlight of the summer.


It really will be good, even if I say so myself. We have a simply cracking cast and some great ideas. We want to give you the traditional play you know and love, but refresh it a little bit with extra touches to make the play a joy for those who have seen it before.

So come and see it!

11 - Richard and Trudy, Exit Theatre Company, Charles Cryer Theatre in Carshalton

Number 11 is a play written by a friend of mine, David Trotter, which I did the lighting for last week.

I had mixed feelings about this production. Exit are very good at special effects and the best bits of the production were definitely the murders. Blood all over the stage, eyeballs being spat into the audience etc, it was all very Nighty Night or League of Gentlemen.

However for me this just didn't fit in with the play's setting, a Faulty Towers-esque hotel in Devon run by a couple who were basically Sybil and Basil Faulty. It was like an old fashioned farce but with a graphic sex scene and gory violence. It just didn't seem to make up its mind what genre it was. If John Cleese had done a Faulty Towers episode where he pulled his trousers down and shagged Connie Booth in the reception, then chopped off Andrew Sach's head with a bread knife, rather than being entertained everyone would think he'd gone raving mad.

There were a few great performances in the play, I thought Matt Lunnemann's panicked hotel owner, Richard, was great, basically a good John Cleese impression and Angel Marinez really stole the show as the lovable but stupid detective Thomas. There was a lack of chemistry between Richard and Trudy making their relationship very unbelievable, which I think was because Matt played Richard as quite naturalistic while Gill Butler was playing a much more of a caricature as Trudy. I just didn't get her performance to be honest, she didn't seem to react to what other characters were saying and it was all in exactly the same tone all the way through which I found irritating. (Hard for me to judge though as I auditioned for the part and would have done it very differently so maybe that's it.)

I thought Lucy Hamilton and Joe Webster played the two chav characters very well, and I think they got the biggest laughs after Angel. But although the performances were very good I didn't like these two characters from the time I first read the play, they are an old stereotype now reminiscent of ancient Little Britain sketches. If you're going to write this kind of character I think it should be much more realistic and have more depth to it, like the girl in Misfits, or even the McQueens in Hollyoaks. When middle class Waitrose shoppers like me take a cheap shot at working class people it makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I'm just too full of lefty guilt, it has certainly been said of me before.

I thought David did a very good job with the plot, I certainly wouldn't be able to come up with such a neat storyline with just the right amount of twists and turns and I think it is an under-appreciated talent. I would definitely have tweaked the play a bit so it didn't contain black-outs apart from at the interval, as a single setting play taking place over the course of one night it was totally unnecessary to have long black outs. Unnecessary scene divisions are a pet hate of mine and happen all to often in amateur productions. They really slowed the pace down in this play which was a shame as by the end of the run the play had a lot of momentum with snappy entrances and exits through the numerous doors in true farce tradition.

Finally I'd like to add a very well done to Felicity Foregone who gave her first ever drag performance before the show. After doing a similar warm-up for Anybody for Murder? I know how terrifying a warm-up improv is. She got better every night, with just the right amount of audience participation and really got everyone in the mood.

You can buy a copy of Richard and Trudy from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Trudy-Play-David-Trotter/dp/1840948086

8 - The Long and the Short and the Tall, Breakfast Cat Theatre directed by Tia Matthews

Occasionally, maybe once a year, a production comes along that really raises the bar for local non-professional companies. This was that production for 2011.

Willis Hall's captivating play set in British Malaya in 1942 raises questions about war, and what it does to people. The characters are a cross section of British society at the time: a Welshman, a Scouser, a Scotsman, Londoner, Northerner, etc. This alone poses challenges for actors; performing with an accent is one thing but producing a convincing accent when the rest of the cast around you are each speaking completely different accents is quite a feat. This cast rose to the challenge admirably and though I'm sure the eagle-eared could have found the occasional slip I was very impressed by how well they all accomplished this. They also managed to avoid plying stereotypes and each came across as very real, and each very different characters. This meant most people in the audience could recognise ourselves in one or other of the characters, forcing us to imagine how we might act in their situation.

This of course adds to the poignancy when these very ordinary men are faced with the extraordinary circumstances of war. We watch them struggle to fit in together, cope with authority just as we would in their position. And then, when a Japanese prisoner stumbles into their midst, we watch them struggle with the realities of war, and the big question of the play: does everyone have it in them to kill a man?

There are no easy answers to be found in the play. The officers Mitchem and Johnstone find the decision to kill the prisoner and give their patrol a better change of survival easier to make. They are more experienced at war, hardened towards making these decisions. Peter French as Johnstone was scary and a bully with just the right amount of menace to be intimidating but managed to avoid playing the character as a snarling stereotype. Scott Nicholson had a difficult role as a likable Sergent Mitcham. His obvious concern for his men was apparent but he has still just harsh enough, keeping them in line with an authoritative tone.

What was really impressive about the acting performances was the actors' performances when they had long amounts of time on stage without any lines. At one point I glanced at Jay Rolfe, playing the young Private Whitaker, during a tense moment and his face was such a wonderful expression of wide-eyed fear I wanted to go on stage and give him a hug. Of course the actor who had to do the most of this silent acting was Andy K as the Japanese soldier. His shaking with fear when he was first captured was brilliant and he really made us sympathise with him right from his entrance.

Roberto Prestoni brought the energy and pace to the stage as the rebellious Private Bamforth. He coped particularly well with the period slang, putting across what he was saying even though we didn't always understand every word. He and Tony Bannister as a lovable private Evans both brought out the humour in the play and really made me laugh.

The costumes were excellent and had real attention to detail, down to chocolate squares wrapped in brown paper and realistic sweat patches (added, I am reliably informed, artificially). These and a simple but effective set gave this production a professional feel and I was so pleased the cast lived up to this presentation and gave such polished performances. There really were no weak links. Next time you get the chance to get involved with Breakfast Cat, or see their next production, make sure you jump at the chance.


Photograph by Vicky Walters.