Theatre Things

Review: How To Save A Life at Theatre N16

Published on August 28, 2018July 20, 2019 by Liz1 Comment

According to Cancer Research, around 1 in 135 women in the UK will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in their lifetime. Maybe that makes it sound like the odds are in our favour – but what if you’re the one?

Written and directed by Stephanie Silver, How To Save A Life is the story of Melissa (Heather Wilkins), who’s just learned she’s got cervical cancer after going to the doctor with an embarrassing and apparently minor complaint. The play follows her through her journey and explores how her diagnosis affects her relationship with those closest to her – in particular, her boyfriend Toby (John Mark Slade) and best friend Maria (Katerina Robinson).

The first surprise is how funny the play is; Melissa is an engaging central character who’s not afraid to (over)share intimate details about her life, and who, despite her immediate fears that as a cancer patient she’ll never smile again, still manages to find silver linings to her condition. All the Spice Girls dance routines, gap year plans and glitter cannons in the world, though, can’t quite distract us – or Melissa – from the sobering reality of what’s happening to her, as with each new doctor’s appointment the prognosis gets a little worse. Heather Wilkins’ performance captures really well the growing sense of panic that constantly intrudes, despite Melissa’s best attempts to smother it, and we feel each new blow right along with her.

Some of the play’s most poignant scenes are shared moments with Toby and Maria, who never leave her side (literally; both John Mark Slade and Katerina Robinson remain on stage throughout, filling in all the other roles and ensuring the right prop is always to hand). Though it’s initially heartwarming to see their unwavering support, as the play goes on it begins to make things worse, because Melissa’s all too aware of how much she means to them and what it’ll be like for them to lose her. Should the play be developed into a full-length piece – and let’s hope it is – it would be great to see this complex relationships angle explored in more depth.

Perhaps inevitably, given that it was written by a medical professional, the play’s immediate impact is also to educate its audience about the symptoms to look out for, and the importance of cervical cancer screening. Far from lecturing, however, it does this very naturally through Melissa, as she not only shares what initially led her to consult the doctor but also reflects on the other earlier signs she brushed off as “normal”. As a woman in the audience, it’s almost impossible not to be affected or go away with a heightened awareness of the risks.

It’s still early days for How To Save A Life, which is performed at Theatre N16 this week as part of the Catapult new writing festival – but already there’s a huge amount of potential in this short but impactful piece. If nothing else, it should encourage more people to go for screening, but it’s also a deeply poignant look at one young woman’s devastating personal journey through a cancer diagnosis and beyond. I hope we’ll see more of it in the future.

Interview: Kevin Mandry, Eros

Published on August 26, 2018July 20, 2019 by LizLeave a comment

Sure, you love women. You love them when they’re flawless. You love them when they’re silent. You love them through a lens. It’s just a pain when we actually turn out real…

Writer Kevin Mandry returns to the White Bear Theatre in Kennington following the success of Flowers in the Field, a critically acclaimed study of early twentieth-century folk-song collectors, back in 2014. His new play, Eros, is a topical three-hander about the female body, consent and agency, set in the 1990s at the dawn of the Internet. The play’s central character, Ross, is a former glamour photographer forced to reconsider his motives when one of his subjects, Kate, returns with a very different recollection of what happened 20 years earlier.

“Eros is about the way images skew our view of the world and ourselves – specifically in this case, images of women – and men’s view of them,” explains Kevin, a freelance writer whose theatrical productions and commissions include The Tricycle Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Orange Tree, Young Exchange, Churchill and Birds Nest Theatres and BBC R4. “Ross has a line: ‘I was never in the business of exploiting women, I was in the business of exploiting men.’ Whether you finally decide he’s either sincere or right, it’s an unusual angle to come from…”

Kevin wrote the play after observing a younger generation raised in a world that’s dominated by screens: “The internet means that we now live in a world dominated by images, and they have become our everyday currency – but we can still just about recall how it was before, and make the comparison.

“The visual image has always been the most immediate drug we have – one of the opening lines in the play refers to ‘an injection of pure pleasure, straight into the brain’. Will we ever find a healthy balance? As with any addiction, it’s either going to take a loooong time, or a major crisis.”

The play, starring Stephen Riddle, Anna Tymoshenko and Felicity Jolly, and directed by Stephen Bailey, opens at the White Bear this week, and Kevin hopes that audiences will leave with plenty of food for thought. “I hope they’ll take away a – tragic? – sense that arguments are rarely black and white, that human beings are complex, self-contradictory and flawed, and that our capacity for fantasy and even our good intentions can have unforeseen outcomes. It’s also a romantic story, about a love affair – or rather, two love affairs, even if they’re both rather unusual – and in many ways that remains the deepest and strongest kind of story.”

Review: The Government Inspector at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre

Published on August 25, 2018July 20, 2019 by LizLeave a comment

Paula Chitty’s new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector is an entertaining comedy of errors, which relocates the action from 19th century Russia to northern England in 1979. With public workers on strike in response to cuts and corruption within the council, the town of Worsborough Dale has fallen into unsanitary disrepair – so it’s with some horror that the local officials learn there’s a government inspector on the way.

When they hear there’s a well-dressed young man staying at the local B&B, they jump to the obvious conclusion, and deal with the problem the only way they know how: by throwing money at it. There’s just one problem – said well-dressed young man isn’t the inspector at all, but Norman, a minor civil servant who’s gambled away all his funds, and is consequently only too happy to accept every penny of the council’s generosity.

Nobody comes out of this story very well: as loathsome as Norman (Jack Blue) and his travelling companion Osip (John Stivey) are, we can’t help but enjoy seeing them take advantage of the equally vile council officials, who’ve been cheerfully lying, cheating and lining their own pockets at the expense of the local residents. Property dealers Black and Jack (Elizabeth George and Richard Houghton-Evans) are dreadful gossips, Tommy the postman (Robert Mclachlan) routinely opens everyone’s mail, the Deputy Leader (Richard Willmott) is a creep who’s already having at least one affair, and the Chairman (Bernard O’Sullivan) is a tyrant who’s only interested in his own career advancement. The one character for whom we have any sympathy is Anna (Fiona Vivian), the Chairman’s daughter, who ends up an innocent pawn in the schemes of her father and Norman.

The real victims, however, are the people of Worsborough Dale, who’ve seen their wages cut, jobs lost and public services slashed; the town’s overrun with rats and the lights keep going out, so it’s hardly surprising that they’ve taken to the streets in protest. Though the play’s set in the 70s, it’s not hard to draw parallels with the current political situation, and the lack of public faith in those elected to lead our country.

The production is at times a little unpolished, but the enthusiasm of the cast can’t be faulted as they throw themselves gleefully into their various unsavoury roles. There’s also some excellent physical humour, particularly in Act 2 when events really begin to spiral out of control. Jack Blue and John Stivey make an enjoyably unscrupulous comedy double act as Norman and his long-suffering companion Osip, and Bernard O’Sullivan also stands out as the increasingly frustrated Chairman; when he finally explodes, it’s quite a sight to behold.

At a time when it feels harder than ever to trust those in power, it feels both appropriate and depressing to see Gogol’s play revived, almost 200 years after it was written. Perhaps one day we’ll no longer need cautionary tales like these – but based on humanity’s track record to date, it seems sadly unlikely.

Review: Much Ado About Nothing at Gray’s Inn Hall

Published on August 24, 2018July 20, 2019 by LizLeave a comment

Well, it’s official. I was already a fan of Antic Disposition’s work after enjoying their productions of Henry V and Richard III – but their latest offering, a joyous and hilarious take on Much Ado About Nothing, has well and truly sealed the deal. The play itself I have all kinds of issues with, but I’m not going to get into those, because I had such a great time watching this production that I’m seriously considering a return visit before the run ends on 1st September.

Transplanted from Italy to a small French village at the end of World War II, Much Ado sees Don Pedro (Theo Landey) and his triumphant soldiers call in to visit the town’s Governor, Leonato (Chris Hespel) on their way home. One of the officers, Claudio (Alexander Varey), falls in love with Leonato’s daughter Hero (Floriane Andersen), and Don Pedro steps in to arrange their marriage. He then turns his attention to convincing Hero’s cousin Béatrice (Chiraz Aïch) and another of his men, Benedick (Nicholas Osmond), that their constant bickering actually masks much deeper feelings. It’s all going swimmingly, until Pedro’s bastard brother Don John (Alfie Webster) teams up with soldier Borachio (Tommy Burgess) and Hero’s unwitting maid Margaret (Molly Miles) to convince Claudio that Hero’s been unfaithful to him, leading him to publicly shame her and leave her for dead on her wedding day. But this is a Shakespearean comedy, so we can all guess what happens next: Don John’s plot is uncovered, all is forgiven, and everyone has a song and dance to end the evening.

The Anglo-French cast are superb. Chiraz Aïch and Nicholas Osmond give brilliant verbal and physical comedy performances as Béatrice and Benedick, while Alexander Varey is a perfectly petulant Claudio to Floriane Andersen’s tender-hearted (and, in my opinion, far too forgiving) Hero. But the stars of the show, for me, are the two relatively minor characters of Dogberry and Verges, played by the wonderful Louis Bernard and Scott Brooks. Presumably there’s not a lot of policing to be done in this small rural village, because Constable Dogberry and his long-suffering deputy also appear to run – somewhat ineptly – a cafe on the side. This not only means we get to see much more of their characters in Act 1 than we usually would; it also allows directors Ben Horslen and John Risebero to explore the predominantly silent comedic style of French film director Jacques Tati. Bernard is particularly delightful to watch; we may not understand everything he says but such is his charisma it really doesn’t matter – and because English isn’t Dogberry’s native language, we’re much more sympathetically inclined than usual towards him and his bizarre vocabulary. (Also, “I am an ass!” sounds much funnier in a French accent.)

In addition to the bilingual cast, there are other elements of the production that will be familiar to fans of Antic Disposition’s previous shows. Music plays an important part in the play; Nick Barstow’s compositions, performed by the cast, contribute to the evening’s celebratory mood. The venue too is unique: having visited some of the nation’s most stunning cathedrals during July, followed by performances in France earlier this month, the tour concludes at London’s historic Gray’s Inn Hall, which is transformed for the occasion into Dogberry’s very traditional French cafe.

In summary, this production is so much fun that you’re pretty much guaranteed to leave with a smile on your face (and possibly with a hankering to run away to the French countryside). Don’t miss the final few opportunities to be charmed by this riotously entertaining clash of cultures.

Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it…

Review: Serve Cold at Katzpace

Published on August 22, 2018July 20, 2019 by LizLeave a comment

The programme notes describe Mark MacNicol’s Serve Cold as a “cracking wee script” – and I think I’d have to agree. When two women – one a prostitute, the other a doctor – meet one night on a bridge in Glasgow, a chain of events is set in motion that only one of them could have foreseen… and it’s not necessarily the one we might expect. Darkly humorous and unapologetically twisted, Serve Cold makes us question our assumptions and reflect on the lengths some people, even those we think of as “respectable”, will go to in the name of revenge.

Concerned that Joy (Paula Gilmour) is about to throw herself in the river, Grace (Anna Marie Burslem) stops to try and talk her out of it. The two end up back in the attic that Joy calls home, where events take an unexpected turn as she reveals calmly that she’s been stalking her ex-boyfriend in a variety of unpleasant and twisted ways. Tonight is the grand finale – if Grace is willing to do her part, that is.

MacNicol’s storyline at times strains credulity a bit, but PJ Stanley’s production is consistently excellent. Serve Cold is driven by its characters, and the performances from Anna Marie Burslem and Paula Gilmour are right on the money. Grace has every reason to be mad at the world, but her innocent, almost childlike determination to see the positives in everything and everyone around her means she’s the one we instantly warm to and root for throughout the play. She has no filter; she says what she thinks and doesn’t try to hide her growing discomfort (which matches our own) as the evening progresses and humour turns to horror.

In contrast, Joy is the picture of calm professionalism – alarmingly, even when discussing in detail all the shocking things she’s done to her ex – and displays a truly psychopathic lack of remorse. It’s chilling to reflect that this is a woman countless people entrust their lives to every day – people who would probably turn their backs on someone like Grace if they saw her in the street. It’s testament to Paula Gilmour’s performance, however, that we find ourselves unable to hate Joy completely; every now and then we catch a small glimmer of humanity behind the mask, and the play’s conclusion is actually oddly heartwarming – albeit in an extremely dark and messed up way.

It’s not only in personality that the two women are worlds apart; a recurring theme of religion (their names are, I suspect, no accident) looks at two very different ideologies when it comes to retribution. While Grace lives in constant fear of going to “the bad fire”, a hangover from her evangelical Christian upbringing, Joy is a great believer in doling out more earthly punishments – ironically, by subscribing to the biblical principle of an eye for an eye.

Though its short two-day run at the appropriately atmospheric Katzpace is already at an end, Serve Cold is the kind of play that’s not that easy to forget. Gripping and disturbing, it boasts two fantastic performances and provides a good amount of food for thought – but more importantly, it makes you think long and hard about going anywhere near the attic any time soon.