In a world that feels increasingly dark and depressing, a little light relief goes a long way. Dirty Great Love Story by Katie Bonna and Richard Marsh is a sweet, heart-warming romantic comedy about a perfectly imperfect couple, a much-needed bit of escapism for fans of Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, Friends, even Harry Potter – and if you also happen to be single and in your 30s, I recommend getting yourself down to the Arts Theatre for a good old giggle.
Recently heartbroken hen Katie and lonely, geeky stag Rich wake up together in a Travelodge after a boozy one night stand. She can’t get out of there fast enough, despite his awkward attempts to make her stay – but when two of their friends unexpectedly get together, it seems they’re doomed to keep bumping into each other. Will they overcome their differences and realise they’re meant to be together? (Obviously, we all know the answer – but let’s pretend we don’t.)
Photo credit: Richard Davenport for The Other Richard
The show was originally performed by its writers, but now stars Ayesha Antoine and Felix Scott, who in taking Katie and Rich’s names still leave us wondering whether the story we’re hearing, with all its toe-curlingly embarrassing details, is actually autobiographical. Like all the best romantic comedies, Dirty Great Love Story brings together two flawed but ultimately likeable characters – the cheers of support from the audience as Rich prepares to declare his love are heartfelt and genuine. The pair also play an assortment of the couple’s annoying friends, switching with ease between accents and personalities, but it’s in their scenes as the two main characters that sparks really fly.
Dirty Great Love Story began life as a 10-minute “poetry duet”, and the full-length show maintains this rhyming verse – but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all that roses are red nonsense; it turns out you can make poetry out of anything, including boob bothering, gluten-free croissants and even an unfortunate vomiting incident at the worst possible time. The use of language combined with the actors’ skilful comedy performances result in some full-on belly laughs – even if a few of them are prompted more by surprise (of the “did they really just say that?!” variety) than anything else.
Photo credit: Richard Davenport for The Other Richard
Director Pia Furtado and designer Camilla Clarke wisely keep the staging simple, allowing the actors and the writing to take centre stage, armed only with a couple of stools and a fabulous pair of sparkly heels. This means we don’t have to waste time with costume or set changes, and the show can keep flowing at an enjoyable pace. That said, there is one nice touch at the end from lighting designer Mark Howland that offers a final cheeky wink to the cheesy sentimental rom com format we all know and love (to affectionately mock).
Dirty Great Love Story is the perfect night out for girls and guys – unlike most romantic comedies, which focus on just one side of the story, this takes on both. The result is a show that celebrates love in all its clumsy, embarrassing, screwed up glory, and brings our favourite romantic cliche – “opposites attract” – firmly back where it belongs. Highly recommended.
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… 😉
Where will I be a year from now? It’s a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point, particularly at the start of a new year – and the responses often reveal a lot about the person doing the speculating. It’s also impossible to predict; we can say what we’re hoping for, but in reality we never know when life’s going to throw a massive curveball at us – and even if we do get exactly what we think we want, it might turn out not to be quite as we thought it would be.
In RedBellyBlack’s A Year From Now, that question is the launch pad for a series of interviews with fourteen different people, which spin off in all kinds of unexpected directions and which are quite startling, and occasionally even slightly uncomfortable, in their honesty. We share the subjects’ hopes, fears, good news and heartbreak, all of which is interpreted on stage by five performers (Oscar Scott-White, Kate Goodfellow, Clementine Mills, Christopher Montague and Jessica Warshaw) who mouth the words along with audio recordings of the interviews. This is not as odd as it sounds – and I was surprised at how quickly I stopped remembering that the person on stage wasn’t actually the one speaking, even when there was a difference in age or gender. (I even found myself at one point marvelling at how many different accents they’d all mastered…)
Photo credit: Robert Boulton
Much of this is due to the quality of the performance; each of the five actors is absolutely spot-on with their lip-syncing, down to the tiniest hesitation, laugh, stutter or cough – I can only imagine the hours of rehearsal that have gone into getting every moment of the 60-minute show so totally in sync. In addition, each adopts the body language of the person speaking, from Kate Goodfellow’s bashful four-year-old to Oscar Scott-White’s elegant elderly lady, further enabling us to block out the physical appearance of the speaker and focus instead on their voice and movement, and ensuring that when the same people reappear later in the show, they’re instantly recognisable.
Though each scene takes the same format, there’s sufficient variety in the way they’re presented by director Vicki Baron to keep the show fresh and interesting (and some are separated by slightly surreal dance breaks – the meaning of which, I must admit, wasn’t totally clear to me). Some stories are told by just one person, others by a couple; one scene features four speakers whose stories share a common theme. And each is accompanied by choreographed movements that visually interpret the words we’re hearing, often performed by most or even all of the actors, again in perfect unison. These are striking without being distracting, and at times even quite moving – this is particularly true in the case of a comedian coming to terms with the loss of his mum, “voiced” by Christopher Montague and Jessica Warshaw, who both physically support and are supported by each other as they tell the story.
Photo credit: Robert Boulton
The original question, “Where will I be a year from now?” doesn’t actually feature heavily in the show, though we eventually circle back around to it at the end with an amusing twist. What it does do, though, is provide a starting point for stories covering everything from ill health to parenthood, perfect eyebrows to work pressures. Each of these accounts is unique, whether it’s a devastating look back at time past, a hopeful view of the year to come, or just an honest description of the way life is right now, and every member of the audience will be able to relate to particular voices more than others. There are a couple of moments when we – perhaps inevitably – veer into political territory, but we never stay there long; the power and heart of A Year From Now lie in its human stories, and it’s these that we take away with us.
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… 😉
Prolific author Peter James requires no introduction to the stage. Adaptations of his books The Perfect Murder and Dead Simple were sell-out successes in the West End and toured around the UK. Not Dead Enough is the latest of his books to become a play and we are promised an evening of thrilling suspense and mystery.
Three murders. One suspect. No proof.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace returns with a crime that will test him to the limits. On the night his wife is murdered, Brian Bishop claims to be sixty miles away, asleep in his bed. No matter how much DS Grace likes him for the crime, he simply can’t pin it on Bishop. Meanwhile, DS Grace is still dealing with the disappearance of his own wife. Could the two cases be related?
Directed by Olivier Award-winner Ian Talbot and starring Shane Richie as DS Roy Grace, Not Dead Enough begins its national tour at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford before moving to Milton Keynes and Woking.
Not Dead Enough is a lot of fun. It is quick-paced, full of suspense and the audience has to pay careful attention in order to sort through the plethora of clues and red herrings. If it is any indication, by the final minutes of the first half, I was balancing precariously on the edge of my seat, eyes fixed firmly on the stage. Just remember that you can’t always believe what your own eyes are telling you and sometimes it is a case of not looking closely enough.
Despite the serious subject matter, Not Dead Enough is very funny, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Then again, with the harrowing crimes being committed on stage, it may just be that the audience’s mirth was more nervous laughter than anything else.
Not Dead Enough is small, with just nine people (ten if you include a dead body). Shane Richie is joined on stage by Michael Quartey as DS Glenn Branson. Where DS Grace is focused and often desperate, DS Branson is irreverent and daring. Laura Whitmore plays Cleo Morey, the chief mortician and love interest to DS Grace.
Stephen Billington, best known for playing the dastardly Greg Kelly in Coronation Street, plays Brian Bishop. It is only after the big reveal at the end of the play that you realise just how good his performance was and how he had been giving the audience very subtle clues as to the real story the whole time.
One of the most interesting aspects of any stage production is the set design and use of space. The stage design for Not Dead Enough was simple and static, dividing the stage into the mortuary, office, interview room and street. This clever design allowed the story to switch seamlessly between scenes, allowing a pace and dynamic more often seen in television productions than stage. It was very impressive.
I enjoyed Not Dead Enough and look forward to future plays in the Peter James DS Roy Grace franchise.
Not Dead Enough is running at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford until Saturday 28 January 2017. Visit Peter James’s website for details on future dates.
Theatre Re’s latest work, The Nature of Forgetting, premiered this week at Shoreditch Town Hall, where it was greeted by sell-out audiences and standing ovations. The three-night run was far too brief – but something tells me we haven’t seen the last of this beautiful and moving show.
Inspired by recent neurobiological research and interviews with people living with dementia, The Nature of Forgetting attempts to piece together their experience through the story of Tom, who’s 55 today. As he dresses for his birthday party, each item of clothing in his wardrobe brings back confused fragments of memory from his earlier life, and the people who played a part in it.
Photo Credit: Richard Davenport for The Other Richard
Though there’s a clear story behind the memories – school days, courtship, marriage, career – what makes this show so powerful is not the events themselves, but the emotions at the heart of them. So while the details of each memory may be a little hazy, we do get to experience the joy of a bike ride, the stress and anxiety of a wedding day, the heartbreaking sense of loss evoked by an empty chair… There’s humour too, in Tom’s overbearing mother and class clown antics – and through it all, the recurring sensation of panic that comes with trying to pin down these elusive memories as they slip away. And importantly, it’s also not just Tom’s story but also that of the people who love him, reminding us that dementia doesn’t only affect the person who suffers from it.
At just over an hour, the show is essentially one single scene, which fades and reassembles as Tom is transported into his memories. The cast (Guillaume Pigé, Louise Wilcox, Eyglo Thorgeirsdottir and Matthew Austin) are in motion almost the entire time, together forming a well-oiled machine that ensures every prop – primarily the wooden school desks that form the show’s central motif – is in position and every performer always in exactly the right place. The result is a whirl of movement that appears entirely fluid and effortless.
Photo Credit: Richard Davenport for The Other Richard
Just as important as the movement is the music, composed and performed by Alex Judd, accompanied by percussionist Keiran Pearson. Written in the rehearsal room as the show was taking shape, the score exquisitely mirrors the emotions on stage, and builds to a stirring climax for the final scene. There are some particularly powerful moments when Tom is struggling with his loss of memory and the soundtrack seems to bend and twist along with his ability to piece together his recollections.
It’s impossible for anyone who hasn’t been there to really experience what it must be like to lose their grip on memory, but this thoroughly researched and beautifully presented show offers us a glimpse into that world. It’s at times a scary picture – but The Nature of Forgetting reminds us that just because those events and emotions may be harder to recall, they’re not gone forever and will live on in Tom, however deeply buried they may be. It’s an uplifting note on which to end this unforgettable show.
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… 😉
Heather Ralph is a London-based theatre producer from Northern Ireland. Currently she’s working with a number of companies on new and returning shows, but took a little time out of her busy schedule to chat about life as a producer, and tell me a bit about what we have to look forward to over the coming weeks.
“What does being a producer involve? I sum it up to friends as a constant chain of emails!Which isn’t actually that far from the truth,” she explains. “It entails a lot of organising of things – mostly my inbox! – and talking to venues. Once a project is off the ground, I usually head up the marketing campaign as well, which requires even more emails and a lot of time spent on HootSuite, Twitter, Facebook, you name it! I really like to try and connect theatre companies with each other, so am always on the lookout for other companies to cross promote with. This is so much easier when the shows are part of a wider festival, like the VAULT festival for instance.
“Before you get to this stage of a project, however, a lot of time goes into research. This is usually for funding and opportunities to develop new work. The tricky part of this is narrowing down what is most suitable for which project.If you just apply blindly for everything with every project, I personally would have no time for all those emails I have to send!
“To sum up it’s a lot of time spent at a computer, so I try and go into the rehearsal room as often as possible, even just to work on my laptop at the back. With all my current projects I’ve come on board at different stages. Shows like Rounds and purged, I’ve been on board since the start. With Rounds in particular it’s been great to be in the rehearsal room in the first few weeks, seeing how the actors come up with their ideas, and when we’ve had junior consultants come in tohelp us develop movement sequences by showing us how they perform things like a cranial nerve exam!
“My goal is to continue to work with people I like who produce work I love, while trying to survive the London rent prices at the same time! That would be my advice to anyone else: when you find people you like working with, stick together and make work; a great team can achieve anything. One of my favourite companies to work with is Haste Theatre, they make great work and are so driven – if you haven’t heard about them you should really check them out. As a company they’re very self sufficient and produce a lot of their own stuff – I’ll usually come on board and give them a helping hand with press and advise them with ACE forms and venue splits every now and again.”
So what’s on the horizon? “Dr. Zeiffal, Dr. Zeigal and The Hippo That Can Never Be Caught! is an award-winning kids’ show from Mouths of Lions with fantastic falling over, a lot of hippo chasing and loads of little hippo enthusiasts laughing at Dr. Zeiffal. It may be billed as a kids show, but we welcome old and young Hippo Catchers. I first came across this show as an audience member; it was just my boyfriend and me amongst a lot of little Hippo Catchers – this is how I refer to children now – but we loved it!
“Then there’s Blood & Bone, a colourful, kooky and downright dirty puppetry show from Cicada Studios. If you want an hour to forget your woes and have some real belly laughs, I’d advise catching Dr. Zeiffal, Dr. Zeigal and The Hippo That Can Never Be Caught! and Blood & Bone – thoughI will of course warn you that Blood & Bone is not a children’s puppet show. It’s for adults and gets very dirty very quickly. Those who are opposed to puppet nudity and puppet sex should probably not attend…”
That’s not all:“Oyster Boy is a multi-award-winning dark comedy about the struggles of a boy born with an oyster shaped head from Haste Theatre, and purged isan intimate, physical, visceral play by Catharsis about the impossibility of communicating to others the issues around mental health deterioration. Last but not least, Resuscitate Theatre are bringing back Rounds, a powerful and urgent tale of the first line of defence for the NHS.
“Rounds and purged are less zany shows, but equally as engaging. Both are based on true stories, dealing with mental health and issues that affect all of us daily, either directly or indirectly. Mental health awareness is a really important subject to me; both shows are a brave attempt to educate and move our audiences while offering some clarification into other people’s lives and their decisions we may not understand, which I think is an important thing for theatre performances to offer. Both shows focus on human relationships, and their physical style allows for a great sense of urgency to be portrayed.”
Heather’s particularly excited about the return of Rounds. “Genuinely I love this show. I shouldn’t say this but everyone knows it’s my favourite project I’ve worked on to date. And I’m even more excited it’s at Blue Elephant Theatre. Please check this venue out – it’s doing great things with new work and the team behind it are all superstars. I came across it last year when I worked with Les Femmes Ridicule on their show In The Gut and since then I’m never out of BET! I’m pretty sure Niamh (the Artistic Director) will eventually block my email address…
“What’s happening with the NHS is terrifying. Rounds focuses on the humans behind the junior doctors, and I think it demonstrates an important life lesson on our own vulnerabilities and how the government responds to them. Exeunt Magazinegave us a great quote for Rounds, but the sentiment stands true in anything: ‘Rounds is a lesson is vulnerability; without vulnerability we will never learn and we can never recover.’ The NHS and all its staff are very vulnerable right now, it’s how we go forward from here that will matter. The scary thing is the path so far doesn’t look that great.”
Rounds (Resuscitate Theatre): 16th-18th & 23rd-25th March, Blue Elephant Theatre
Juggling such diverse projects is a challenge – but an enjoyable one: “Kids’ shows is actually a new thing for me this year, and it’s been quite fun figuring out all the different rules that come with how to produce a kids show!” reveals Heather. “Mouths of Lions are no strangers to kids’ shows, so we’ve all really knuckled under as a team to make the most of the VAULT festival. But yes, it’s so much fun, it means my day is never boring. The challenge is to stay on top of everything and remember who you talked to about what show!”
Two of Heather’s shows can be seen at this year’s VAULT festival, which opens this week. “I’ve never done the VAULT festival before and I am so excited! There are so many great shows happening, but I have my eye on a few that I really want to get to: Cat Loud’s Wayward,Shrapnel Theatre’s Litterati, Cornwall vs China (shameless plug: you can grab a combo ticket for Cornwall vs China and Blood & Bone for just £18…), Redbellyblack Theatre Company’s A Year from Now. And one more high recommendation from me: Bric a Brac’s Ash, directed by Anna Marshall, who’s the director of Rounds.
“Why check out the VAULT festival? Because this is a month of great fringe theatre at affordable prices happening right here in London. No trains to Edinburgh or Brighton needed, just grab a tube to Waterloo and enjoy yourself!”
Check out the links below for more details and to book for Heather’s upcoming shows:
Theatre Things 