graceboagmatthews

graceboagmatthews

  • Joined: October 22, 2023
  • Articles: 13

REVIEW: She Vanishes in the Air

Reading Time: 2 minutesShe Vanishes in the Air is set up as an open rehearsal; the audience are greeted by the actors who direct them to seats and ensure they scan the barcode that sits on their seat and enter their full name into the voting system. Already, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty. Still, I went ahead and filled out the form. There was an introduction, a Brechtian questioning of the audience and a couple of humourous interactions between the cast. The Old Fire Station’s stage was almost bare, with a row of three chairs in a bench centre stage. The cast stayed on stage for the entirety of the single-act play, and a musician (Mark Taylor) in the rehearsal room, stage left, skilfully providing the live drums and sound effects throughout.

REVIEW: An Evening Without Kate Bush

Reading Time: 2 minutesA single, tiny red light floats at the front of the Oxford Playhouse stage in silence. Slowly but surely, movements begin and the music swells; the gloriously Bush-like voice of Sarah-Louise Young fills the room. I’ve never seen Kate Bush live but I can imagine this number was pretty close. Through a gauze, Young twisted and turned and guided the small light to illuminate her body. Finally, in a huge feathered headdress and leotard (obviously a ‘Fish Person’ uniform), Young revealed herself and as the song came to a close, addressed us, creepily, “She’s not here”. The laughter was almost uninterrupted from that point onwards.

REVIEW: Rachel Parris: Poise

Reading Time: 2 minutesI didn’t know what to expect from Rachel Parris; I looked her up before the show and, embarrassingly, the only thing I recognised was her husband, the guy from ‘Sorry I’ve Got No Head’. So when Parris asked us, five minutes into the show, who had heard of ‘The Mash Report’, I was almost alone in my feeble ‘whoop’ from the third row. I would say the audience was almost exclusively in the 40-65 age range, and decidedly liberal. Due to my own ignorance to Parris’ impressive back catalogue of political comedy, it took a few minutes for me to gauge the tone of the show. Parris, however, gauged us immediately; an Oxford graduate herself, she knew how to work the room, and how to subtly humble it. Safe to say, I was quickly charmed.

REVIEW: Manon Lescaut

Reading Time: 2 minutesI think I can comfortably assume that the English Touring Opera’s production of Manson Lescaut at the Oxford Playhouse is vastly different from its first performances in Turin, 1893. Director and librettist Jude Christian’s fascinating biography of recent work had me on tenterhooks for the main event, and her revival of this Puccini classic did not fail to excite the senses and turn the classical world on its head.