Category: 1.5 stars

REVIEW: My Time of Life at Camden Fringe

Published on by alexnorm142 Comments

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

Bland and unexciting with a few moving moments.

My Time of Life is a disappointment. What could have been a sweet reflection on life and aging was degraded by the almost apathetic reading given at Camden Fringe. There were moments of redemption, but the combined drag of the reading and the confused appearance of the actors made for a performance not worth the price or admission.

From the moment the actors entered the stage, My Time of Life was confused. A story of aging and reminiscence set in a care home did not jive with a cast in formal gowns, suits, and pearls. It created a cognitive dissonance between what was being read and what was being seen that made it near impossible to lose yourself in the story. 

New Anthem Theatre has a poorly executed yet pleasant script. It is difficult to determine the actual impact of My Time of Life’s story because of the quality of its reading but it had great moments of feeling and of humor. There is a lot of scope in the text for an impactful performance. The ending was particularly interesting albeit unexpected. 

The younger actress was the highlight of the performance. Initially starting off quite dry, she warmed to her role and gave life to the sweet, rambling young woman she portrayed. The leading lady, playing the aged Annie, was ok. It often felt as though she was reading to a group of primary children the way she delivered monologues but this was mixed with a few very powerful moments of emotion. I would like to see what she would do with the role in a full staging. The only male actor and the other older woman, both reading for several characters, were a stark contrast to each other. He was energetic and funny while she was drier than sawdust. I wanted to like her, she carried herself like the type of performer that silences rooms but her monotonous voice and unenthusiastic demeanor made it difficult. He was cheerful and a bit silly which complimented the other characters. 

While a staged reading, or ‘Live On Air’ as New Anthem Theatre group calls it, can be wonderful, My Time of Life disappointed. New shows can live or die by the quality of their cast; My Time of Life is not likely to survive, at least not in its current format. New Anthem Theatre plans to turn this to a full stage production in the coming months, one that I would be curious to see. A story with potential, a full staging may just be the second chance it so desperately needs.

REVIEW: If All Else Fails

Published on by Ke MengLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

“Your most horrifying experience of direct address for 85 minutes”

Devised and performed by Cathy Naden and Seke Chimutengwende and directed by Tim Etchells, If All Else Fails brings the curtain down on Forced Entertainment’s 40th anniversary celebrations. Having enjoyed and relished the brilliance of L’Addition, If All Else Fails comes across like an unexpected car crash, chaotic and jarring, shattering my mind into miserable and disjointed fragments.

“Fragments of a language lesson.” Says the programme. It is indeed a lesson, as the performance duo directly talks to the audience with repeated stuff like “You are bad people. We are good people”. The language starts to variate when more adjectives are added, but the mode remains unchanged. When it comes to a certain point where the duo pretends to ask the audience to make a choice, you cannot help but sneer disdainfully: not only because it is out-dated, but also because of its apparent insincerity.

To be honest, there might be some conceptual underpinnings worth our reflections: gradually and vaguely, you may sense that those repeated pronouns “you” and “we” clearly denote the performers and the audiences, and in those repetitions, the show awkwardly attempts to explore their relationships, as well as the nature of performance. Till the very end of the show, they finally point out the significance of feeling. However, what they have claimed is exactly what they fail to present. Strangely, you cannot “feel” anything throughout the performance, because there’s no genuine engagement even in the moments of direct address.

While we all know Forced Entertainment demonstrates expertise in repetition and endurance, this could be executed in many ways other than enforced preaching. Why don’t I just go to the church? The lack of directorial staging has further exacerbated the issue.  For most time in the 85 minutes, the duo remains standing still. When one of them starts to move around, it feels rather perplexing and unnecessary.

Given show’s nature of direct address, Jim Harrison’s lighting mostly remains natural shared light with a set of Source Four and Fresnel lights. At the beginning of the show, the shattered Source Four lights, together with the soft wash of the Fresnel lights, creating a fragmented effect on the stage that embeds a poetic montage. To some extent, it is the lighting design, combined with Tim Etchells and John Avery’s soundscape, that burdens all the theatricality of the show, mending up the performance’s dull, mechanic repetition.

If All Else Fails bills itself as a lesson and a test. But how can a lesson or test able to ignite emotions or feelings? Ultimately, this is a show that contradicts its own claim, leaving its audience disengaged and its message unfulfilled.

REVIEW: Feel Me

Published on by Evelina BlackLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

“There are millions of stories of forced displacement and not one of them are the same” but maybe this one could have been told better. 

Feel Me integrates physical theatre, projection and music to explore empathy through the lens of discussions and depictions of forced displacement. The play innovatively incorporates audience interaction via mobile phones, making an astute observation on our culture’s (often detrimental) over-reliance on phones for connection, communication and information. 

Unfortunately as the play moves into discussing forced displacement this insightful perceptiveness dwindles. Feel Me is a self-proclaimed ‘interrogation of empathy’ but instead felt more declarative, perhaps better suited to younger school children newly encountering the concepts of empathy and refugees, instead of the recommended audience of 13+. Tracking the audience’s empathetic development by asking how connected we felt to forced displacement at the beginning and end of the play is, in theory, an innovative idea. However, in practice, embodying refugees in a collective, faceless, mostly wordless way didn’t do much work to connect the audience to the horrific process of forced displacement in any kind of personal way. It felt overly sanitised, with no real acknowledgment of the current atrocities forcing people from their homes or even mention of the word refugee, just the intellectualised, impersonal term ‘forced displacement’. Feel Me grounds their abstract storytelling with a few statistics, and whilst this would be a great educational tool for schools, it didn’t feel strong enough for an older audience.

At times, Feel Me veers into tonally deaf territory, with an uncomfortable combination of video game esque elements within the acted-out process of forced displacement. The audience votes on what shoes the actors wear as they become refugees and, as the play progresses, the characters march and jump on beat to change the background scenery, mimicking the journey from escaping their homes. It was very reminiscent of a video game loading screen and whilst this could be a strategy of engaging a young child with a serious subject matter, it felt in poor taste and out of touch. 

There were many moments were the tone and artistic intent were difficult to read, in particular a strange analogy that seemed to be depicting forced displacement through a dancing toothbrush, string, a house of books and raining jigsaw pieces. Whilst it may not have been the intention, this scene provoked peals of laughter from the majority white audience which felt very dystopian considering the reality of  over a hundred million people forced to flee their homes each year. Fleshing out more ambiguous moments like this would definitely strengthen the play, and prevent the uneasy feeling I felt upon leaving the theatre.

The play is as its strongest in its moments of humorous satire. It pokes fun at the right-wing media’s ridiculous and blatantly untrue stories written to demonise refugees and they effectively use comedy to encourage the audience to question the agendas being pushed in the narratives presented by mainstream media. They touch on important points, like the impossible and unfair nature of the immigration system but then completely abandon it in a flurry of erratic movement sequences that undermine the potency of the political statement they could have made.

Ultimately, Feel Me, would benefit from stronger storytelling if its intended audience are people who have even a rudimentary awareness of empathy or forced displacement. Apart from statistics, the atrocities of forced displacement are skirted around, lost in a blur of white privilege as the audience dresses up and chooses the narrative of the nameless, collective refugee that actually has no bearing on how the play unfolds.  I think further grounding the play in reality would do their innovative, multimedia approach justice and create a much more impactful piece of theatre.

REVIEW: Serenoid

Published on by Ke MengLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

A shrill and squeaky neo-classical opera meets underwhelming sci-fi queer romance

Written by Robin Fiedler and Wyatt Gaer, with music also by Fiedler, Serenoid is a sci-fi opera telling the steampunk-infused queer romance between Xaven (Victoria Oruwari, soprano), a blind engineer, and Corrie (Taryn Surratt, mezzo-soprano), an android violinist who is unable to stand or walk, spending her days playing gloomy violin pessimistically. Their relationship is hindered by Merton (Philippe Eugusyene, baritone), a jester-like villain. The story sounds promising, as it taps into the trendy academic environment to explores non-human agents and their relationship with human beings.

Nevertheless, this potential is underdeveloped out of its the narrative structure which leaves the audience literally in the middle of nowhere. By the halfway, we still have little idea of what’s going on: why does Xaven repeatedly emphasise “darkness”? Why does Merton hate her? And why is the crew (performed by a chorus of four) looking for her? Then, out of nowhere, she fixes Corrie’s broken leg, and the two suddenly dance, embrace and kiss. The plot appears as bizarre and inconsistent, lacking both build-up and logic.

The narrative flaws could have been covered up by the music, or made worse. Unfortunately, Serenoid falls into the latter category. Exacerbated by its neo-classical music style, the show endures the clash between high-pitched sopranos and piercing violins for almost an hour, unbearable both to the ear and the mind. 

It was a privilege to watch Oruwari perform live, who has already amazed many with her performances on BBC 1’s talent show “All Together Now”. Unfortunately, the score fails to underlie her rich and luminous voice. Instead, their dissonant and atonal duets come across as rather conflicting than harmonic as one. Lacking gradual culmination both in narrative and musicality, the show fails to spark the chemistry between the heroines without any sense of sweetness or closure. 

Edie Bailey’s (also as the director) set and costume design conveys a retro steampunk tone with a touch of Baroque delicacy, seamlessly integrated with her lighting design, which makes effective scene transitions and well aids the conductor Will Gardner reading his score. It was a pity that Surratt didn’t engage in a doubling performance with first violinist Julia Muzuki Hart, merely moving her arm mechanically, with no regard for matching Hart’s playing. However, this might just be a directorial choice to embody Corrie’s nature as a humanoid. 

As part of the Cockpit 2024 Tête à Tête Opera Festival, Serenoid endeavours to present queer stories on the opera stage with differently-abled cast.  Unfortunately, despite its commendable intentions, it misses the opportunity to fuse a potentially compelling story with bold thematic aspirations. 

REVIEW: Exhibitionists 

Published on by Megan LewisLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

A caricature comedy of manners opens brand new Kings Head Theatre not with a bang but with a muffled thump

The oldest pub theatre in the UK, running for 53 years, closed its doors in August 2023, and has now reopened as a shiny new purpose-built venue beneath the Islington Square shopping centre. The Kings Head Theatre, decorated in neon, boasts a 200 seater venue alongside a smaller cabaret performance area. Though not quite as exciting on the inside as one might hope, the opening of this venue is a win for the arts, at a time when arts funding is being savagely cut across the board. And to christen a new performance space you need a fantastic new play to draw in the crowds… 

Exhibitionists is their play of choice. Writers Shayn McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle started out discussing what the work of LGBT writers during the 1930s and ‘40s might have looked like, had they been able to openly write about and express their sexuality without the severe backlash which would have been inevitable at the time (and has not entirely cleared from society today). From that, the pair developed an idea: what would a gay comedy of modern manners look like in 2024? McKenna and Van Sickle note their inspirations, from Rattigan and Ayckbourn to Shakespeare and Aristophanes. But the play itself appears to be a modern queer reimagining of Noel Coward’s Private Lives, albeit set in an art gallery in San Francisco, and with the addition of a fifth character. 

Designer-clad lawyer Conor (Ashley D Gayle) and free-loving starchitect Robbie (Robert Rees) have been divorced for seven years. Their marriage was fiery, passionate and dysfunctional. Robbie is now sober, Conor now works for Disney, and both have moved on: married, and (sort of) engaged. Conor’s new husband is the young, self-proclaimed-twink Mal (Jake Mitchell-Jones), who met him on set while working as a runner. Robbie is now with Rayyan (Rolando Montecalvo), a gardener with a child and ex-wife, who is struggling to acclimatise to life as an openly gay man. The unsuspecting exes come face-to-face at their mutual friend’s exhibition. Robbie and Conor’s old flame reignites and off they run together, leaving their unsuspecting partners behind with just a text to say goodbye. Then begins the chase: the jilted Rayyan and Mal team up in pursuit of their lovers, bickering along the way. As in Private Lives, the pairs end up in neighbouring hotel rooms. The play culminates in an explosive final scene which sees the four lovers hash out their relationships, with the unexpected addition of the sexy hotel owner Sebastian (Øystein Lode).

It’s a promising (though familiar) concept. It’s farcical, and with the success of Mischief Theatre and the return of Noises Off to the West End, farces are all the rage. The play is intended to be a comedy, though many of the jokes fall flat – aside from a few witty quips sprinkled throughout which land with a scattering of audience laughter. Exhibitionists promises to be an exploration and celebration of contemporary queer identity and lifestyle, but it lacks depth and honesty. The characters are caricatures, pouting, eye-rolling and posing their way through the action. They kiss one moment and swing for each other the next, flicking between emotional states with no clear journey. The actors themselves seem to be pushing to sell characters which they know aren’t believable. They rely on heightened expression – it’s camp melodrama, which can be fantastically entertaining when executed well, but in this instance is strained and awkward. It’s surprising to see such an accomplished collection of actors performing in this way – perhaps the fault lies in poor directing and writing.

Beneath the kerfuffle there are some important themes explored: heteronormativity, monogamy vs open relationships, and the difficulties many members of the LGBT+ community experience when it comes to coming out and openly expressing their identity. As a member of this community myself it is wonderful to see these stories unfold onstage. But there were also some moments in this play which I felt could be damaging: a normalising – even romanticising – of domestic violence as the couples pummelled each other, and a disregard for addiction as Robbie shrugs off years of sobriety with a swig of wine. Perhaps with a different approach in style and some reworking this play could become a truly entertaining source of joy and celebration for the community – but there’s a lot of work to be done.

REVIEW: 1979

Published on by Megan LewisLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

In the same way Joe Clark fell short of his ambitions while Prime Minister, this play does not achieve what it sets out to.

Michael Healey’s play 1979 previously ran back in 2019 at the Berkeley Street Theatre (also known as the Canadian Stage) in Toronto. Now, the political piece makes its European debut at the Finborough Theatre. The production will run until Saturday 27th January. 

In the winter of 1979, Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark awaits a crucial confidence vote that could end his term. Despite his youth and idealism, Clark is determined to govern for the entire nation, not just his party supporters. Faced with a tough decision, he is visited by colleagues, opponents, and even his wife, all offering diverse perspectives and attempting to influence him throughout the play.

On entering the theatre I knew very little about the history of Canadian politics, and even less about 1979 specifically. Upon leaving the theatre, not much had changed. Healey’s writing is unnecessarily expositional and lacks focus. The dialogue is heavy with political information, facts, figures, clashing opinions – and sure, this is to be expected from a play about politics, but there is hardly any time to breathe and take it in. It’s difficult to grasp any through-line. Projected footnotes on the back wall introduce characters, and provide even more information to offer context to busy scenes, but they become distracting. Between reams of text, some self aware jokes (‘oh god, more reading’) fall flat. With insufficient time to read some slides during on-stage action, I was torn between watching the play and reading the projected text.

The cast of three bring a vibrant energy to the stage as they endeavour to lift the script for the audience. Joseph May takes on the role of the Prime Minister, Clark. Perhaps the most naturalistic onstage, May brings to life quite an ordinary seeming man. The writing does not give him much to play with, but he is believable. Clark is confident in his decisions, a little confused at times, but resolute in achieving what he sets out to achieve for his country and Government. 

Samantha Coughland and Ian Porter play multiple roles, bursting into Clark’s office in successive duologues, set apart with slight costume changes and names projected on the back wall. Both bring a bold and almost melodramatic energy to their characters, but there’s a noticeable similarity in physicality and personas for each multirole moment. Porter brings a touch of comedy as Pierre Trudeau, winking to the audience and dancing about, but there is a depth to Trudeau, an uneasiness that is somewhat foreboding. Coughlan reaches great heights as Stephen Harper, beginning startlingly shy and building into a bellowing, determined and ruthless right-wing rant. 

The effort that this hard-working cast brought to their characters was impressive, but ultimately the script doesn’t achieve its ambitions. 

REVIEW: King Hamlin

Published on by Mark LloydLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

 Important topics that deserved a better show. 

King Hamlin tells the story of a teenage boy with aspirations of doing well in school and going to university to become a software engineer, before life gets in the way and he gets dragged into the world of drug dealing and gangs. There is definitely a good play somewhere within that premise, unfortunately King Hamlin is not that play. 

The story touches on a number of issues, knife crime, defunding of vital youth services, racism and classism when looking for a job, and other issues, but it fails to actually address them or even have them properly impact the story. All of these ideas and themes that are set up in the first act, are entirely discarded in the second, when it seems like knife crime and violence are solely down to the actions of one psychopath, rather than some of the societal issues raised earlier. By providing the audience with an obvious bad guy this weakens the message that the show was seemingly trying to set up in the first act, that crime and violence become the only options available to some people when society seems to reject them at every turn. Without the introduction of this single stereotype of a mentally deranged wannabe drug dealer the main character seemed to have been entirely on the straight and narrow. Coming up against adversity, but still planning for the future.

The story in itself does lack a bit of credibility and some plainly confusing moments. Character decisions and behaviour towards other characters sometimes just doesn’t match with what we’ve seen before and gives the sense of the characters acting in ways to move the plot along or introduce an interesting scene, rather than acting as real people. This is no more obvious than during a moment in the first half of the second act when our main characters instinct is to remain friendly with the person, he’s just scene do something terrible, even though there has been nothing but an antagonistic relationship shown between these two characters previously. 

There were a few acting choices in this show that just did not work for me. There were some moments that were evidently intended to be comedic, where one-character treats another like a dog, which I can see having been funny in the rehearsal room, but as part of the show it just came across as bizarre. The second act in particular also had an inordinate amount of shouting by the characters. This shouting however failed to bring the desired intensity and rather it just led to the show being quite boring as there was little variation in performance. 

I’ve made it clear that I had issues with the plot itself, but the dialogue in this show was also very clunky, unnatural, and very heavy on exposition. On multiple occasions the writer decided to tell us, rather than show us how close characters were. Some of this reminiscing did work, such as when Hamlin and Quinn were preparing for the funeral, but the rest of the time I could feel the writer straining to let us know the history of these characters, and forgetting to think about how the characters would actually speak.

There were also a number of issues with the sound throughout the show, but particularly in the second act. During a climactic scene, there was the very distinctive sound of running water. Whether this was meant to show that it was raining was unclear, but I found myself being distracted trying to figure out why a tap had been left on during the sound recording. 

I do feel a bit guilty giving this show such a bad review, as I do think it had good intentions and there was a story here that it would be important to be told and that could spark conversations. However, good intentions do not make a good show. 

REVIEW: Berlin

Published on by Jason ShowdieLeave a comment

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

An attempt at exploring masculinity that doesn’t reach its potential.

Berlin is billed as a “dark comedy […] that explores grief, toxic masculinity and betrayal.” The story, inspired in part by the suicide of Ian Curtis, is the reuniting of a once-prominent britpop band after the death of their lead singer three years earlier. 

It begins well. Holly Whinney’s dialogue is sharp and dry and the conversations between Harry Berry’s James and Owen Walton’s Martin, with an understated chemistry, are reminiscent of Pinter—Dumb Waiter with more swearing. In these early moments, the assumed intentions of the show succeed. The tension of the meeting remains bubbling in the background and we understand that these men are avoiding their vulnerability. When the show’s conflict takes centre stage however, it doesn’t land.

The moments of drama seem contrived and the resolutions, coming about as quickly as the clashes, are not earned. It’s difficult to find impactful bombshells to drop in a show of this kind, but I can’t help but think the power of this show should have been in what wasn’t said, in what wasn’t revealed. Ramping up the action by unveiling more and more secrets might work if the choices were less Eastenders and the audience wasn’t left thinking, “wait… so which one’s the father?” The result of these, and other, unnecessary extras is that the play is cheapened and the intentions diluted.

The fact is, this is a play written by a younger playwright and it shows. There’s a subtlety that’s increasingly missing and I’m not entirely sure who the play is for. Sometimes the dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny, and the bandmate banter is something Whinney captures well, but the show repeats its patterns over and over again, and often at the expense of believability.

There’s only so many times a character can be called a c-word. I think it happens to everyone in the play, including the talked-about women who seem like the playthings of both the characters and the playwright (sure, there’s a point here about the behaviours and language of these kind of men, but it feels gratuitous). Unfortunately, it’s been done before in most shows I’ve seen from younger playwrights and the lack of originality in the choice does it no favours.

The cast themselves are hit and miss. They are certainly more comfortable with the banter than the heavier moments. Harry Berry does well to capture something dark simmering under the surface of the troubled drummer, and Owen Walton is well-received with his quick and comedic delivery. It’s a shame, though, that the play’s problem with indulgence seems to seep into the performances, too, and the aforementioned leaps to conflict and back are seldom deserved. And unfortunately, Aidan Harris’s Ben does the writing a disservice in some key scenes, speaking much too quickly and with poor diction.

They aren’t helped by some static direction from Cerys Baker and Holly Whinney—mostly forgivable in a venue like this—who seem to bring the actors to the front of the stage purely for dynamism and not because of an organic motivation from the characters. The lighting is also confusing with flashes of red to show a jump to a different location that seem more like a lighting-desk malfunction than a crafted decision.

So the audience understands what the show is trying to do, what it’s exploring, the points it is trying to make. But getting the idea is not the same as being moved or affected by a work, being changed by it. I believe Whinney has potential as a writer, but this production is lacking in originality and gives the impression the team are working from a memory of shows like this they’ve seen before. “As rich in wit as it is in suspense”, the description claims. Wit? Sure. Suspense? Not after the first fifteen minutes. It’s a good idea but that might be one of the best things about it.