Review: The Melting of a Single Snowflake (Salford Arts Theatre, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 17th July 2019
Salford Arts Theatre

The Greater Manchester Fringe continues throughout July, and I continue to review shows for this blog and for North Manchester FM. In 2017, I reviewed two Fringe shows, and in 2018, I reviewed eleven. I definitely think I’m on track to beat that number in 2019! On Wednesday 17th July, I saw The Melting of a Single Snowflake at Salford Arts Theatre, a new play by writer-in-residence Libby Hall. Hall was one of the people I interviewed back in June for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special, so once again I was really looking forward to seeing this one.

Written by Hall and directed by Roni Ellis, The Melting of a Single Snowflake is an ambitious ensemble piece featuring performers from Salford Arts Theatre’s Young Performers Company. As I talked about with Hall in our interview, the play grew out of workshops involving the young actors, meaning that the company played an integral role in generating and developing ideas for Hall’s script.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake takes place in the aftermath of the disappearance of a schoolboy, Sam, during the summer holidays. The cast (of eleven young actors) play a group of Sam’s friends, peers and neighbours who are brought together through their shared (if a little tenuous in some cases) involvement in Sam’s life. The real ambition of the piece lies in the fact that the story is carried entirely by the young performers (there are no adult characters in the play), and also in the complexity of the relationships that are evoked through the dialogue. This isn’t a straightforward tale of the powerful bonds of friendship, but rather a story that reminds us young people have just as many varied reasons for spending time together as adults do.

Set during the school holidays and with a recorded audio backdrop of news reports on adolescent mental health, gang crime and Sam’s disappearance, The Melting of a Single Snowflake unabashedly sets itself up to tackle ‘big’ issues. As the young people gather to discuss the missing boy, conversations range from knife crime to drugs, from social media to sexuality. There is a frankness to these conversations, which is both hard-hitting and humorous, and some of the issues raised are handled in surprising and nuanced ways.

In particular, I found several of the conversations about Cameron (played by Adam Marsland)’s sexuality offered a refreshing and sensitive take. However, this was done without heavy-handed virtue-signalling, as the overall message was punctuated by a range of responses – from Kay (Calia Wild)’s concern that the group is too young for romantic relationships, to Alfie (Dillon Parker)’s clumsy macho posturing, to Amber (Sienna Kavanagh)’s comical confusion of bisexuality with bipolar disorder. While some poetic licence is employed to have all of these reactions occurring openly and simultaneously, The Melting of a Single Snowflake offers a convincing microcosm of the confusion and conflict that accompanies coming-of-age.

I’ve used the word ‘conversations’ a lot in this review, and it feels like the most apt description of how story is constructed in the play. The action takes place off-stage – indeed, some has occurred before the play begins, and some will occur in the time that elapses during the interval – and so everything we know about these characters, about their world, and about the missing boy Sam is conveyed though the dialogue. This is a challenge for the cast, but – aided by smart direction by Ellis – they are up to the task. With the group coming and going from the stage, and interacting in different combinations at different times, a sense of flow and development is created.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is very much an ensemble piece, and it’s not really possible to single out individual performances or characters as ‘central’. Each one carries a part of the story, and the play’s strength lies in its group dynamic, from Josie Leigh’s belligerent wannabe boxer Mia to Jasmin Marsland’s know-it-all Demi.

I enjoyed the dynamic between Jake (Charlie Kenney) and Jodie (Elizabeth Pearson), two very different young people caught up in a world of crime that’s way outside their control. Leia Komorowska is great as fragile and haunted outsider Levi, and Joel Hill reveals excellent comic timing in his performance as Devon, a filter-less chatterbox whose near-continuous off-the-wall monologue throws the audience off-guard for one of the play’s more aggressive sucker-punches. Last but by no means least, Vincent Purcell plays Tom, Levi’s older brother and an eloquent observer of the group and its various social predicaments. In places appearing like a character somewhat out of time, Tom emerges as a detached and astute narrator of human frailty – but one surrounded by darkness and grief.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is very much a game of two halves. On the one hand – and probably the more dominant aspect of the first act – it is a narrative that highlights the fears, concerns and disillusionments of young people, signalled by the news commentary. In the face of a crisis in mental health care, knife crime, a gang that may or may not have killed their friend, and (I don’t want to sound old here) a complete lack of adult support or intervention, how are these young people supposed to cope? However, there is another intriguing and compelling story running parallel to this, a much more personal (and, in many ways, more old-school theatrical) tale that comes into its own in the second act – but to say anymore would give spoilers! All credit to Hall, though, for bringing these two aspects together into a strong overall story.

In addition to the great writing, direction and performances, The Melting of a Single Snowflake also features a stylish set design by Roni Ellis and Scott Berry, which uses scattered debris and rubbish (including – I’m sure I saw – an old discarded municipal street sign for the Salford Arts Theatre’s predecessor theatre!) and a graffitied wall to effectively evoke both locale and the atmosphere.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is an ambitious and thought-provoking piece of theatre, which showcases the talents of the Salford Arts Theatre’s young performers company and of its writer-in-residence, Libby Hall (who came through the company herself). A very enjoyable show that packs an unexpected punch.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is on at Salford Arts Theatre on 17th-19th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Fringe shows on this year, visit the festival website.

Review: The Death of a Muse (BelleVedere Theatre, GM Fringe)

Tuesday 16th July 2019
Lock 91, Deansgate Locks

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. As you may know already, I’m reviewing a selection of the shows that are on offer on this year’s festival programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The next show I saw was The Death of a Muse, which was on at Lock 91 on Deansgate, on Tuesday 16th July.

You may remember that I interviewed the writer and cast of The Death of a Muse for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June, so I’d already had a flavour of what to expect. It was a very enjoyable interview to record, and as a result I was really looking forward to seeing the play. I am very pleased to say that it actually exceeded my already high expectations – The Death of a Muse is really a very good piece of Fringe theatre.

Written by Róis Doherty and produced by BelleVedere Theatre, The Death of a Muse is a play based on the lives of Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats. But there’s a twist… the audience is invited to join Maud and William decades after their deaths, and to decide the ultimate fate of the two. Who will go to heaven? and who will go to hell?

In the atmospheric space of Lock 91’s upstairs room, poet William and his ‘muse’ Maud confront one another for the final time in an immersive and audience-inclusive piece that offers an idiosyncratic take on biography and memorialization. Characters address the audience directly and wander on and off the stage, in a direct attempt to persuade and convince us of their version of events.

The Death of a Muse is not a linear story of Maud and William’s relationship, nor does it give a full account of either character’s life, career or relationships. Instead, the play presents snippets – out of sequence – of the two’s brittle and tumultuous interactions over the years. Like opposing lawyers in a courtroom, Maud and William summon up flashbacks to key moments in their past, which they each claim will reveal the other’s shortcomings.

Kerry Ely plays Maud Gonne with a cool and critical detachment, which (on the whole) falters only in angry frustration at William’s protestations. Much of her side of the story is intended to rehabilitate her from the static position of William’s ‘muse’ (which, for many, is how she is now best known). From the start, she threatens to reveal to the audience that William was a ‘horrible man’, and her flashbacks are clearly intended to condemn him, rather than save herself. The play’s blurb describes Maud as ‘iron-hearted’ and ‘stone-hearted’, as well as an ‘activist first and mother second’, and this certainly comes across in the performance. Nevertheless, there are also glimpse into underlying motivations and backstory that help us to understand some of the more ‘iron-hearted’ decisions Maud made.

While Maud’s coldness and resentment are the driving forces of her presentation, Ely’s performance offers some wonderful moments where the mask of righteousness slips. Revealing a good sense of comic timing, she punctuates William’s earnestness on occasion – most memorably, in her reaction to his recital of ‘The Cloths of Heaven’. However, it is her performance of the final moment of the final flashback (no spoilers!) that will really stick with me. For all its verbal (and sometimes physical) knockabout comedy, The Death of a Muse doesn’t shy away from some darker aspects of Maud and William’s story, and Ely carries this skilfully.

Against Ely’s Maud is Patrick O’Donnel as William. Frustratingly for Maud – but highly entertaining for the audience – O’Donnel’s William is constantly threatening to steal the limelight. His performance perfectly captures the romantic and unrealistic intensity of William’s infatuation with his muse, but with a comical enthusiasm that’s quite infectious. O’Donnel’s apparently off-the-cuff silliness in the face of the task ahead is very funny – his baffled comment to Maud, ‘This is your flashback, where am I supposed to go?’, was one of my favourite lines. Certainly, the audience feels Maud’s frustration at William’s refusal to accept her as a human being (with a right to refuse his continued proposals), but I’m not sure we’re ever really convinced by her assertion that he is a ‘horrible man’. Even when we see glimpses of William’s more problematic behaviour, Doherty’s script and O’Donnel’s performance is so infused with affection and sympathy that it’s hard to see him as anything more than misguided.

The two main characters are supported by strong performances by Megan Challinor as Iseult Gonne and Liam Collins as John MacBride (as well as a couple of other incidental characters). Challinor does a great job of conveying the change in Iseult from a naïve teenager to a more worldly-wise young woman – though I did also enjoy her performance as a spiritual medium later in the play. Collins is given the unenviable task of playing someone who is, within the narrative of the play, an unquestionably ‘horrible man’. His performance is utterly chilling, and he delivers some incredibly dark lines with the calm certainty of a man with complete power. The contrast with O’Donnel’s performance as William is stark.

The Death of a Muse ends with the audience being invited to vote on Maud and William’s fates. I won’t tell you which way I voted, but I will say – despite the play’s assertion that Maud is much more than simply William’s muse – it was very hard to imagine these two flawed, obstinate, but ultimately sympathetic characters being separated.

With excellent performances and a very well-written script, plus good direction and set design (including creative use of a well-chosen performance space), The Death of a Muse is a superb piece of Fringe theatre, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Death of a Muse is on at Lock 91 on Deansgate Locks on the 9th, 16th and 24th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of events at this year’s Fringe, see the festival website.

Review: Blue Lines (The Hive, GM Fringe)

Monday 15th July 2019
Theatre, King’s Arms, Salford

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe is on throughout July, and I’m reviewing shows for this blog and for North Manchester FM. On Monday 15th July, I saw my next show from the festival programme – Blue Lines by Stefanie Moore. Blue Lines is one of three shows that have been produced for this year’s festival as part of the Arts Council-funded Hive project. Writer Stefanie Moore developed her debut play with mentoring by Tim Firth and Mike Heath, after winning her place on the scheme at the scratch night in January. You can hear my radio interview of the play on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version…

You may remember I interviewed Moore about the play for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June. Having talked a little bit about what to expect from Blue Lines, I was very much looking forward to seeing the final product. And I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed!

Blue Lines is a one-act play, a two-hander, which stars Nicole Evans and Jenna Sian O’Hara. Evans plays Sarah, a sex-ed teacher, tasked with both introducing her charges to the facts of life and answering any questions they throw at her. She is somewhat overwhelmed and under-enthused by the job, but an early example of the sort of questions she is faced with justifies this. (One question in particular, which Moore mentioned in our June interview is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying – especially with the knowledge that it is a genuine question drawn from Moore’s own teaching experience.)

O’Hara plays Abby, a 15-year-old student who is pregnant. Abby turns to Sarah for advice, not knowing that her teacher is struggling with her own issues around pregnancy and motherhood. Sarah is ‘trying for a baby’, but she’s struggling to conceive. Abby has accidentally fallen pregnant after her first (and only) sexual encounter.

The play takes place over the course of a couple of weeks. This is a difficult thing to handle in a short space of time, but wisely the production avoids multiple scene and costume changes. Almost all the scenes take place in Sarah’s classroom, which is transformed into a doctor’s surgery for one scene. The classroom setting allows for a neat little detail to show the passage of time – scenes often begin with ‘Miss’ writing the day’s date on the board – but otherwise there’s little alteration from one scene to the next. The effect of this is to concentrate the audience’s focus on the characters and their story, and allows for this to develop with a controlled pace.

Blue Lines is driven, not only by individual performances, but also by the strong and believable dynamic between the two. Evans is sympathetic and relatable as Sarah. Slightly highly strung, she switches between frosty, brittle and vulnerable as she initially attempts to keep Abby at arm’s length. However, as the audience comes to realize what Sarah is holding beneath the surface, Evans’s performance becomes even more nuanced – and really quite moving.

O’Hara is just excellent as schoolgirl Abby, convincingly evoking that precarious balance between childhood and adulthood in a believable and sympathetic way. Abby gets a lot of the funniest lines, but the audience is (almost always) laughing with, rather than at, her. Where we are encouraged to laugh at her naivety, there’s a gentleness and affection to this that steers away from outright mockery. Nevertheless, Abby also gets to deliver a lot of the ‘wisdom’ of the play, which is done with subtlety and a light touch.

What really impressed me was the relationship between the two. Evans and O’Hara have a great on-stage chemistry, and their interactions are infused with a warmth and humanity that leaves the audience really rooting for a good outcome for both. It would have been easy to play the relationship for laughs, or veer towards cliché, but Evans and O’Hara keep things down-to-earth and convincing throughout.

Again, there are some very funny lines in the play. Personally, some of my favourite moments came when the humour collided directly with the more serious and painful issues that underpin the story. A particular favourite was an exchange about a monkey sanctuary, which builds from an off-the-cuff (and slightly absurd) statement from Abby into a well-timed exchange that reveals a lot about both characters and captures something a bit more profound than just monkeys.

Evans and O’Hara’s performances are great, but credit must also be given to Moore’s script. The dialogue is really excellent, and the lines for both characters are written with sensitivity: laugh-out-loud humour at times, and pathos (even pain) at others. While I would happily have watched much longer performances from the two actors – and I found that, even after just an hour, I had become quite attached to their characters – Moore pitches the narrative arc just right. There is just enough story here, and the play ends where it needs to end.

While Blue Lines is a play that’s unashamedly about pregnancy, fertility and motherhood, it is also a study of two particular characters. I have no doubt that many audience members will find things to identify with at various moments, and some of the dialogue will have familiarity for some. However, the play wisely avoids gesturing at universality, and it has lots to recommend it to those of us who aren’t interested in having babies! Again, this is carried through a combination of sensitive characterization and strong performances. Blue Lines is the story of Sarah and Abby, and the way their individual problems intersect for a brief period of time.

Overall, Blue Lines is a well-written, funny and relatable piece, with excellent performances from its two actors. It’s a definite recommendation from me.

Blue Lines is on at the King’s Arms from 15th-17th July, the Way Theatre, Atherton on 19th and 20th July, and the Bury Met on 20th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind (Gare du Nord Theatre, GM Fringe)

Thursday 11th July 2019
Stockport Train Station

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe is on from the 1st-31st July, and I’m continuing my journey through a selection of the many shows on the programme for this blog and North Manchester FM. The next show I’m reviewing is The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind by Gare du Nord Theatre, which I saw in Stockport on Thursday 11th July. The radio version of this review aired on today’s Hannah’s Bookshelf, but – as always – here’s the blog version…

The Fringe is a multi-venue festival that takes place across Greater Manchester. One of the benefits of this is that the festival encourages people to travel to different boroughs and to visit theatres and studios that they haven’t been to before – already this year, for instance, I’ve been introduced to Twenty Twenty Two in Manchester and the Whitefield Garrick. However, another benefit of the Fringe’s multi-venue ethos is that some companies stage performances in non-theatre spaces as well. Step up: The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind… which was performed in a disused waiting room between the platforms at Stockport Train Station.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is a production by Gare du Nord Theatre. You may remember that my first review this year was of Gare du Nord’s Underwater, so it was a pleasure to have the chance to see another of the company’s three productions on this year’s programme. It was also great to experience some site-specific theatre – the unconventional performance space for The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind isn’t just a gimmick, but rather a part of the show itself.

The play is a reprisal of their award-winning 2017 show, though with a slightly different cast. It’s an immersive (though light-touch immersive) show that offers a somewhat wistful and poetic meditation on journeying, adventuring and passing-by.

When you arrive at Platform 3 at the station for the show, everything feels fairly normal. Evening travellers are waiting for trains, and station staff are going about their business. However, you then spot a few unconventional travellers on the platform. Smiling and interacting with audience members and commuters, these travellers are dressed in quirky, slightly old-fashioned clothing. They look like they might’ve dropped in from a different time.

This is what I mean by ‘light-touch immersive’. The audience doesn’t participate in the action of the play, but the way the company use and inhabit the site transforms the way we look at the otherwise ordinary train station. For an hour or so, the ordinary becomes a little bit extraordinary.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is a lyrical and whimsical tale – with a slight Gallic inflection – of connections and journeys. As a man (the eponymous beggars) sits and strums a guitar, another man (played by Geoff Baker) walks hurriedly in front of us, from one door of the room to the other. He drops a coin into the beggar’s guitar case, but he has no time to stop, because he’s just ‘passing by’. A married couple (played by Emma Yates and James Boucher) arrive to wait for a train. They speak at cross purposes to one another and are repeatedly interrupted by the passer-by. Eventually, the wife is distracted enough to talk to the stranger, and they discover a deep and significant sense of connection.

The play dispenses with naturalistic performance and dialogue to instead offer eccentric and poetic flights of fancy that conjure up romanticized vistas that can only be reached by train. The wife and the passer-by describe a wondrous and rather off-beat journey, imagining the incredible sights they could see together – only to have to their fantastical scenario shattered by the arrival of the last train. Is their brief interlude real? Or is it a dream? It feels as though we might be suspended between the two.

To add to the otherworldly feel, the dialogue of the first half is mirrored in the second. This time, as the couple fail to communicate with one another (with lines switched around from their earlier conversation, and the dynamic of the married couple reversed), it is the husband who is distracted by a passer-by – played by Martine Anson – and who begins an imagined adventure.

While their roles mirror and echo one another, I very much enjoyed the differences between Anson and Baker’s performances. Anson exudes a wistful optimism, combined with a neat glamour, that lends a hopefulness to her daydreams of adventure. Baker, on the other hand, projects a sense of sadness. His character seems isolated and awkward, giving his brief connection with a stranger at the station a real poignancy. Anson carries a barometer – wondering at one point whether the instrument describes the present or predicts the future – whereas Baker carries a clock, marking time. Interestingly, while Yates and Boucher’s married couple are an anchor to the story, it is the people who are just passing by that steal our (and their) attention.

Of course, the other star of the show is Stockport Train Station itself. While the performance is going on, trains come and go as though carefully choreographed. And as the heavy door to the waiting room is slid back and forth to allow the characters to ‘pass by’, the room becomes briefly filled with the sounds of the platform, creating a truly unique atmosphere.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is an unusual and captivating show, with a little drop of magic in the way the play interacts with its venue. As I exited the show, I really did feel that I was looking at the station through slightly different eyes. A quirky, off-beat and rather sweet experience, this show is well worth going to see.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind was on at Stockport Train Station on the 11th and 12th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. It will be on at the Buxton Fringe on 13th and 14th July, and the Edinburgh Fringe on 17th and 18th August. For the full programme of shows on at this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: The Empathy Experiment (Rose Condo, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 10th July 2019
Studio, King’s Arms, Salford

As you’ve probably twigged from my recent series of blog posts, the 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July. I’m reviewing a selection of shows from this year’s festival programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM, and the next show on my list is The Empathy Experiment in the Studio at the King’s Arms in Salford on Wednesday 10th July. You can hear the radio version of this review on Saturday’s Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the blog version…

The Empathy Experiment is a one-woman show written and directed by Rose Condo (with dramaturgy by Dominic Berry) about our relationship with our smartphones and mobile devices. Told through poetry and spoken word performance, The Empathy Experiment is constructed around a simple conceit: Condo has decided to give up using her smartphone for a full 24 hours in order to see if this increases her empathy levels. Now, in the final hour of the experiment, she is ready to share her findings with the audience.

The show is presented as a sort-of lecture, signalled by Condo donning a white lab coat and using title cards to announce the stages of her investigation. I say ‘sort-of lecture’, though, as the style and tone of presentation are somewhat at odds with the ‘science part’ of the content. While Condo provides some research to back up her assertions about empathy and compassion – quoting from both studies and more populist books – there is an intimacy and urgency to Condo’s delivery that makes the show feel more like a conversation with, rather than an address to, the audience.

The show combines some – surely widely relatable! – poetry about everyday smartphone addiction, including an absorbing and descriptive piece about accidentally falling into a scrolling binge late at night, with chatty musings on the nature of empathy and the way we relate to other people. Both the poetry and the running monologue are eloquent, lightly comedic and engaging throughout, though there is a bit of bite to some of the commentary on the declining quality of human interaction. Nevertheless, there is no direct target to Condo’s light-touch ire. Instead, she creates a sense of complicity through the relatability of her words: we all do this, so we’re all to blame.

The Empathy Experiment works on two levels. On the one hand, the audience are presented with some thought-provoking facts and studies about the ostensible decline in empathy, and the connection this may have to smartphone use, and with responses to an anonymous survey Condo conducted beforehand. Some of this is not really surprising, but it serves the purpose of encouraging reflection and reassessment of certain aspects of the modern world that we have come (in a few short years) to take for granted. (And a poetic piece about Facebook really underlines the speed at which these changes have occurred.) It’s the sort of factual presentation that doesn’t so much teach you something new, but rather reminds you of something you’d forgotten you already knew – like, for instance, the fact that very few people primarily use their smartphone as a phone.

However, on the other hand – and more powerfully – the show works to create an actual empathetic response from its audience through its delivery style. I found that, although I was thinking a lot while watching The Empathy Experiment, I was feeling something too.

Condo states up-front that she is a ‘friendly’ person (noting that this is because she’s Canadian), and ‘friendliness’ is a vibe that undoubtedly permeates The Empathy Experiment. In the small space of the King’s Arms Studio, the audience feels very close to Condo – and to one another. She is seated on the stage area when the audience arrives, apparently patiently waiting for them and preparing herself for the performance. When the show proper begins, she makes expert use of silence and stillness at key moments, and frequently makes direct and smiling eye contact with audience members. This style creates a warmth and familiarity that encourages a strong feeling of connection between performer and audience.

Part way through the show, Condo brings someone onto the stage with (though this isn’t really an audience participation show) for a mini-experiment based on the metaphor of ‘walking in someone else’s shoes’. Slowing the pace right down, this exchange has an incredible softness and gentleness to it, which I found really rather moving.

I don’t know if it was the research on empathy that Condo presented, or the effect of the show’s style and delivery, or just a heightening of innate compassionate responses, but I did feel a strong emotional response to some parts of the show. In particular, there’s a point towards the end when Condo reveals the outcome of her experiment, but also a realization about some of its implications, and I genuinely – just for a minute – felt the pain she was describing.

Of course, the fact that I had this feeling is all credit to the careful and deliberate pacing of the show’s script, as well as Condo’s sensitive and expressive performance. The Empathy Experiment is a very well-crafted show, and it’s really quite clever in the way it elicits an emotional response from its audience.

Overall, The Empathy Experiment is a charming, thought-provoking and clever production, which draws on Condo’s skills as a poet and spoken word performer to create a very enjoyable hour of entertainment. I will admit, I did turn my phone back on when the show finished, but I’ll also admit it was nice to briefly be without it.

The Empathy Experiment had a short (and sold out) run at the Greater Manchester Fringe, but it will be on at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. If you get chance to check out the show in Edinburgh, it’s a definite recommendation from me.

The Empathy Experiment was on at The King’s Arms on the 10th and 11th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe, and it will be performed in August at The Banshee Labyrinth, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Thespis Theatre, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 10th July 2019
Whitefield Garrick Theatre

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. I’m reviewing a selection of shows staged throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The next production I saw this month was Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Thespis Theatre, which was on at the Whitefield Garrick on the 10th and 11th July (I was at one of the performances on Wednesday 10th July). You can hear my radio review of the show on Saturday’s edition of Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the blog version…

I was interested in this production for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is one of two shows I’m planning to see this year that’s in a language other than English. Thespis are an Israeli theatre group, and their production of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is (mostly) in Hebrew, with English subtitles. While this year’s Fringe programme offers many great opportunities to see local talent, I’m excited to also have the opportunity to see emerging companies from further afield.

The second reason I was intrigued by this show is that I’d never been to the Whitefield Garrick before. Situated very close to Whitefield tram stop, this small theatre is home to the Whitefield Garrick Society, which grew out of wartime Home Guard performances. The building is a former machine shop – and it’s a really great little theatre space.

But back to Shakespeare’s Sonnets… the real reason this production interested me is that it weaves together and mixes up the words of Shakespeare’s famous poetry sequence to create a theatrical and narrative experience. If you are familiar with the sonnets, you will know that there is some (admittedly debated) sense of a narrative thread – even some sense of character, at times – to them, but I was fascinated to find out how Thespis would draw this out on stage.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intense, almost hypnotic, production, which uses expressionistic performance and stylistic design to focus on the themes of erotic love, vanity, jealousy, cruelty and sadness that permeate Shakespeare’s sequence. Directed by Meir Ben Simon and performed by Yoav Amir, Reut Berda-Levy, Odelya Dadoun, Debbie Levin and Gal Shamai, the production almost works as a series of vignettes, highlighting and dramatizing particular emotional threads, rather than as a linear story.

The show opens with a painter at his easel. The four other performers move onto a raised area at the back of the stage and watch him. At first, it feels as though they are watching with admiration, but it soon becomes clear that they are vying for his attention, like a troupe of somewhat competitive muses. Mirrors and paintbrushes abound, with the artist both drawing and being drawn by his muses.

The approach taken to the text of Shakespeare’s poetry is to fragment, repeat, distort and mix lines from different sonnets. Although the screens show lines from the English text, and signal the sonnet number from which they are taken, even non-Hebrew speakers in the audience quickly realize that these are not verbatim subtitles of the words being spoken on stage. Individual lines and words are repeated, or echoed by another character, and lines from multiple poems are brought together.

The overall effect of this is an emphasis on the musicality of the sonnets, which – when combined with the stylistic physical and aesthetic design – transcends the actual language being spoken (much in the same way as in an opera). This transcendence comes to the fore later in the production, when the first line of Sonnet 40 is repeated and echoed by the performers in a series of other languages (I think I caught French, German, Italian and Spanish).

Thespis have constructed their ‘narrative’ of the sonnets through a series of vignettes. For those familiar with Shakespeare’s poems and the standard interpretations of them, it is no surprise to see the ‘Fair Youth’ and the ‘Dark Lady’ appearing on stage, or to see them engage in a near-vicious tug-of-war over the artist. However, what’s more interesting are the interactions between these two characters, and the way they respond to one another in often unexpected ways. The actors adopt personas, rather than characters, and these adapt and alter as the performance progresses, following threads suggested by Shakespeare’s poetry.

I say the performance ‘progresses’, but this would suggest a more concrete linearity than is found in the production. While certain relationships appear to grow and fade on stage, this is not a strict narrative progression, nor does it follow a particular sequencing of Shakespeare’s poems. In places, Shakespeare’s Sonnets uses its source material as a jumping-off point for a more virtuoso enactment, with the poems being suggestive, rather than prescriptive.

I’d like to give praise, too, to Rona Mishol’s costume design, which lends a sriking visual style to the production. Each performer wears a simple white outfit, overlaid with jagged embroidery that suggests a broken mirror – a nice touch. However, costuming and design (including the sound design and music by Nadav Vikinski) really comes into its own when one of the female performers makes the (perhaps anticipated but certainly arresting) transformation into the Dark Lady. As a set-piece, this transformation is beautifully worked and was one of the highlights of the show for me.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intense and rather serious piece of theatre that offers an expressionistic and thematic interpretation of a poetic sequence. Nevertheless, Thespis aren’t averse to a bit of crowd-pleasing! The performance of Sonnet 18 – undoubtedly the best-known of the sonnets – is a proper show-stopper, and it made me smile to see that – even in a complex and fragmentary meditation on leitmotifs and musicality – ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ still gets to headline!

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intelligent and stylish staging of the Bard’s poetry sequence. For non-Hebrew speakers, it is an opportunity to lose yourself in the music of the poetry and the performance. If you get chance at another venue (in Israel or beyond!), I recommend you check out Thespis Theatre’s production.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets was on at the Whitefield Garrick on 10th and 11th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: People are Happy on Trains (war/war/war Theatre, GM Fringe)

Sunday 7th July 2019
Twenty Twenty Two, Manchester

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. I’m continuing my little journey through the festival programme, and the next show I saw was People are Happy on Trains by Galway-based war/war/war Theatre, which is on at Twenty Twenty Two, Dale Street, Manchester.

I saw People are Happy on Trains on Sunday 7th July, and it was the second play I saw that day. The first was All Things Considered’s Wake Up, Maggie! (which I talked about in my previous review), and I must say that the two shows made for quite a double bill. The contrast between the two was really quite striking!

Written by Anna Doyle and directed by Aoife Delany Reade, People are Happy on Trains is a one-act play exploring the complex emotional journey that profound grief can take. This metaphorical journey is staged as an actual journey – the train trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh – which is presented in real-time. It is staged on a very simple set: three sets of chairs with a central aisle conjure up a train carriage, and the rest is left to our imagination (led by the actors’ performances, of course). Although – as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews – I don’t like to know too much in advance about the plays I go to see at the festival, I did have a bit of background info on this one, as I interviewed Doyle about the production for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June.

Emily White plays the central character, who is named in the credits simply as ‘girl’ (no character names are used in the actual performance). As we learn early on, this girl is travelling to Edinburgh to collect the personal effects of a loved one who has died. As she enters the carriage and takes her place towards the front of the stage area, she seems entirely alone. But it’s not long before others quietly move in behind her.

Credited only as the seat number they occupy on stage, Ellen McBride, Hanahazukashi Mai and Una Valaine play 59, 57 and 54 respectively. Following the girl into the carriage and taking their seats, it’s quickly apparent that these women are not simply fellow passengers travelling to Edinburgh.

People are Happy on Trains is an expressionistic piece that explores grief. The girl has lost her brother – her best friend – and the experience of this is described in fragmentary monologues from White, who exudes a control and earnestness deliberately at odds with the pain of the story she is telling. This control is juxtaposed with the freer expression of McBride, Mai and Valaine’s performances – these are even more fragmentary, but hint at the bewildering array of emotions that collide and conflict following a bereavement.

One of the striking things about People are Happy on Trains is the way the piece powerfully juxtaposes style and content. The performances and dialogue are stylized, expressionistic and mannered, and yet the story told is painful and raw – even brutal, in places. Despite the constrained stylistics, there is an undeniable universality to the narrative. Similarly, while the fragmented monologues describe a very specific relationship and backstory, the show constantly feels as though it is describing something more generalized and communal.

Strange as it may seem to say about a play that deals with the pain and confusion of grief, I found the performances in People are Happy on Trains almost pleasantly hypnotic. There’s a balletic style to some of the group pieces – an analogy drawn with a piano recital, which begins with Valaine and Doyle’s poetic writing, moves between the actors with a neatly choreographed grace. And I also enjoyed the way the sounds and movement of the train journey are signalled by the actors to punctuate the piece.

These elements – and the lyrical narration of Doyle’s script – lend the play a sort of dreamlike quality. Again, this makes for an interesting juxtaposition, as the girl’s story seems to touch on something very human and real, and yet the style of the production encourages the audience to see it is as unreal – even hallucinatory, at times. This contradiction is thought-provoking, but also relatable. Grief is contradictory, and the feeling of being both real and unreal at the same time is something many people will be able to identify with.

This is undoubtedly an ensemble piece, which relies on a certain chemistry between McBride, Valaine and Mai, as well as a brittleness in their interactions with White. It’s hard to single out one actor in a piece of this nature, but I will say that I found myself particularly drawn to McBride’s performance as the woman in Seat 59. Bristling with barely-concealed anger from the moment she arrives on stage, McBride delivers some of the harsher lines of the play, revealing the darker and more brutal emotions that underlie the grieving process. Her compelling and commanding performance ensures that this is a bit of a sucker-punch, but it is contextualized by the more wistful, nostalgic and reassuring performances of Valaine and Mai.

Overall People are Happy on Trains is both heartfelt and controlled – a serious meditation on the experience of grief. It makes intelligent and confident use of stylistic constraints to deliver a clever piece of contemporary theatre. I look forward to seeing more from war/war/war Theatre in the future.

As a short addition, I would like to mention how much I liked the venue chosen to stage this production. I’d not been to Twenty Twenty Two before, and I wasn’t sure how well a basement ping pong bar on Dale Street (with an entrance in a loading bay on Little Lever Street) would work as a performance space, but I really liked the vibe! The minimalist style and décor of Twenty Twenty Two really suited People are Happy on Trains, and there was a great atmosphere in the bar itself.

People are Happy on Trains is on at Twenty Twenty Two on Dale Street from 7th-10th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Wake Up, Maggie! (All Things Considered, GM Fringe)

Sunday 7th July 2019
Theatre, King’s Arms, Salford

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July. The fourth show I saw this year was Wake Up, Maggie! by All Things Considered Theatre, which was staged at the King’s Arms Theatre on Sunday 7th July. I’ll be playing my radio review of the show on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version…

Promising a show about ‘class, confusion and karaoke’, and about growing up in the 80s and early 90s, Wake Up, Maggie! is a lively and energetic two-hander by All Things Considered’s artistic director Emma Bramley and associate artist Stuart Crowther. And – this seems to be turning into a bit of a theme for this year’s Fringe – it’s not quite what I expected. Or rather, it was so much more than I expected.

Wake Up, Maggie! begins at the door, with audience members being offered a choice of stickers: Margo Leadbetter, Hyacinth Bucket or Ethel Skinner (I chose Ethel, by the way). Bramley and Crowther are already in the theatre space, dressed in tabards and carrying feather dusters, wandering round the stage and seating area. If you weren’t sure that the show was going to look at aspects of class (specifically working-class life), then this pre-show welcome nails the colours to the mast. However, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the full complexity of the performance.

The show is, on the whole, a duologue, peppered with short bursts of pop songs (some ironic, some illustrative), based on life experiences of the two performers (who are playing themselves on stage). Specifically, it considers and contrasts the two performers’ experiences of class. Crowther introduces himself as coming from Rochdale, and being solidly – and securely – working class, despite the fact that a number of the other personal characteristics he mentions – university lecturer, yoga practitioner, queer, vegan – aren’t immediately associated with the stereotype of the working-class northern bloke.

Bramley’s introduction is more confused. In fact, this is explicitly stated early in the show. Crowther isn’t confused about class, but Bramley is. She grew up poor, with a working-class father and a middle-class mother. She went to a ‘posh’ school, but was on free school dinners and had no money for clothes. Much of the show’s focus is on examining what this conflicted background means about Bramley’s class identity – does she fit in any of the boxes?

Touching on an array of characteristics usually used to categorize class identities, Bramley and Crowther work through anecdotes that reveal the limitations of these categories. Is university education a marker of class? Or financial circumstances? Or what you call your evening meal? This is undercut with jokey comments about the north/south divide, with Londoner Bramley asking at one point: ‘Have I not heard of this because I’m a southerner? Or because I’m middle class?’

I enjoyed this original and nuanced approach to the well-worn subject of class identity. It’s unexpected and a bit in-your-face at times, but it’s also genuinely moving in places and definitely thought-provoking. Bramley presents and examines her confusion through monologue and flashback, in which she conjures up versions of herself during childhood, including a memorable scene where she roots through a bag of cast-off clothes, desperate to find something, anything from Tammy Girl. Of course, her performance also relies on interaction with Crowther, which is consistently warm, funny and playful.

The dynamic between the two is undeniably comical, but it also offers an intriguing perspective on the question of class. In this relationship, the ‘solid’ working-class identity acts as a sort of guide to the system, with the ostensibly middle-class identity being revealed as a fragile and uncertain pretence. Bramley performs vignettes of her past experiences, but she also frequently fires questions at Crowther, apparently expecting him to have all the answers.

Crowther’s performance is an absolute joy. Where Bramley oozes discomfort, awkwardness and – in places – desperation in her story about trying to find a ‘place’ in the world, Crowther shines with the confidence and security of someone who knows exactly where his place is. His side of the performance is mostly delivered through poetic spoken word – with some cracking lines like ‘The world is full of curtains in the North’ – that serves as an unashamed love letter to northern working-class culture.

This steps up a gear as Crowther evokes a very specific ‘hub’ of this culture – the Castleton Moor Conservative Club. Not only is Crowther’s verbal portrait so beautifully descriptive you can almost smell the Lynx and lager tops, but it also situates the club as a potent metaphor for the security (and tribalism) that class identity offers. Awkwardly pulling at her t-shirt, class-confused Bramley asks Crowther if she can go with him. ‘It’s members only where I’m going,’ he says, ‘I’ll have to sign you in.’

My one criticism of Wake Up, Maggie! is that it was a bit too short. There is a lot going on here – Bramley’s exploration of her own conflicted relationship to class, Crowther’s affectionate evocation of working class Rochdale, brief background snippets of political context and pop culture from the 80s and 90s, the identity and fate of the Castleton Moor Con Club, the North/South divide – and the show’s focus occasionally feels a bit dissipated. Allowing a little more time to explore things would have helped with this, and some of the complexities would have withstood a little further analysis.

But I guess this criticism is also a compliment: I’m also saying that I would have happily watched more, and I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when I realized that Crowther’s glittering, climactic number was, literally, the show-stopper.

All in all, Wake Up, Maggie! is a delight of a show. It’s funny, authentic, affectionate, and one of the most nuanced takes on class identity I’ve seen for a long while. There was only one thing that didn’t ring true for me – I can’t believe Emma Bramley has never heard of Fray Bentos pies!

Wake Up, Maggie! was on at the King’s Arms in Salford on Sunday 7th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Gobby (Jodie Irvine, GM Fringe)

Saturday 6th July 2019
Studio, King’s Arms, Salford

The 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe continues throughout July, and I’m continuing to see and review shows on this year’s programme. On Saturday 6th July, I was at the King’s Arms, Salford, to see Gobby, the debut play by Jodie Irvine. I’ll be playing the radio version of my review on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version…

Written and performed by Irvine – and directed by Serafina Cusack – Gobby is a one-woman play that promises ‘a playlist of awkward encounters’ and a story of ‘growing up and starting over’. I will admit I went into Gobby expecting, perhaps, a clichéd tale of angst, embarrassment and over-indulgence. But I’m delighted to say – and this is one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with the Fringe – my expectations were completely confounded!

When the audience enters the (admittedly rather cosy) Studio at the King’s Arms, Irvine is already on stage, in character, listlessly blowing up balloons. Behind her is a banner that proclaims, ‘It’s a party’. Her character is Bri (‘like the cheese, except not like the cheese because it doesn’t have an E at the end’), a seemingly awkward party host. Around her, the stage is covered in party decorations – foil hats, streamers and party poppers litter the space.

Bri explains that she’s going to tell us about five parties that changed her life. She lets off a single party popper to signal the beginning of the first scene: this is Party Number 1, a gathering Bri herself has thrown in order to convince some formerly close friends to spend some time with her. For some reason, those friends have stopped inviting Bri to things, and she’s desperate to try and redress this.

Irvine is certainly engaging and very funny in this opening gambit. A party hat on an inflated balloon stands in for a guy she’s talking to. Her description of the much-desired clique as a ‘pack of wolves’ leads to a funny self-deprecating assessment, and sets up an apparently identifiable dynamic (the ‘pack’ are the Mean Girls to Bri’s Cady, the Heathers to her Veronica). But Gobby is about so much more than this, and the layers that sit under the surface are about to be revealed.

And what a reveal it is. Part way through the first party, and whipped up to high pitch with stress and annoyance at being ignored, Bri discloses some backstory that changes our perception of her character and the direction the story is going. I swear I felt the audience take a collective breath (carefully, though, as we were sitting rather close together in the studio space!), but Irvine’s performance didn’t miss a beat. Moving seamlessly from awkwardness, to biting humour, to bitterness, to brittleness, Bri is a rounded and well-realized character with a powerful story to tell.

I don’t want to say too much about how that story unfolds. However, I will say that it’s an unusual, but absorbing, take on self-awareness, survival and self-worth. As some of the show’s publicity states, this is a show about ‘what it really means to be loud’. Bri is ‘gobby’, and the show offers an honest, sympathetic and – on occasions – bittersweet exploration of this.

As a woman who has sometimes been called ‘gobby’, and who knows that she talks too much, too fast and too loud sometimes, I felt a rather personal identification with the character of Bri. More painfully, I also once found myself in a similar situation to Bri’s backstory, and felt some rather visceral parallels between my own experience and that portrayed on stage. I say this, not to bring my own story into this review, but rather to highlight the seriousness of Irvine’s piece. While Bri is a fictional character, the story of Gobby is one that will resonate – perhaps painfully – with many audience members (I don’t imagine I can be the only one!). In her writing and performance, Irvine seems aware of this, and more than up to the task. There is a sensitivity and humanness to Gobby’s story, devoid of condescension or trite answers.

Irvine’s writing and performance are both charming and sensitive (and yes, I laughed a lot, but I did also shed a tear or two). But – weirdly – I would also like to praise her use of props. When the show begins, you’d be forgiven for thinking the party items have simply been cast around the stage at random, and yet at every moment of the performance, Irvine is able to lay her hands on exactly the party popper or paper cup that she needs. Like all the best parties, Gobby is a carefully choreographed piece, despite all its appearance of casualness.

It’s not just Irvine’s use of props that’s well-choreographed, the storytelling is also very well-constructed to give a sense of arc and development. The humour is relatable, and Irvine has great comic timing. But the more serious – and heartfelt – story that underlies it is really quite moving. The show’s real strength lies in the way these two elements work together – they’re actually two sides of the same coin.

Overall, Gobby is a show that really surprises. Sharp, honest, and well-performed, this is an entertaining and skilful debut show, and I hope to see lots more from Irvine in the future.

I’m going to end this review with a slightly unorthodox bit of praise… for the rest of the audience at Saturday’s show! As I’ve mentioned, the Studio at the King’s Arms is a bit of a cosy space. The show was sold out – which is great for Irvine, but it meant that every bit of seating space was needed. We were rather close to one another, to say the least. I don’t know if it was the vibe of the venue, or the anticipation of the show, but I couldn’t have shared that space with a more good-natured group of people, who happily squeezed in together with good humour and patience. As I say, an odd thing to mention in a review, but what a lovely bonus!

Gobby was on at the King’s Arms in Salford on 5th and 6th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. It will be touring other Fringe festivals, including Bedford, Exeter and Edinburgh, in July and August. For the full programme of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe, visit the festival’s website.

Review: The Yank is a Manc! My Ancestors and Me (Hopwood DePree, GM Fringe)

Friday 5th July 2019
International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July, and I’m reviewing a selection of shows on this year’s programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. My second show of the festival was on Friday 5th July, when I saw Hopwood DePree perform his one-man comedy storytelling show, The Yank is a Manc!: My Ancestors and Me. I’ll be playing my radio review of the show on Saturday’s Hannah’s Bookshelf. But here’s the blog version…

The Yank is a Manc! is the true story of Hopwood DePree’s relocation from Los Angeles to Middleton, to save the Grade II*-listed Hopwood Hall. I’ve been following the story with interest for a while, and Hopwood was actually the first guest I had on my local history show on North Manchester (A Helping of History), back in November 2017, shortly after the show began. I also caught up with Hopwood again for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June. So I’ve heard a bit of the background to the show’s backstory. It’s certainly an unusual tale, but it’s also been a great boost for the historic building, which has been at serious risk for some time.

This Summer, Hopwood is touring a one-man show (part stand-up comedy, part storytelling) about his decision to move to the UK, his experiences at the hall (and in Manchester and Middleton generally), and the challenges faced by what he amiably describes as the ‘home restoration from Hell’. The show opens with a short video montage to fill in the background for the uninitiated, and further pictures appear occasionally to illustrate the story. These are a nice mixture of jokey images and genuine pictures of the hall and its current condition.

The one-hour show is funny, affectionate and occasionally absurd (but always on just the right side of believable). Much of the humour comes from the fish-out-of-water situation of the ‘Yank’ arriving in ‘Manc’. As you might expect, there are plenty of jokes about cultural misunderstandings, on the ‘two countries separated by a common language’ lines. An early bit about trying to buy a sweater sets the tone – minor vocabulary differences tumble into a bigger mix-up, with Hopwood presenting himself as the wide-eyed, baffled stranger in a strange land. The show is less ‘you people are crazy’, than a self-deprecating wander through the little absurdities of Hopwood’s unorthodox relocation.

The Yank is a Manc! is a very funny show – I particularly enjoyed the description of Hopwood’s first Bonfire Night – but it is also suffused with an engaging affection and openness. While Hopwood makes his passion for saving the historic building clear, what really comes through is a fondness for the building’s idiosyncrasies – and the idiosyncrasies of the other people involved in the project, and of Middleton/Manchester/Rochdale as a whole. Frequently laughing at himself – there are a number of jokes about spray tans and teeth whitening – Hopwood leaves the audience with the feeling that, mad as his project is, he wouldn’t actually want to be anywhere else.

Watching the show in Manchester, with an audience including a number of people from Middleton, there was a pleasing familiarity to the story and the humour. A couple of jokes seem to revolve around particularly Manc or Northern expressions and characteristics (and Hopwood’s occasional switches between calling his new home ‘Manchester’ and calling it ‘Rochdale’ will make perfect sense to people from Middleton). However, the show was actually first performed at Brighton Fringe, and it will be going on to Camden and Edinburgh next month. It’d be interesting to know what audiences from slightly further afield make of the story – I suspect the humour will still hit home, as I don’t believe you need to know Midd to enjoy the comedy of the situations described. Still, I think Middletonians (and North Mancs generally) will feel a particular possessiveness.

As well as tales of linguistic confusion, heritage architecture, and local history, The Yank is a Manc! also conjures up some of the slightly larger-than-life characters that have played a part in the story of Hopwood Hall. We get a glimpse of Hopwood’s LA agent Sheila (and her sound-a-like assistant Ken) and her bemusement at her client’s new career direction, as well as small nuggets of motherly advice and wisdom from a parent who believes her son is having a mid-life crisis. And we get to meet Geoff (a local historian) and Bob (the long-time caretaker of the hall), who flit between looking after Hopwood and tormenting him for being a ‘Yank’.

I have enough inside knowledge – like most people involved in local history in the North Manchester area – to know that Geoff and Bob are real people. In fact, I’ve met Geoff, and he is indeed an incredible local historian, and I have no doubt that he did indeed furnish all the in-depth information about the hall that Hopwood references throughout the show. However, it would also be fair to say that the ‘Geoff’ and ‘Bob’ we are treated to on stage are also characters, based on real people but with a pinch of poetic licence for the show. This is done very well, as Hopwood avoids lazy caricature throughout his presentation of the two Middleton men – again, there is a real sense of affection and warmth – and show a good talent for character construction and dialogue, as well as great comic timing.

Overall, The Yank is a Manc! is an uplifting show that is both funny and sweet. It’s a great story, told with humour and charm. I defy anyone not to be rooting for the historic manor house and its unconventional guardian by the end.

The Yank is a Manc! My Ancestors and Me is on at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, on 3rd-6th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. It also will be on in August at the Camden and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. To see the full programme for this year’s GM Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Underwater (Gare du Nord Theatre, GM Fringe)

Tuesday 2nd July 2019
The Whiskey Jar, Manchester

The 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe Festival began on Monday 1st July. This year’s programme is really packed, and I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM.

The first performance I attended this year was on Tuesday 2nd July, and it was Underwater by Gare du Nord Theatre, which is on at The Whiskey Jar in the Northern Quarter. I generally like to go into Fringe shows armed with as little information as possible – strange though that might sound! – as I love the feeling of now knowing what to expect and being surprised. However, I did have a bit of info in advance for this one, as I interviewed Geoff Baker of Gare du Nord for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special, which aired on 29th June.

Underwater is a one-act play that takes place in the sea. In truth, it would be more accurate to describe it as a mini-trilogy of plays, as it is a sequence of short pieces written by Marco Biasioli. Although it was actually a complete coincidence, it feels rather appropriate that Underwater is the first Fringe play I’ve seen this year, as I rounded off last year’s Fringe by seeing Hanging by Tangled Theatre, which was also a production of a play by Biasioli and was also performed at The Whiskey Jar.

There are some definite comparisons to be made between Hanging and Underwater – the dream-like, semi-surreal characterizations and the off-beat, disjointed dialogue being the most obvious. Both plays also use an odd, slightly unsettling humour, though this is more pronounced in Underwater, which combines verbal humour with more physical comedic turns. Certainly, there is a clearer sense of a ‘message’ in Underwater, though this is carried as much through the direction and design as through the script, but there is still some sense of ambiguity and uncertainty at times.

Billed as a ‘show in the dark’, Underwater actually starts with the stage lit up and the actors visible. As the audience arrive, the cast – Luke Richards, Eloise Bonney and David Allen – are sitting cross-legged on the stage, waiting for us. They sing snippets of water-themed pop songs and look slightly impatient. Around them are transparent bin bags filled with rubbish, and the stage is strewn with plastic debris.

The first piece in the mini-trilogy takes place on and near the surface of the sea. Allen becomes a rather fatalistic seagull (with a wistful West Country accent), sitting on a rock and delivering a monologue about the lack of other rocks and other seagulls. It’s not initially clear whether this is a vision of a future where sea levels have risen, or that Allen is playing a particularly solipsistic seagull – given the content of the rest of the play, I tend to think it’s the former.

The seagull envies the killer whales, who he believes want to eat him. Little does he know, said whales (played by Richards and Bonney) have embraced veganism and are attempting to live solely on seaweed. The plan, intended to atone for the species’ mass slaughter of krill, is not going well, and it seems that these two (named Orco and Bianca) may be the last two remaining orcas in the ocean.

I don’t want to give too much away about the direction the short pieces take – it always seems unfair to describe too much of a play of this length. Suffice to say, the vegan killer whales segment combines veiled environmental commentary with a satirical side-swipe at right-on hipsterism and misplaced activism. The latter is the more heavy-handed, and is played mainly for laughs, but the former underlies this humour and connects back to the seagull’s lonely fatalism.

After the killer whales face the consequences of their dietary choices, we dive deeper into the sea for the next sequence. This is signalled by a dip in the lighting – the use of lighting is an effective aspect of the show (in the absence of backdrops and scenery, the lighting is the device by which the audience is taken underwater). The second segment features two blind jellyfish (Richards and Bonney again) and a manipulative turtle (played by Allen). This section of Underwater makes more use of physical comedy and absurdist dialogue, with the two jellyfish banging into one another – and the audience, and the furniture – with surprising force. The more manic tone of this middle section is pronounced – and ambitious, given the confines of The Whiskey Jar’s basement space!

As mentioned, the stage area of Underwater is strewn with bits of rubbish and discarded plastic. The significance of this should be pretty clear in a show that bills itself as facing ‘the environmental apocalypse’. What’s interesting about this idiosyncratic set décor though is that the actors can’t (or don’t) attempt to avoid it. The rubbish audibly swishes around their feet as they move on the stage, tangling and constantly threatening to trip them up. It isn’t mentioned at all in the first two segments, which is a nice touch. The disruptive ubiquity of plastic is an apt background noise to what we’re seeing.

Underwater’s three actors each portray three different creatures, and I have to admit I did have a favourite performance from each. Allen is great as a mournful seagull, intoning his depressive monologue about sardines with a whimsical gravitas. I also enjoyed Richards’s hipster killer whale; both his physical movements and self-righteous tone were spot on (as was his pronunciation of the name ‘Bianca’). For me, Bonney really shone as a slightly bonkers but rather charming jellyfish, intent on building an aquarium and addressing (with no clarity of thought whatsoever) political imbalances of power.

As for the final sequence of the play – when the lights finally drop down to darkness and we go to the bottom of the sea – well… you’ll have to watch it for yourself to find out where it all ends!

Underwater is on at The Whiskey Jar on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd of July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Gare du Nord have two other productions on this year’s festival programme: When Liam Met Emmeline in Manchester and The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind. And I’ll be reviewing one of these later in the month.

Review: No One is Coming to Save You (This Noise)

Sunday 30th June 2019
HOME, Manchester

Yesterday, I posted a review of Electrolyte, which I saw at HOME, Manchester as part of this year’s Incoming Festival. This is a review of the second festival production I saw that night: No One is Coming to Save You by This Noise. I’ll be reviewing both productions on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version of my review of No One is Coming to Save You…

It was interesting to watch No One is Coming to Save You immediately after seeing Electrolyte (which was on the bill on the same night), as the two productions are really quite different. While Electrolyte is a loud (even brash) piece of gig theatre, No One is Coming to Save You is an experimental piece, with its feet in a literary, rather than musical, tradition. Electrolyte explores and celebrates the bonds of friendship; No One is Coming to Save You examines isolation, and what happens to the human mind when there’s no one to talk to. Electrolyte is about mental illness, whereas No One is Coming to Save You is about mental health.

The play opens onto a relatively bare stage. There’s a boxy old TV on a chair, and a piece of AstroTurf on the floor. And there are two people lying on the AstroTurf. These are our two unnamed characters – narrators, really – played by Agatha Elwes and Rudolphe Mdlongwa.

Written by Nathan Ellis and directed by Charlotte Fraser, No One is Coming to Save You is a piece of off-beat narrative theatre that moves from funny to unsettling (and sometimes combines the two), and which takes place in the minds of two people who cannot sleep.

‘There is a woman…’ intones Elwes, as she begins to outline the minutiae of what the unnamed woman, who is sitting alone in a dark kitchen, is doing. ‘There is a man…’ says Mdlongwa, before beginning his monologue, describing the man. The piece is a duologue, rather than a dialogue (for the most part), as the two take it in turns to speak, moving around the small stage space as though the other isn’t there. Half-full glasses of water are scattered around the floor, and the television intermittently shows disjointed images of disasters and brief captions addressing the audience.

No One is Coming to Save You is far from a comfortable linear narrative. The two performers offer oddly matter-of-fact accounts of what the two characters are thinking, but, for the most part, they do not perform as the characters. Until a short dialogue towards the end of the play, the accounts are given in third person, so the man and woman are being described (in a rather objective tone) rather than embodied. Moreover, the thoughts that are being described are fragmentary, and include supposed memories that may or may not have happened. At times, the descriptive monologues become rather surreal, and at others they take on a detached, dark tone, as the two imagine ways to hurt and destroy people around them.

It is to the performers’ credit that, despite this disjointed way of constructing and presenting narrative, the audience still feels a sense of engagement with them as ‘characters’. Elwes, in particular, is compelling as she recounts the mundanity of the woman’s work as a video logger, and her relationship with Lavender, the woman she works with. However, I also very much enjoyed Mdlongwa’s somewhat absurdist explanation of what ‘selling olive oil spread to empty nesters’ entails.

Fraser’s direction is also good here. Given that the piece is delivered entirely through two not-quite-converging monologues, the movements of the two performers around one another, and the way they almost – but not quite – overlap in their speech, are very effective. The dance break (and I’m giving no spoilers on that one) is well-timed to throw the audience off-guard.

There’s a technique in creative writing that I’ve presented several times at workshops. Take a piece of prose – no matter how cute or mundane – and put it into present (or future) tense. If it’s in first person, change it to third (or second). The result is that your mundane piece of prose takes on an unsettling – often disturbing – quality. This technique is used to good effect in No One is Coming to Save You. Much of what the characters describe is really quite ordinary – even the more exaggerated fantasies of violence are so very strange to anyone who has suffered from insomnia – but the show takes that ordinariness and presents it as extraordinary. The script imbues even the act of looking at some patio doors with a profundity that hints at something more than the act itself. And the result is really rather absorbing.

No One is Coming to Save You is not about mental illness as such, but rather the low-level anxiety, angst and ennui that permeates so much of our existence – but which is relatively easy to dispel. Its hopeful – almost reassuringly twee – ending feels fitting, as this is a play about how wrong it can feel when nothing is actually wrong. As anyone who’s struggled to sleep will know, it’s always darkest just before dawn.

I’ve seen some other reviews and interviews describing this production as belonging to a particular time, or to a particular generation. I have to disagree with these assessments. While there is some sense that the ‘modern world’ is to blame for the narrators’ angst, this is not a story simply about – dare I say it – millennials. It may be tempting to imagine that this type of anxiety, dissociation and dread is a new phenomenon, this grizzled Gen-Xer found it completely recognizable. Indeed, the use of a TV, rather than a mobile phone, as the ubiquitous site of menace, adds to this effect. (I wouldn’t want to say for sure, but I bet there’s plenty of baby boomers who’d claim the phenomenon for their generation too!)

Overall, No One is Coming to Save You is an off-key, quirky piece of theatre, with good writing and direction, and two surprisingly engaging performances. If you fancy watching something a little less linear and a little more charmingly illogical, then this is a definite recommendation for you!

No One is Coming to Save You was on in London on 27th June, Bristol on 28th June, and Manchester on 30th June, as part of this year’s Incoming Festival.

Review: Electrolyte (Wildcard)

Sunday 30th June 2019
HOME, Manchester (Incoming Festival)

I was at HOME, Manchester on Sunday to see Electrolyte, one of the productions in this year’s Incoming Festival programme. I’ll be reviewing the show on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version of my review…

The Incoming Festival takes place in Manchester, Bristol and London, and showcases emerging theatre companies from the UK and beyond. Electrolyte is a production by Wildcard, which was performed in London on 28th June, Bristol on 29th June and Manchester on 30th June, as part of a UK and Ireland tour.

Electrolyte is a piece of gig theatre, written by James Meteyard and directed by Donnacadh O’Briain. Music and lyrics are by Maimuna Memon. The story unfolds through spoken word poetry and live music (in a variety of genres, though it leans towards the electronic), which is performed on stage by the multi-instrumentalist cast. This is the first time I’ve seen this sort of performance, and it is hard not to be swept up in the energy of it all.

The cast are on stage as the audience enter, apparently tuning up their instruments, joking around with each other, and greeting audience members that they recognize. Of course, on reflection, this is an important (but subtle) part of the show, so perhaps they don’t actually recognize anyone. However, this deceptive casualness sets the tone for Electrolyte’s intimate and personal narrative, which not only breaks the fourth wall at times, but also draws its audience in and encourages a degree of affection and empathy with its central character that should be at odds with its short length and unusual performance style. Music plays a pivotal role in this play, but it would be wrong to call it musical theatre.

The protagonist-narrator is Jessie, a young lass from Leeds, who is played beautifully by Olivia Sweeney. Jessie begins as a fairly recognizable character type – she’s a little bit reckless, a little bit lost, struggling to find anything of value in her life, besides getting drunk and high with her mates. The show proper kicks off when Jessie takes the mic and begins her rhymed and rhythmic narration; she introduces her friends and near enough drags the audience with her to the gig they’re attending.

Sweeney’s performance is mesmerizing throughout. She is instantly believable as the intense but vulnerable Jessie. It is easy to feel that you actually know Jessie – an impressive feat given that the play runs at just over an hour – which is vitally important to the development of the story. Jessie’s vulnerability runs much deeper than initially appears, and the fact that the audience experiences this so viscerally is, to a great extent, credit to Sweeney’s relentless, yet charming, performance.

However, credit should also be given to Meteyard’s writing. Again, the show has a deceptive casualness to it that belies the complexity of its storytelling. Reflecting back afterwards, you realize that careful signs were placed from the beginning of Jessie’s narration. Given the show’s association with the Mental Health Foundation, as well as the content warnings given beforehand, it is not really a spoiler to say that the show deals with issues of mental illness. However, I found the way in which Electrolyte presented and handled these issues to be quite unexpected and innovative. More significantly, I found the type of mental illness portrayed to be very unexpected: this is not a play about depression and anxiety. I don’t want to dwell too much on my own personal experiences, but I will say that Electrolyte deals with the type of mental illness that I have (though not the exact condition). It is rare to see the symptoms of this type of illness represented with such (at times, brutal) honesty, and I was impressed with how convincing Sweeney’s performance was. The rest of the cast move between seamlessly from performing the soundtrack (a mix of almost-numbers and ambient soundscape) to engaging in the action and dialogue with Jessie. Megan Ashley and Ben Simon are reassuringly nice as Jessie’s ‘couple friends’ Donna and Paul, and Chris Georgiou offers some comic relief as sweary extrovert Ralph. Again, the audience is encouraged to identify with the dynamics of these friendships – as it is changes in her friends’ lives (Donna and Paul are engaged, Ralph is moving away) that unsettles an already troubled Jessie.

The final two characters are the new additions to Jessie’s life. Meteyard plays the role of Jim, a London DJ who may or may not be what he seems, and Robyn Sinclair is hypnotic as Allie Touch, a singer-musician on whom Jessie becomes fixated. Sinclair’s vocal performance is excellent – again, making it very easy for the audience to empathize with Jessie’s fixation. But I also liked the fact that – no spoilers! – Sinclair voices lines for another character later in the show, a choice that subtly hints at some of the darker threads of the story.

Electrolyte has no set, save the cast’s instruments, which are laid out like a gig stage. And yet, the show is able to transport us from a flat, to the streets of Leeds, to a train, to a London warehouse with surprising ease. While the writing and performances do a lot of the work here, praise is also due to Timothy Kelly’s lighting design, which really blew me away in the show’s climactic scene, as it captured both the setting and the symbolism in an epic, almost confrontational, fashion.

If I have one criticism of Electrolyte it would be that the show’s ending is rather too neat. The play tackles some aspects of serious mental illness with a refreshing and creative rawness that is rarely seen – and yet, it doesn’t take the same approach to recovery, which is presented as rather too easy here. After being so impressed (and moved) by the play’s representation of symptoms, I felt rather let down by the breeziness of the resolution. I’m all for mental health narratives with happy endings (we’ve seen more than enough of the alternative!), but this has to be balanced with a little more candour.

Despite this, I would still definitely recommend Electrolyte. It’s an exuberant, energetic and intelligent piece of theatre, with a brilliant script and some genuinely stunning performances.

Electrolyte was on at HOME, Manchester on Sunday 30th June, as part of the Incoming Festival. It is currently touring nationally.