Large Theatres – Live Art Alive

SWEAT

Written by Lynn Nottage

Directed by Jade Lewis

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE

The ongoing cost of living crisis, the resurgence of strike action and current fears around the rise of AI in the creative industry is certainly having an impact on theatre productions across the North West. Currently Liverpool Everyman has The Legend Of Ned Ludd while the Royal Exchange Theatre has opted for a powerful piece by Lynn Nottage which was hailed by the New Yorker as “the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era” after it’s Broadway debut in 2017. SWEAT is a satisfyingly meaty production with strong performances all round that feels topical and relevant but Director Jade Lewis ensures never descends into earnest and preachy.

The play opens in 2008 with two young men attending their parole appointments. One is Aryan blond and boasts the facial tattoos of a white supremacist while the other is his apparent antithesis as a young black man carrying a bible. The play moves back in time to 2000 where we see these same young men are friends and workmates bonded from childhood through their mothers who are also lifelong friends and work colleagues all working in the same steel factory in Reading, Pensylvania. SWEAT zeroes in on the very human stories that emerge when huge economic changes rupture communities, destroy established industries and the resulting fissures rip through friendships and inflame racial prejudice.

The young men are truly their mother’s sons. Of German descent Tracey is a feisty widow whose tough belligerent nature has served her and her son well in the gritty environment of the shopfloor in a steelworks. Pooky Quesnel is utterly believable in this play where all the scenes and dialogue are very naturalistic. She moves from warm and loyal friend to embittered and brittle when for her a lifetime of identity tied up in the workplace fragments into opiod addiction as the steelworks cuts costs by moving its operation to Mexico. Cynthia played by Carla Henry is more measured and like her son, looks beyond the shopfloor and has aspirations for a brighter future.

Kate Kennedy as Jessie with Carla Henry as Cynthia in SWEAT at the Royal Exchange.
Image credit: Helen Murray

The other characters give the production warmth and texture. An always excellent Kate Kennedy brings humour and pathos in equal measure as the beauty and local lush who also also works on the shopfloor but dreams of lost opportunities. Jonathan Kerrigan is the kindly bartender who was maimed in an industrial accident at the plant and whose measured views give perspective on this complex narrative. The young Columbian bartender is American born yet like his father cannot get a union card so will only get a foot in the factory door by stepping over the picket lines and with horrific consequences.

The staging by GOOD TEETH is minimalist but effective and the bar setting works well as the social epicentre for the workers to come together to celebrate birthdays and mourn losses and disappointments. The huge concrete blocks that occasionally sway precariously or emit showers of sparks are like an ominous sword of Damacles looming over the factory, it’s workers and indeed American democracy. The use of steel throughout the bar framework is also a neat allusion to the brooding presence of the steelworks.

SWEAT has a steely thread that runs through its narrative. Friendships and community cohesion are at the core of industry… when it thrives so do the people. When those making the big decisions in air-conditioned offices take a wrecking ball to the stability of local industry then those local communities are decimated. SWEAT is a searing indictment of poorly conceived economic decisions and casts a haunting spotlight on the human cost.

Royal Exchange Theatre 26th April – 25th May 2024

THE ACCOUNTANTS

Dance, Large Theatres, Video Installation

Director and Set Designer Keith Khan

THE HALL, AVIVA STUDIOS

THE ACCOUNTANTS delves into exploring the contemporary culture of modern China and India by exploding myths and throwing light upon these two vibrant countries who are becoming increasingly prominent in the 21st century. Multi-disciplinary artist Keith Khan is known for his ambitious and dramatic work that explores culture and this deep dive into the cultural worlds of these two superpowers is no exception. This hybrid of dance, sound and video is linked by an intimate thread of very human interaction played out in text and voice notes. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey that crosses continents and vast populations inundated with information from the Internet but culminates in the lasting beauty that is human beings coming together in dance and connecting in a moment where there is no distraction and each one is enough in their own right.

The first half of this ambitious production is quite literally a shock to the senses. The video designers from Manchester based art and design studio idontloveyouanymore once again showcase their imaginative and innovative designs. The vast backdrop to the stage is a projection screen that bombards with numbers, statistics, factual information and images. Either side of the stage are two giant smartphones belonging to the central characters, Liam and his favourite “non auntie” Auntie Kash. He is a young man of British/Chinese heritage visiting China and India in a bid to understand his cultural heritage and discover who he truly is as a person while she is his Mum’s close friend who is of Indian descent but has only ever lived in Britain. Josh Hart and Shobna Gulati are never on stage but their relationship plays out in their messages and voice notes as Liam explores a world where he feels increasingly frustrated at both discovering he is no longer a minority in a country but is also a cultural tourist who cannot speak the language. He quickly discovers the reality of the countries he visits is often very different to what is portrayed on the Internet.

There are two dance companies on stage both making their International debut in Britain. From India comes Terence Lewis Contemporary Dance Company choreographed by Terence Lewis and Mahrukh Dumasia and from China, Xiexin Dance Theatre choreographed by Xie Xin. The twelve dancers onstage start out looking scarily similar in grey suits and generic bob wigs and seem to almost fade into the background like your proverbial stereotypical accountant. It’s initially frustrating and mildly stressful trying to simultaneously focus on the dancers while also paying attention to images onscreen and on the smartphones. The dance performances can seem blurred and the minutiae of movements sometimes feel lost but that is clearly the intention of Keith Khan as increasingly the actions on stage mirror the daily bombardment we all face in a fast paced world where the population growth and the online data growth is exploding exponentially.

The second half of the production is a very different beast. The phone messages reduce dramatically and the giant projection screen slowly rises to open up a strikingly cavernous backstage giving the dancers a vast space to fill. It’s no mean feat but fill it they most certainly do. Stripped back from all the distractions and discarding the wigs that make them appear so uniform there is now nothing but six Chinese dancers and six Indian dancers who start to explore each other’s culture and dance disciplines to emerge as a cohesive whole. All three choreographers involved faced huge adversities attempting to not only find commonality in their practice but to do a lot of this work on Zoom before finally coming together in a physical space. The result works beautifully with the music and sound design from Somatic. The dancers create a space for both companies to work separately and together. Vibrant energy meets taut precision and the dance is sometimes fluid and others tensile as bodies jerk like firing neurons. There are haunting moments where some are so far back and motionless that they resemble shadowy statues like the Antony Gormley installation Another Place. As the dancers work and merge together there is a palpable shift in their energy. Tiny hand movements etc that are ingrained in each other’s dance culture start to infiltrate the choreography and create a potent sense of what we gain when we try to understand another culture.

THE ACCOUNTANTS is undoubtedly a huge creative undertaking requiring artistic risks as well as benefits. It feels very relevant to the space and the artistic vision at AVIVA STUDIOS which Factory International has worked so hard to develop. On a personal note the production hit an artistic high note when the projection screen rose to reveal that huge shadowy floorspace. In that moment it felt like Factory had recaptured the magic and majesty of previous MIF performances at Old Mayfield Depot.

AVIVA STUDIOS 4TH- 11TH MAY 2024

Still Got It…!?

Cabaret, Large Theatres

AVIVA STUDIOS

Still Got It…!? is the cabaret show from David Hoyle and is the culmination of his three week residency at Factory International. There may be no obvious sign of a pier or chips and candyfloss but this production has as much a rich vein of darkly sweet seaside humour as a stick of Blackpool rock. Hoyle is the consummate performer and seems as at home on the vast stage in The Hall as in a more typically intimate cabaret venue. He delivers a performance that is warm, witty, pithy and droll. There’s something quite beautiful and incredibly touching to see this avant-garde performer who has so openly documented his own personal struggles taking to this packed auditorium to ask Still Got It…!?

Hoyle is joined on stage by a range of cabaret artists and although they are all undoubtedly talented there is also a strong sense of Hoyle using this opportunity in a 1600 capacity auditorium to celebrate friendships he has made on his own creative journey. Glitterbomb Dancers are a cabaret dance group produced by Joseph Mercier are as hi energy as they are big on sequins, glitter and dark and twisty charm. Their numbers are dotted through the show and include a dystopian ballet and a pointed and dark allusion to the Pan’s People dancers of Top of the Pops and a time when we switched on to Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville.

Thom Shaw otherwise known as Pam Lustgarden joins Hoyle on stage to discuss jam making in the W.I. as well as well as her well documented love of poetry and building improvised incendiary devices. Her act includes poetry by John Cooper Clarke and a unique take on Pull My Daisy by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy. The best element however is a sly epitaph for Hoyle when he supposedly dies from Empathy.

There are burlesque performances that include Lilly Snapdragon who performs in a child’s paddling pool and delivers an act that may destroy or increase the traditional Mancunion fondness for the great British fry up depending on your fondness for blending food and sex in a particularly graphic manner!! Symoné whirls across the stage on rollerskates using hulahoops while the Alternative Miss Ireland Veda Lady delivers a powerhouse performance involving a shopping trolley and later educates the audience about PrEP and her podcast Poz Vibe.

Some of these performances translate better than others unto such a large stage however that becomes increasingly irrelevant as Hoyle himself wields his laconic charm and stage majesty across proceedings. The huge audience is always on his side and revelling in seeing one of their own up on that stage delivering songs and reverie in his unique style. The interactive quiz show Still Got It, Never Had It, Lost It Years Ago has the audience riotously involved as Hoyle strides across the stage discussing rats in his Longsight abode, a belief in Capitalist reality and his childhood stamp collection. There truly is a broad church in the house tonight and Hoyle is the perfect High priest. He may wonder aloud how a lot of us are still alive…or ask himself How did I get away with that? The answer from the crowd to the big question of the night…David Hoyle,Still Got It…!? A resounding YES!!!

Please Feel Free to Ignore My Work

Still Got It…!?

JUNGLE BOOK

Children's Theatre, Large Theatres

Based on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Direction, Set and Lighting Design Robert Wilson

Music and Lyrics CocoRosie

Co-produced by Factory International with Théâtre de la Ville

THE HALL, AVIVA STUDIOS

Acclaimed Director and Designer Robert Wilson is collaborating once more with Factory International having previously brought several productions to Manchester International Festival. This time the avant-garde Wilson has joined forces with American composers CocoRosie to give their unique “family friendly” take on the classic The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. The result is visually sharp and stylised with a suitably vibrant score. The story is somewhat fractured and evolves in a rather staccato manner which may challenge anyone expecting a more traditional retelling. Vivid and crisply architectural in form, the scenes unfold like the pages of a very minimalist pop-up storybook.

Aurore Déon as Hathi The Elephant and Dira Sugandi as Mowgli. Image credit: Lucie Jansch

Wilson’s trademark style of elaborate lighting and projections and shadowplay with a use of deliberately artificial looking landscapes is very striking. The vivid costumes and makeup reminiscent of Japanese Noh theatre add to an otherness in the characters and the landscape they inhabit. Each animal is highly stylised and the performers inhabit their animal personas rather than don obvious animal costumes so they straddle the world’s of man and beast just as the “man-cub” Mowgli did. Roberto Jean as Shere Khan exudes part Tiger part, Studio 54 snake hipped rock star. Aline Belibi as Bagheera is clad in sleek, vampish black velvet and smoulders and purrs like a glorious Eartha Kitt. The whole story is narrated by Hathi The Elephant who is clad in a white colonial style dress which alongside her grey ear headdress looks like an otherworldly Bjork.

The soundscape swathes the theatre in slightly off-kilter animal and jungle sounds that both enchant and disarm. The original music and lyrics by American performance artists CocoRosie are lively and vibrant with impish lyrics punctuated by dreamy ballads. The performers all sound great and a few including Dira Sugandi as Mowgli are particularly memorable. The overall feel has a decidedly French vibe and one scene change is used to employ the trademark coloured spotlights to shine on each of the musicians in the pit with great effect.

This production celebrates otherness and is intended as a plea for tolerance and understanding. The use of The Jungle Book as a base text is fitting as these varied creatures demonstrate “the law of the Jungle” as they struggle and strive to come together and try to move between the different worlds in an ever changing climate. There are issues in this production if you expect a smooth narrative flow but if you can sit back and enjoy the music and appreciate this as a montage of striking tableau scenes then there is much to appreciate. Absolute moments of striking beauty, a quirky sense of artful play that is present throughout and scenes that look like a Banksy mural brought to life are all present in this punchy piece which also includes some clowning and aerial work. It may not be the Disney rendition realised on stage but that was clearly never the intention.

AVIVA STUDIOS 27TH – 31ST MARCH

A Taste Of Honey

Large Theatres

Written by Shelagh Delaney

Directed by Emma Baggott

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE

This revival of the classic kitchen sink drama A Taste Of Honey by Director Emma Baggott is clearly a fan girl love letter to Shelagh Delaney and her beloved Salford. Impassioned and vibrant, the women that Delaney wrote at age 19, burst unto the stage unapologetically flawed and unflinchingly forthright. The men here are secondary whether callous or kind, they are merely there as supporting roles in the women’s stories. Over sixty years on and this story of impoverished, working class women still has the capacity to shock. Today there may be more choices and acceptance around homosexuality and race but the cost of living crisis is still leaving families on the breadline, reproductive rights are under threat and sky rocketing rents and greedy landlords have families living in accommodation every bit as grim as this Salford maisonette.

Designer Peter Butler has really accentuated the dreamy realism of A Taste Of Honey. There are all the authentic looking furnishings of a sparse, shabby rented flat with few touches of homeliness but suspended above the bleakness is a vast construction that can illuminate the space with fairground bulbs. Like a skeleton of a carousel it looms over the stage with echoes of the Salford gasworks and when illuminated by Lighting Designer Simisola Majekodumni there is the sudden warm glow of endless possibilities in this usually drab environment.

Jill Halfpenny epitomises all the restless dissatisfaction of Helen with her casual disregard of her teenage daughter Jo and her unflinching focus on her own survival. She is a she wolf with scant maternal instincts incapable of loving either wisely or well. Halfpenny oozes the kind of tough, gritty sensuality reminiscent of the great Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street. She truly is an overblown rose ripe for the picking and full of thorns as daughter Jo is just blossoming and already sprouting her own defensive prickly thorns.

This thorny relationship is harshly devisive as both women battle for survival and supremacy. Rowan Robinson gives Jo moments of vulnerability fitted to this child woman who finds herself pregnant and repeatedly abandoned by those who could and should do better. Recognising a mother who had so much love for others and none for me she fleetingly tests love and rejects it. Robinson is the sparky and stroppy teenage girl capable of giving as good as she gets but there are moments in certain exchanges such as when she flirts with her new stepfather that can seem slightly off kilter. Scenes with an excellent David Moorst as Geoffrey are beautifully executed as she plays house with this young gay man and seems destined to play out the patterns of her own deeply flawed Mother.

Rowan Robinson as Jo and David Moorst as Geoffrey in A Taste Of Honey at Royal Exchange
Image credit: Johan Persson

Moorst gives an intense and brittle performance that perfectly encapsulates the grief of a young gay man in The Sixties who realises he will never get the family life and children he craves. Andrew Sheridan as Peter is his polar opposite as the younger man who thinks he can buy love and then casually discard it like a sweet wrapper in the gutter.

There is much to love in this production but like its characters there are flaws. There are moments when performers are hard to hear which is less due to them and more about the staging. The positioning slightly off stage of the bed for instance allows for a very intimate experience for certain seats but means that a few scenes occur with quite a restricted experience for much of the audience. Overall it is rich and vibrant production pulsing with all the passion Delaney imbued her original script with. The arrangement by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite and the use of Nishla Smith as the jazz singer who weaves in melodies such as Dirty Old Town written about post-war Salford by Ewan MacColl are perfect. The silent observing of every scene by Smith punctuated by her glorious etheral singing is the glue that pulls together this collection of lost souls. Her vocal is the only taste of honey that does not lose its sweetness or turn sour.

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE 15TH MARCH – 13TH APRIL 2023

DARK NOON

Immersive Theatre, Large Theatres, Uncategorized

Director and Scriptwriting Tue Biering

Choreographer and Co-Director Nhlanhla Mahlangu

AVIVA STUDIOS

It is great to see AVIVA STUDIOS showing a big explosive production fresh from Edinburgh Fringe 2023. Award winning Danish company Fix+Foxy unite with a cast of South African performers to open the history books that celebrate the birth of the American Dream and gleefully rip it up and rewrite the story. Film and Television endlessly celebrate the first settlers, the brave battles protecting “their” land from the Native American tribes, the thrill of the Gold Rush and the romance of the cowboys riding out on the frontier plain. DARK NOON exposes the mythology and is a darkly funny and brutal reimagining.

The Warehouse plays host to a vast bare stage depicting the rich red soil of the Wild West. The audience sit on three sides of the stage with the fourth dominated by a massive screen on which many of the scenes play out in close up. Somehow the cast of seven seem to fill the space with action from the onset. At times props appear as small vignettes are played out as chapters of history. The first settlers take their perilous journey from Europe starving, sick and often drowning. Its a powerful reminder of what migrants are suffering right now as they seek their own to fulfil their own dream of a better future. Finding and claiming land they protect it fiercely from the indigenous population. At one point the stage becomes a sports stadium where the live commentary is broadcast as the Settlers play the Natives with brutal consequences.

The props on stage grow almost imperceptibly, first a little house on the prairie appears, a railway track is built by Chinese immigrants signalling the arrival of a saloon bar, a church, a gold mine and a barb wire enclosure for the Native Americans. All is deftly done with a fluid , muscular choreography and the pace of the action never falters. Audience members are interacted with and frequently immersed into the performance as slaves in the auction, churchgoers or incarcerated prisoners.

Throughout the frequent costume changes the performers reapply their white-face make up and blonde wigs as they poke fun at the imperious settlers who now seem as misguided and out of touch with reality as the current contenders for the next American presidency. Writer and Director Tue Biering has zeroed in on the terrifying reality that a mass historical psychosis where violence becomes the acceptable norm is not the dream but a living nightmare. DARK NOON lays bare uncomfortable truths and pulls its audience quite literally unto the pages of a terrifying pop-up storybook that is still being written today.

AVIVA STUDIOS 6th-10th March 2023

Work It Out

Large Theatres

Written by Eve Steele

Directed by Sarah Frankcom

HOME

Work It Out shines a light on the week to week experience of a disparate group of vulnerable individuals as they start to form bonds within a dance fitness class they have been prescribed at their local Community Centre. The naturalistic setting and the format of weekly sessions allows writer Eve Steele to deftly explore the journeys that each of her characters experience as they attempt to change their lives. It also gives Steele a perfect platform for an unashamedly polemic rant about a broken Britain where the most vulnerable in the population are increasingly isolated and unsupported. This could be a hard hitting, grim litany of despair but instead Steele imbues her characters with sufficient warmth and humour to ensure there is also a sense of hope as her characters re-engage with a love of life and all its possibilities.

The motley crew are all dealing with their own demons. Pensioner and Grandma Marie is both feisty and vulnerable with her anxieties masked by brusqueness and antipathy. Eithne Brown embodies this elderly hoarder with compassion and humour as she gradually opens up to the group and starts to regain some confidence. Raffie Julien plays her deaf granddaughter who having fallen out of love with music and dance has retreated to a world where her primary social engagement is with her phone. This is a beautiful performance and Julien shines as the prickly young woman who starts to regain joy and freedom in dance as she also makes new friends. The use of BSL throughout the production is seamlessly blended and works especially well within the fluid choreography of the whole production. Compulsive eater Colette initially tries to blend into the nondescript walls but Eva Scott blossoms on the dance floor as she connects with her repressed emotions. Writer Eve Steele is Siobhan, a heroin addict attempting to beat the drugs and the System while trying to get her daughter out of Care. Her character is both frustratingly disruptive in the class yet also acts as a catalyst for change in others that tragically she can sustain for herself. As always Steele is utterly believable as this chaotic and desperate woman who has suffered multiple traumas since childhood.

Dominic Coffey as Shaq and Raffie Julien as Rebecca in Work It Out at HOME
Photo credit: Chris Payne

The men here are interesting characters who despite their issues seem readily at ease amongst the predominantly female class. Aaron McCusker as Rab is a recovering alcoholic finding solace in acerbic one-liners and reiki. There is a bleak stoicism in his determination to live despite his own child wishing him dead. Dominic Coffey as Shaq has been through the care system and his burgeoning dance skills compete with his tics and stimming. The seemingly perfect class teacher played by Elizabeth Twells unites these characters but is woefully unprepared for the issues that erupt and she soon reveals herself as equally vulnerable and just as in need of a support group.

There is much to like in this production. Jennifer Jackson has done a brilliant job with the movement and choreography which is very impactful especially in scenes such as Coffey’s solo dance to a great version Creep by Radiohead. Katie Scott has created a set that embodies every detail of a down at heel community space. For Eve Steele and Director Sarah Frankcom this has clearly been a labour of love and the naturalistic direction feels like a homage to the wonderful Annie Baker. There are however issues with the overall length of the play and the pacing. The first half feels too long and risks losing its momentum on several occasions and there are occasions where the dialogue is hard to hear during some dance sequences. Overall Work It Out is a well written piece with a big heart. It celebrates the redemptive quality of kindness and the vital importance of community in our increasingly fractured world. It also highlights the hidden tragedy of those who are often better at helping others than knowing how to truly help themselves.

HOME 1st – 16th March 2024

FRANKENSTEIN

Large Theatres

Inspired by the writing of Mary Shelley

Co Directed by Andrew Quick, Peter Brooks and Simon Wainwright

An Imitating The Dog and Leeds Playhouse Co Production

Quarry, Leeds Playhouse

Frankenstein was written over two hundred years ago by the nineteen year old Mary Shelley. The themes of the book have resonated through the centuries as we humans continue to grapple with the concepts of birth, life and death and what it essentially means to exist. Inspired to compete with her husband Shelley, the poet Byron and John Polidori to write a horror story, she wove together a story of a creature formed from the gruesome parts of cadavers stitched together and sparked into life by the principle of galvanism. The full tragedy is that this creature willed into life is destined never to be loved by his creator Frankenstein. This new rendition by Imitating The Dog splices together this Gothic romantic masterpiece with a story where a young couple grapple with coming to terms with a pregnancy and its implications in an uncertain world.

Georgia-Mae Myers and Nedum Okonyia in Frankenstein at Leeds Playhouse
Photo: Ed Waring

This latest production by Imitating The Dog is a creative departure from their work of recent years as they abandon their trademark use of live camera projections used so effectively in work such as Night of the Living Dead–Remix, Dracula:The Untold Story and Macbeth. This new work blends story telling with digital technology and movement. The result is visually glorious as Video Designers Davi Callanan and Alan Cox make every use of the strikingly simple set design by Hayley Grindle. The staging comes alive as violent weather patterns erupt across the stage, snowy blizzards and terrifying thunderstorms encompass the characters and beautifully compliment the radio broadcasting of the original text. There are other gems as set props illuminate with video images such as embryos, sonograms and birds that are reminiscent of a Damien Hirst installation or a Victorian laboratory.

The overall impact is highly effective as it allows the drama of Frankenstein, the claustrophobia of Walton’s ship and the beauty of the polar landscape to come alive. Composer James Hamilton has created a glorious score that weaves through the piece and creates a perfect alchemy with the rest of the staging. The score also brings additional powerful to the taut, muscular performances of the two leads. The choreography by Casper Dillen has an urgency and desperation that channels that of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature while also illustrating the push/pull of the young couple deciding what to do regarding the pregnancy.

Georgia-Mae Myers and Nedum Okonyia give their all to this production. Utterly invested in the characters they bring to life from the book and in the modern day embodiment of a couple wrestling with a momentous decision in an uncertain world. It is frustrating that the naturalistic dialogue employed for the modern setting seems to get lost when in translation when up against the writing of Mary Shelley. On occasion some of the parallels drawn, such as between the Creature and the shouty man outside the couple’s flat can seem heavy-handed and unnecessary. The couple come alive during the movement sequences but perhaps would have benefited from stronger dialogue to give them more depth so that ultimately an audience could care and invest in them as much as with the characters in the book.

There is much to enjoy in this production and the themes of Frankenstein will remain relevant as it continues to astound as to how Shelley’s vision of a man sewn together from discarded body parts and galvanised into life could ever be fully realised in anything but our imagination. Yet two hundred years on we think nothing of using defibrillators to breathe fresh life after a heart stops beating and use organ, body and skin implants to give loved ones hope and a new lease of life. Imitating The Dog have used their unique set of components and galvanised their own vision of Frankenstein and it seems to be a pretty successful rebirth!

Leeds Playhouse 15 – 24 February 2024

FRANKENSTEIN Tour dates

SHED: EXPLODED VIEW

Large Theatres

Written by Phoebe Eclair-Powell

Directed by Atri Banerjee

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE

SHED:EXPLODED VIEW by Phoebe Eclair-Powell won The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019. A brutal yet deeply intimate exploration of domestic violence, love and isolation inspired by the work of artist Cornelia Parker whose installation Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View literally shines a light on the domestic debris remaining after a explosion. The global pandemic meant a delay in the staging of this production and also spiked a horrific rise in the statistics for domestic violence making this urgent play even more powerful.

Three couples interact over a thirty year period in this nonlinear play. Time shifts back and forth denoted by each year displayed on a monitor above the stage. A highly effective minimalist set by Designer Naomi Dawson features moving concentric circles that the performers chalk scene titles onto. As they slowly move around or are smudged during the performance they subtly allude to the fragmentation and blurring of time and memory. The exposed skeleton frame of a shed is suspended over the stage and illuminated by a single huge bulb of light. Lighting Designer Bethany Gupwell uses a bank of lights to anchor each scene from home to exotic honeymoon beach or NYE fireworks and the splintered, crackling light effects on the stage are used for maximum shock effect in the scenes of violence.

Wil Johnson as Tony in SHED: EXPLODED VIEW at the Royal Exchange Theatre 📷Johan Persson

The six performers have literally nowhere to hide on stage. Occasionally some sit on the sidelines on hard wooden chairs and observe scenes with the audience. On Stage sometimes they interact with the other couples, other times their words overlap as if time itself is blurring or merging past and present. The oldest couple Lil and Tony are on second and third marriages hoping to get it right this time. Naomi and Frank are newly weds who seem unsuited from the start and the seeds of disappointment and resentment are already in situ. Abi and Mark meet as students and momentarily look like they may just break the cycle and write a different story. Each couple viewed through a prism of hope could be envied and aspired to. The elderly couple holding hands…is that a lifetime of domestic bliss, love second time around or one holding the other’s hand to anchor them in this world as reality and memories splinter and disintegrate? Or the couple with their young daughter… playing happy families or desperately clinging on to the fading dream of a stable marriage and home life? The new lovers who laugh and drink together yet secretly knowing that for every time his hand tenderly holds her hair back from her face if she’s sick may also be the hand that stabbed the meat of her face with a fork.

It is the women in this piece who are drawn most vividly and drive the narrative even when they are sometimes seemingly passive. Hayley Carmicheal is quite wonderful as Lil, she initially appears to have a birdlike fragility but age and bitter experience has given her a steely core and a warrior spirit. This is a tiny woman who can tend to the vulnerable yet could potentially eviserate a hulking abusive husband. Lizzy Watts as Naomi gives a subtle performance that grows as her character ages and finishes with a blistering portrayal of grief and rage. She deftly moves from a young wife trying to please a sullen bridegroom, to a weary, anxious parent who learns to dance with her feisty daughter, navigate a difficult marriage and emerge from tragedy with a fierce sense of purpose and her own worth. Norah Lopez-Holden as Abi is always utterly invested in her character whether as a curious child, a testing teenager or as a young woman desperately attempting to redefine her deadly reality.

Norah Lopez-Holden as Abi in SHED: EXPLODED VIEW at the Royal Exchange Theatre 📷Johan Persson

The two younger men feel more generic, Jason Hughes as Frank is an resentful, embittered man who seems unwilling to take responsibility for his own choices. Michael Workéyè as Tony exudes a discomforting blend of boyish charm and casual cruelty as he belittles and gaslights Abi. Wil Johnson as Tony has the most satisfying male role and gives a compelling performance as the flawed but wiser older man gifted another chance at love. His scenes are beautifully written especially as his story becomes increasingly poignant and Eclair-Powell gives a really touching insight into the strains of dementia on patients and carers at home during the pandemic.

Director Atri Banerjee deftly ensures that the many small fragmented scenes that unfold or collide come together to build a cohesive story that satisfies and intrigues just as the art installation that inspired the writing of this production. There is something incredibly powerful about examining moments in time or splinters of objects. In my day job as a Psychotherapist I often witness how a single statement or recollection can be a light bulb moment that crystallises a vital realisation for a client. As a child growing up in Northern Ireland I witnessed bomb explosions and remember my parents taking me into the aftermath of a bombed village shop to help make it ready for business as usual. Everyday objects scattered everywhere and coloured nail polish splattered on the red tiled floor amidst shards of glass and warped metal shopping baskets. The detritus of everyday life spread out telling stories of the ordinary, the extraordinary and the fragility of life especially in the face of violence. On so many levels I love the bravery and structure of this piece. It was and remains a worthy Bruntwood prize winner. SHED: EXPLODED VIEW is a sensitively rendered howl of rage and frustration that should rally us all to call out any signs of abuse and urge loved ones, neighbours, colleagues or strangers to run at the first warning signs. RUN…and don’t look back…RUN… even if it’s over broken glass.

Royal Exchange Theatre 9th Feb – 2nd March 2024

OLIVER!

Large Theatres, Musical

Books, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart

Adapted from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist

Directed by James Brining

Leeds Playhouse

Christmas is certainly the time for nostalgia and sitting back rewatching old movies and indulging in familiar traditions such as Pantomime or a juicy epic from Charles Dickens. Leeds Playhouse have opted for the later and have thrown all the festive bells and whistles at this gloriously indulgent production. The classic Lionel Bart musical adaptation Oliver! has been a crowd pleaser for over 70 years. Director James Brining has taken his personal childhood memory of starring as a hungry urchin boy in a school production and lovingly celebrates this theatrical gem with a diverse and highly talented cast.

Set and costume Designer Colin Richmond has made brilliant use of the main stage in The Quarry by staging in the round with a range of elaborate platforms and bridges which allows for maximum drama and loads of very naturalistic movement on stage. The costumes are lovingly detailed and evoke every echelon of society that Dickens describes. London street markets come alive with the hustle and bustle of traders, shoppers and pickpockets. The grim workhouse filled with pallid hungry children desperate for gruel but dreaming of Food, Glorious Food is powerfully contrasted by the laden tables of food carried to gluttonous Victorian besuited men who frequent the same hallowed private clubs still entered by Tory politicians today who seem equally unconcerned by today’s food banks. Scenes in the funeral parlour where Oliver is sold as a tiny coffin follower are gleefully macabre as gloomy coffins open in the floor or a white faced child emerges from another to a sea of black clad mourners with quirky steam punk dark glasses. The overhead bridges and walkways work very well in allowing a large cast to move around on stage with freedom and give great scope to the clever choreography of Lucy Hind.

Felix Holt and cast in Oliver! at Leeds Playhouse. Image credit: Alastair Muir

Oliver! at Leeds Playhouse.
Image credit: Alastair Muir

Fagin’s base is filled with colourful pocket squares and eccentric bric a brac that allude more to the Victorian eccentricity of a born entrepreneur than the darker antisemitism of the original Fagin in Dickens. Steve Furst as Fagin is wily and has a certain Bohemian seedy charm but is also reminiscent of Wilfred Brambell in Steptoe and Son. The real brute is of course Bill Sykes played with real thuggish menace by Chris Bennett who is genuinely scary on stage. The feisty performance of vocal powerhouse Jenny Fitzpatrick makes for a striking and moving contrast as her Nancy feels robust enough to have no time for the thuggery of her lover. When she sings As Long As He Needs Me it is incredibly emotive as the complexity nature of love in a violent and coercive relationship is perfectly evoked. There are some great performances from all the main cast with a standout comedic turn from Minal Patel and Rosie Edie as the ghastly Bumbles.

The children in the Young Company are consummate professionals throughout this lengthy and demanding production. The young Oliver and The Artful Dodger are played by a rotating cast of young actors befitting modern child labour legislation. The press night production had Nicholas Teixeira playing Oliver and his clear diction and strong, pitch perfect renditions of Where Is Love? and Who Will Buy? were very impressive. Felix Holt was perfectly cast as the impudent but charming Artful Dodger.

This is a lush, exuberant extravaganza of a production that is memorable for all the right reasons. Every aspect feels well thought out and lovingly attended to. It’s truly encouraging to see large scale theatre productions in the North West that are worthy of coaxing London theatre goers to come North and hopefully remind Arts Council England that money allocated outside of London is a sound investment. If nothing else it might help keep Northern theatres from potentially resorting to pick a pocket or two to survive!!

OLIVER! at Leeds Playhouse 24th Nov 2023 – 27th Jan 2024