The Morning After - The Witty Fools -#review- Westovian Theatre June 26th 2015

The Morning After - The Witty Fools - Westovian Theatre June 26th 2015

The Westovian Theatre is a funky theatre with lots of quirky features built into it.

But onto the show! This is the first Production of The Witty Fools which is a great name for this group of people and I can only see them getting better and better as time goes on.

Written by Rachael Walsh (who also plays Ashley) and directed by James Barton this show is one of the funniest shows I've seen this year.

Imagine waking up after one hell of a night and not remembering a thing about yesterday! (I do this most days with the help of alcohol) Ben played by Craig  Fairbairn wakes up next to Ashley and they can't remember a thing !
Ben admits he has a girlfriend called Anna, She is coming over to meet the parents and she arrives bang smack on time for her (three minutes early) both girls meet, Ben spins a lie that Ashley is called Hannah and only his sibling sister.
Before she can't meet the parents Anna (Amy Foley) leaves, now I'll warn you this may get tricky but try and keep up.
When Ben's parents come he introduces Hannah also known as Ashley as his girlfriend Anna then his brother Charlie (who met Ashley last night) comes in and is introduced to Benss girlfriend Anna. (You keeping up?)
Then the chaos ensures until just before the interval when Anna (The real girlfriend) comes back.

The second half starts where the 1st half left off, you are just wandering what is going to happen to Ben and Anna (the real one) and will the parents played by Patricia Whale and Mark Lamb find out.
Charlie is on hand to save the day literally and adopts Anna (Bens real girlfriend) to fool his parents.

Flashbacks help us fill in the gaps with brilliant lighting changes and there is even a right up to date selfie moment.
 
The character that defined the show was Charlie (Who lives in a caravan by the sea) played by the fantastic David John Hopper,his comical timing was amazing and if there was a part written for him this was it!!

The show is definitely one to go and see because these fools are witty (see what I did there!)  and this show will make you laugh out loud.
The Witty Fools have dedicated this show in memory of Jackie Fielding who sadly passed away suddenly while performing at the Customs House and I definitely think she would be extremely proud of the guys with this show. 

Reuben Hiles

Hayfever -#review- People's Theatre 17 June 2015

Hayfever

People's Theatre

17 June 2015

When all four members of the Bliss family invite a weekend guest to their home in leafy Buckinghamshire, near the Thames, without telling the others, an urgent problem arises. Who will stay in the Japanese room? This question, causing much fuss and argument is, however, only the beginning of their problems. When the guests, each invited by a specific member of the family for a specific (if rather selfish) purpose, become embroiled in each family member’s desperate need to be loved and appreciated and the continual strife that seems to rage between them, the scene is set for an almighty catastrophe. When the mother declares of the increasingly gloomy weather that “there’s a terrible thunderstorm brewing”, you immediately think “yes, but not a meteorological one”. The guests have no idea what is going on and their confusion isn’t helped by the family’s occasional habit of breaking into a rendition of one of their mother’s most celebrated performances (although we get the distinct impression that ‘celebrated’ is pushing things slightly, and the mother herself says of the plays she performed in that most were, to put it mildly, sub-standard). The style of these performances, were the habit itself not peculiar enough, is more

suited to Greek theatre that drawing room romantic tragedy – the actors, i.e. the family, are very odd. What the family don’t seem to realise is that the real tragedy is happening right in front of their eyes. Their housekeeper simply observes this with weary familiarity and bemusement, and tries in the midst of it all to maintain some sense of order. Hers is a losing struggle.

Welcome to the Bliss household! Artists, writers, actors, but above all Bohemians, the normal rules don’t apply to them, they are above such things. But at the same time they crave the adulation and, in short doses at least, the love of the general public. And in one case at least they want to be “better”, although the daughter, whose ambition this is, never actually makes clear what she means, probably because she isn’t sure. The family are stuck between two poles but ultimately one wonders whether they can truly ever resolve their fundamental dilemma. Coward’s play offers us the answer.

And the answer is, in Coward’s hands, hilarious. The riot of confusion and chaos, combined with the childishness, rudeness and sometimes downright nastiness of the characters, all delivered in slick, sharp (in every sense of the word) dialogue are what most famously characterise a Noel Coward play. Hayfever is no exception and the production that the People’s Theatre are presenting this week plays it all to the hilt. But some of the funniest moments are where characters find themselves thrust into contact with a relative stranger and they are unable to sustain a simple conversation, instead descending into embarrassed silence, desperate for someone to appear and rescue them from their awful situation. Simply talking is impossible, they must have ‘polite’ conversation and it fails them. The Bliss’ carefree, and careless, attitude is not the only subject for scrutiny in this clever, witty and finely constructed play.

I don’t have a great deal of experience of Coward so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I got was a great night out. The characters engage you immediately, bought ably to life by the excellent cast. It would be invidious to pick out particular actors for praise; you believed them, you liked them, they were very good at what they did and in no way did I ever think “I’m at an amateur theatre”. This was a professionally done performance of a production that deserves to be very successful. The People’s Theatre does, of course, have one of the longest standing in-house acting companies in Newcastle and all that experience, which includes professional experience in many cases, has been passed down through it. So that Hayfever’s actors were so slick, well choreographed, and so downright funny shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I look for little things when watching a play, too, just to see what happens when, inevitably in live performance, something goes wrong (a prop failure, line drop, that sort of thing); the players last night were hampered by a recalcitrant lighter. When faced with its chicanery they simply, calmly, reached for the spare. These are little things, but they speak volumes. Actors who know what they are doing.

 

I went with some family and one of them said to me afterwards “I felt I could have been at Theatre Royal”, and I have to say I agree. My 17 year old Nephew thought it was hilarious. His 13 year old sister said she thought it was “funny, but confusing” which seemed fair comment given that everyone in the Bliss household and all their guests ended up very confused. Their grandmother thought it was brilliant. All of us were buzzing; it was great fun. I was even inspired to buy an ice cream.

The set is gorgeous, and the costumes fantastic (the result, again, of long-standing experience, in the costume department particularly). The theatre is beautiful anyway and this production makes full use of that. I find the People’s a very friendly place. The people who staff it, and the plays they put on, make punters feel welcome. “Armenian solo physical theatre based on Greek theatre and westerns, Madam?” “Can’t I just go and see a good play made by people who know what they’re doing and I can have a good night out at the theatre?” “Ah, you’ll be wanting the People’s Theatre, madam.”

Oh, and a little word about the choreography. There is a moment, I think in Act II, where all of the characters, gathering in the drawing room after dinner, seem to sort of dance and weave, repositioning themselves, arraying themselves on sofas, or near the coffee, or the piano. It’s so beautifully done that it actually sent a little wave of delight through me and further underlined for me the quality of this production. I know that the People’s operates on tiny budgets, both in financial terms and in terms of people’s time, but what they manage to achieve under those conditions is often remarkable. This is no exception. 

Matt Cummins

Waiting For Gateaux -#Review- South Shields Custom House - 10 June 2015

Waiting For Gateaux 
South Shields Customs House
 10 June 2015

After coming to the customs house I had a good idea that this show was gonna be good but this show was slightly disappointing for me...and not for the reason that you would think!
The Customs House is a great theatre but for this performance it was half full! (I was the only one in my row) which I felt let this great show down.

Written by Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood (Dirty Dusting) Directed and Produced by Gareth Hunter who owns ION Productions and Co Directed by Christina Berriman Dawson who also plays Sophie (The Skinny Bitch ).

Waiting for Gateaux is based in a small run down tin hut on a profitable piece of land home to 'Mo tivation Slimming Club'.
This play focuses on five fantastically written characters Donald, Maureen, Jackie and Raven... all have different reasons for being at the club and not really for losing weight.
Donald played by Paul Dunn fancies Maureen, played by the delightful Philippa Lyall. Then there's Jackie the comfort eating dieter, played by Laura Lonsdale, her sister Raven, played by the gothic looking Sarah Boulter- who obviously did her research as she made a great Goth!
Then there's Sophie who the guys think is here to film a TV show but it's not all as it seems!
The club is dealt a blow before the interval, with the arrival of a developer... what's going to happen! Will they help it survive or should they call it a day?

The second half begins with the lights out and the electricity not working and it snowing outside. The gang decide what they are planning to do about the closure, will they stay and fight for the club or let the clip board real estate big wigs have it.

But the ending has a nice twist but you'll have to come and see it to find out !!

Overall the show was funny witty and had some clever puns in it but I still feel that the atmosphere was lost with the seating arrangements, but the show is definitely worth the money so go and see it.

Reuben Hiles

Waiting For Gateaux -Review- The Customs House, South Shields.

Waiting For Gateaux,

The Customs House,

South Shields.

Wednesday 10^th June 2015.

I am no stranger to the work of Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood having seen most of their shows. I am also no stranger to Waiting for Gateaux having seen it when it was first staged at The Customs House in 2005. Back then I loved the show. That said this is a new production company and new cast so I went into the theatre with an open mind.

Waiting for Gateaux tells the story of Mo-tivators health and fitness club. Run by Maureen (Philippa Lyall) from a small hall in the middle of nowhere that only attracts clientele who have nothing better to do.
Jackie (Laura Lonsdale) comes while her husband stock takes late at his green grocers and she’s started to bring her young sister Whitney (Sarah Boulter) or Raven as she likes to be known, along to keep her out of trouble. Donald (Paul Dunn) has been a long standing member and seems to be the only one to actually have lost weight - 12 stone so far! However he is clearly motivated by his love for Maureen, if only he could tell her how he feels!
Then there is Sophie (Christina Berriman Dawson), a researcher for a reality TV programme.  Sophie appears to check out the club but when a blizzard hits it brings with it all manner of revelations and madcap comedy ensues.
The entire story of Waiting for Gateaux takes place in the hall of Mo-tivators which potentially could serve as a very mundane setting for an entire show, however under the direction of Gareth Hunter this isn’t the case. With clever choreography, great music choices and simple lighting effects the passage of time becomes as entertaining as the show itself.
Gateaux has some hilarious one-liners and some really old jokes that you know the punch line before it’s delivered, but it’s the actors delivery of these jokes that makes these characters believable. This is essential to the success of Waiting for Gateaux. It would have been very easy for this to be a ridiculous farce with over-the-top caricatures. However the performances of this ensemble cast help keep the show grounded. I believed every single character and the situations they were in. It would be difficult to single out any of the actors as being the strongest as what was really lovely was how well they all worked together.
Waiting for Gateaux won’t change your life but what it will do is thoroughly entertain you, make you laugh and have you leaving the theatre with a smile on your face. Well worth the ticket price.

Written by Robert Stevens

The Vicar Of Dibley -Review- Whitley Bay Playhouse.

The Vicar of Dibley – Whitley Bay Playhouse, 10th June 2015


When the children of the Tyne Theatre Stage School choir belted out the familiar theme song at the very beginning, I thought I knew what I was in for. A fun, over-the-top recreation of a classic sitcom – something the Playhouse has offered very successfully on numerous occasions (Father Ted, Are You Being Served?, Fawlty Towers, Hi-De-Hi!, ‘Allo ‘Allo, etc.) – with some wobbly sets and wobblier performances but still a highly entertaining evening to be had by the end of it. Sadly this production wasn’t one of their best.

Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer’s parochial sitcom has always been comfy background viewing but it’s easy to forget it’s the cast that makes it special. Here, Leah Ashton does a remarkable impression of Geraldine Granger but Dawn French is always going to be a hard act to follow and Ashton needs to work on her comedic timing. The main problem was she didn’t capture the likability of French’s character, more often than not sounding like an ageing secondary school teacher. It’s a great shame, especially considering the marvellous Basil Fawlty offered by Jason Fenn a few years prior. Chris Johnson as David Horton gave a lacklustre performance as if he’d left his batteries at home, while Graham Oakes would make a great Hugo if he could control the added-on stuttering (which took away rather from the other famous stuttering character in the show). Nick Wright and Bob Douglas, as Jim ‘No no no no yes!’ Trott and Frank Pickle respectively, were very entertaining and comfortable in their roles. Maurice Leaver’s Owen Trott was a pitch-perfect Roger Lloyd Pack and Abi Dysart provided an excellent Alice who was a joy to watch.

The three episodes chosen were ‘The Arrival’, ‘Songs of Praise’ and ‘The Christmas Lunch Incident’. All fair choices and self-explanatory titles really. They were staged as best they could be with Geraldine’s famous misunderstood jokes marking the end of each edition. Moments of note included pre-recorded linking videos which inexplicably still featured line-fluffings (‘…which is a relief on one hand, and a bloody relief on the other…’), a terrifying rumble as if the building was going to fall down in Act Two and a fifteen minute loop of Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ during the multiple dinner scenes (God help us!). Music choices were very silly throughout, always chosen to tie in with a single line of dialogue from the previous scene; the extended version of the Mastermind theme was certainly an oddity. Another odd aspect was the constant referencing of nineties’ culture, obviously appropriate to the original script. As soon as I’d got used to that, they started throwing in unnecessary references to Simon Cowell and David Cameron! Ah well, it’s a bit of fun, I suppose.

Let’s be honest, I love these evenings at the Playhouse and the more mistakes made during the production the more fun it is. Honestly. The stage-hands even broke a cabinet as they chucked it on last night, and it was great. My only issue was that the evening quickly became dull, and I can only lay that criticism down at the director’s feet. Chris Johnson, who was also playing David as mentioned above. It is so extraordinarily tricky to direct a play while you’re literally inside it and this is what has led to the issues regarding pace and blocking. All the blackouts and scene changes don’t help but they were actually covered pretty well in the assembling of the show, even if the logic of the plotlines seemed to be affected occasionally (‘Surely they’ve just heard her accepting another dinner invitation!’ ‘What sort of time is it to be calling round the vicarage?’) …But my moaning aside the assembled audience enjoyed it all very much, and I hope greater numbers continue to do so.

Mike Turner

Review - The Life and Loves of a Nobody - Town Hall Theatre

The Life and Loves of a Nobody 
Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre
June 4th 2015

Guest Reviewer Wayne Cook, is a professional photographer and member Hartlepool Writers' Group. He has recently been guest blogger for the Town Hall Theatre in Hartlepool. He gives his thoughts on theatre going and reviews the latest show at the Town Hall. 

Some thoughts on the theatre...

William Shakespeare once sent an email, to a friend, that read

“One hath found out, Bob, that Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre are showing Swan lake tonight, if one doth fancy going”

OK, he probably didn't, but he should have.

However, the importance of the theatre, as an entertainment venue, is still as valid today, as it was all those centuries ago.

It's not all opera, ballet and Shakespearean tragedies, although all of those, to lovers of that style of theatre, have their part to play, but a collection of drama, comedy, romance and real life stories, portrayed by actors both famous and not so.

Technology is making the world a far smaller place as we are now able to talk to family across the other side of the world at the flick of a button, but that is just serving to make us all insular beings, tucked up nice and snug in our warm homes.

The traditional community hubs of public houses, libraries, cinemas and theatres are closing fast through lack of use and finances, and if we don't want that to happen then we need to utilise them much more. 

I am as guilty as the next person for sitting in a darkened room, the only light, that of the computer or phone screen flickering, chatting to people I have never met, never liked or never see.

To be fair, who doesn't want to look at the cute photos of constipated cats or the burnt photographic offerings, to the food gods of sausage and mash, that we are served daily by our online acquaintances, but there comes a time for us to say “NO MORE”

Time has come to get out of that habit, to actually go out and meet REAL people in an actual place and where better than a theatre.

Let me assure you, I am not an employee of Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre, or of any other theatre for that matter, and until a year or so ago, I wouldn't have even considered myself a theatre goer. It was all a bit highbrow, pretentious stuff as far as I was concerned then.

Now, though, I have seen the light, I have been touched, not literally obviously, by a love of the theatre. A place where I can watch a story unfold, not on a 42 inch TV screen, but in person, in an intimate setting and FEEL part of the drama. Where you are drawn in to the characters flaws and issues, issues that effect not just the script, but the same type we all face in our everyday lives and something we can associate with. Debt, drugs, love and death are all portrayed in a variety of styles.

Watching the dramatic, final few hours of Marilyn Monroe's death or seeing a group of comedians dealing irreverently with the daily chores of life are just some of the things that I've watched recently at the theatre in Hartlepool. I have felt their sadness and pain, I have laughed out loud until my sides hurt and I've spit cold beverages over my nearest and dearest

I am a football fan, I regularly pay to go and watch my team “play” football, this costs me around £25 per game and I can come home feeling elated or deflated after a game, but the theatre offers far better value for money for the same a. Tickets range from just £3 or £4 pounds up to a maximum of £12 to £15, usually somewhere in between, and offer not just the show itself, but a social environment to meet your friends, hit the bar, have a drink and TALK to them, using actual words.

So come on, give it a go, what have you go to lose, except a couple of quid and a few hours ?

As Marilyn Monroe's, ex husband and playwright, Arthur Miller, once said “Grab you coat Maz, we’re off to the Town Hall Theatre to watch a show”

OK, he probably didn’t but he should have.

The Life and Loves of a Nobody Review

Rachel was the product of a broken home, she lived on the 18^th floor of a high rise block of flats and dreamed of nothing more growing up than to be famous.

She watched the street lights reflect into the canal and wished for the stars, but life didn't turn out quite as she planned.

The story is told as a back story by two presenters of a new reality TV show that has been looking for a star, and Rachel is about to be THAT star

“The Life and Loves of a Nobody” take a sideways swipe at the current trend of TV shows that make people famous for having no discernible talent, and tries to highlight that even those of us living “ordinary” lives are actually doing as well as anyone else. The show begins with the presenters thanking us for braving the protesters outside, giving the impression that the show will have a debatable theme.

We watch as Rachel grows up, and has her first romantic encounter as a fourteen year old, who is given a book of dead butterflies by a love struck teenage boy. Her awkwardness resonates with the audience who remember those angst ridden teenage years. The book of butterflies is demonstrated to the audiences as the two actors drag dozens of paper butterflies, tied to string, across a series of strung out lines across the stage, the butterflies dangling freely around the two in the middle of the stage. This was a bit drawn out, especially as we had to watch them do it to a backing track, but despite this, you could not help but be drawn in

As she grows older, we hear how her relationship with her mother begins to slowly worsen, not in a bad way, but the way in which a teenager thinks the whole world is against them, and parents are the first to be blamed. She meets an older man when she is18, and runs away with him to join a visiting circus, but her dreams of stardom are short-lived as she spends a miserable 6 months flipping burgers outside the big top in a grease filled trailer. 

The stage is set with a variety of props and wires, and during the show, you felt that the play would, in fact, turn into a series of illusions and magic tricks, and sheets of paper became houses hung from frames and windows cut with blades, as the actors were silhouetted from behind.

The audience is involved in the show, in that we are presented as the audience of the TV show and that Rachel's life will turn on our decision at the end of the evening. 

We see Rachel become a nurse, marry and suffer the pain of miscarriages, but never losing that flame of wanting something more for herself. Her moment coming when she sees a small advert in the newspaper for the TV show and following the auditions, she is chosen as THE ONE.

The visual elements are great, the highs and lows of Rachel's life are played out with emotion, and at the end, when the shows premise is unveiled, you find yourself in a social experiment of having to decide where Rachel's new life heads.

The production team of Third Angel should be extremely proud of this show. I have to say, this is the most enjoyable show I have seen to date.

This review first appeared on the Town Hall Theatre Facebook page.

Wayne Cook