Rent Party - Review - Northern Stage

Rent Party 

Northern Stage 
6th July 2019

So this was a party that I wasn't sure what to make of going in,  but wow did I enjoy it!

A Rent Party was a party back in 1950s America to help young black Americans pay their rent.

Thankfully I didn't need to go to America to go to this party! (It would have killed me in these heels.)

It's a play like no other and I don't think I'll see a play like it ever in my life again - you can only see this once.

We were given sweets and vouchers to give to the performers when each of them had performed. This is a great idea and it brought the interaction level up, not just between the performers and the audience but the audience with each other.

It's a play based around true life and the three main people tell their stories about being young, gifted and black.

Usually they have a 4th member of the team called Camille but she was absent as she is just about to have her second baby.

Her dream is to play Dolores Van Cartier in Sister Act - and I do love my musicals!

There were games to play like pass the parcel (called Pass the Duchy).

There was limbo which was funny as owt - but not what you think it would be, and it had audience participation.

There were party bags for the kids and stickers for everyone else, not forgetting the shots for the over 18s in the audience who toasted many things even Brexit (which went down like a lead balloon).

Jason - who looked gorgeous and whose makeup was on fleek - tells their story about how their bf kept locking them in the house so they couldn't get to work.

They all worked in the musical Starlight Express - which would be why they are so good on roller skates (they can do jumps and everything!).

Lena is a dancer and used to come up with dances with her two little sisters while she studied at uni.  Her family is important to her. And wow can she dance!

Tolu is one of the best musicians and he sings one of my favourite songs from the musical Charlie and the chocolate factory (Pure Imagination). He not only sings it well but puts his own twist on it which had me drawn to him. He talks about how his parents came from Nigeria and how he would love to be able to take his partner back to his homeland but doesn't think he will be able to.

The host of the Rent Party is Stuart Bowden who tells us about one event in his life where he went to his step sister's christening and was collared by all four mums of his 12 step siblings. 

He got called a little coconut which for him wasn't that a big of a deal but his mother was offended and I can guess he didn't see his dad for a long time after that incident! (Black on the outside, White on the inside!!!!).

The Director of the piece Darren Pritchard was a part of the cast helping to fill in the void that Camille had left.

This play/party was great and it was funny from minute one to the end. It has lots of audience involvement, and we were even allowed to have a dance.

It is part of the Curious Arts Festival allowing LGBTQI artists to put on their work. (I'm hopeful you might see some of my work in their Autumn programme).

This show is definitely one to see, it will live long in my memory.

Rubes Hiles 

Actors - 

Lena I Russell

Darren Pritchard 

Jason guest 

Tolu 

Stuart Bowden

An Audience with Michael Brunström and the Silly Billies - Review - Alphabetti Theatre

An Audience with Michael Brunström and the Silly Billies
Alphabetti Theatre
10th March 2017

Friday Evening saw me at the final show in the Basement of Alphabetti Theatre. Coming straight from work (a goodly trek up the A19 from Hartlepool) I arrived early (probably a good thing as within 20 mins the little bar was full to bursting).  
As I entered the bar a very tall man in tights, feathers and a bird mask was greeting and chatting with people. Unfortunately the resident hound was not quite impressed with this large feathered friend and proceeded to see him off at every opportunity, until he was taken out in disgrace (the dog, that is, not the birdman). 

I wasn't sure what to expect from the evening - I'd read the press release, and been told(warned) that it would be off the wall. I might hate it, or I might love it. All I knew at that point was the guy in feathers and tights had better legs than me. 

As it transpires this scene in the bar was a perfect set up for what was about to transpire on stage. (They should make the dog part of the show...)

The Silly Billies are a couple of mad guys with an equally insane sense of humour. Michael Brunström is equally crazy but a tad, just a tad mind, more subtle). Over the best part of two hours we saw Giant babies, Stirrups v Vitamin A elections,  Mary Quant whaling, the Birth of Parsley, a tour of Madchester,  and some very sinister Venga Boys, to name just a few. 

The audience laughed, sometimes in unexpected places, they joined in sometimes voluntarily with enthusiasm, sometimes not quite so keenly but always with good humour. Audience participation is key to the success, had the audience not been engaged then we'd have had three guys on stage acting the fool in silly costumes. 

Imagine Monty Python meets Reeves and Mortimer with a bit of the Goons thrown in. This sketch show was strange, it was bizarre, it was hysterical. It takes hold of the establishment and shakes it by the balls - under the buffoonery there is some serious social and political comment. I'm not sure they'll appreciate that idea getting out though. Pop culture, politics, gentrification, are all topics that are placed under the Order of the Silly Billiy's microscope. What it reveals is weirdly and terrifyingly funny. 
Best bit for me? The cockney market calls. Excellent. Classic pointlessly insane humour. It shouldn't have been funny, but it was. 

This was a fitting finale for the end of the Alphabetti basement. Hopefully we'll be seeing more such in a new venue soon. 

If you like your comedy strange, interactive and at times incomprehensible, watch out for more of the Silly Billies and Michael Brunström.  

Denise Sparrowhawk