Review - You Need to Say Sorry - The Laurels

You Need to Say Sorry  

The Laurels, Whitley Bay 

18th April, 2024 

Written by Alison Stanley, 

Live theatre is special, whether you're in a big gilded proscenium arch theatre or a little studio theatre up a set a creaking stairs. When it’s immersive, when you’re sharing space with real breathing human beings, it can be intense. I hadn’t thought quite how intense.

You Need to Say Sorry so intense. The Laurels is a small venue, up two flights of creaky stairs. For this production it was transformed into a cosy cafe with realistic menus. The audience sits at their cafe tables and appears to witness a couple at the next table.

Vic and Bill, an older couple are on a first date. They are connected via a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook. There’s lots of awkward pleasant banter about technical incompetence, young people and their phones. There’s a glancing reference to online scammers and the dangers of meeting up with strangers: you don’t know who they might be. But this pair are too sensible to fall for that nonsense. We are drip-fed Viv and Bill’s backstory through this playful interaction. Viv is a widow with a daughter and grandchildren; Bill is divorced. They seem such a nice couple, we are willing them to get together…

… switch to a domestic interior, a living room. We gradually work out that this is the future where they have got together. (I didn’t at first; I thought it was a flashback). Not so much fun now. Bill is grumpy and critical; Viv is annoyingly eager to please. The course of true love never does run smooth, does it?

… back to the café. As an audience, we are now alerts to hints and clues. Bill talks about his own step-father, who was a bit too handy with his belt. But he’s turned out all right, hasn’t he? He’s charming and has a funny mannerism, of not getting cliché phrase quite right: “You’ve buttered your bread, now you’ve got to lie in it.” It’s a winning flaw, we’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt…

… switch to the living room. Things are really not right. Bill is irrationally jealous, controlling Viv’s movements, cutting her off from family and friends. His comments to her are personally wounding, designed to belittle her and crush her spirit.

This is the drawback of immersive theatre: empathy. There’s a scene in Don Quixote, where Quixote is at a puppet theatre and mistakes the actors for real life and leaps up to violently defend the abused heroine. It’s funny because it’s theatre and we know the difference. Tell that to my sympathetic nervous system! The coercive control and verbal abuse is so well-observed, so horribly real that I had to stop myself jumping up like Quixote and yelling at Viv to get out while she still can. 

My heart was thumping in my chest as if I was in real physical danger. I knew it was a piece of theatre, constructed out of words, scripted for actors, but it was so well written and performed that I felt I was there, helplessly witnessing the annihilation of a once bubbly loving woman.

Alison Stanley has done a brilliant job of conveying the soul-shredding texture of coercive control, and she is ably supported by Steve Lowes as Bill, convincingly alternating between funny charmer and terrifying abuser. It’s an important issue dealt with fantastic subtlety and wit, but not one to see if you’re feeling fragile.

You Need to Say Sorry was showing for just two nights at The Laurels, but watch out for it making a return at Alphabetti in July! 

Gerry Byrne 

Iris - Review - The People's Theatre

Iris

People's Theatre
10th Sept 2019

I saw Iris when it was first performed at Live Theatre and I remember it as a darkly funny, emotional and tragic piece of theatre. Going along to see it again this week, I did wonder if it would have the same impact - after all, I already knew the plot with all its twists and turns, so there would be no surprises. But, written by Alison Carr one of the stalwarts of  The People's Theatre, this is a play that was coming home. It was bound to be something special.

A play that explores family and relationships, the nature of motherhood, love and hate, responsibility, abandonment, guilt, success and failure, it covers a huge spectrum. And performed in the studio, with a cast of just three, and with some of the action taking place within arm's length of the audience it was always going to be intense.

Two sisters have just buried their mother - Iris. Julie the elder has been away for many years, and had a difficult relationship with Iris, while Ruby, the youngest has been very close to Iris; perhaps too close. On the day of the funeral Julie disappears from the wake and returns later, drunk, with a man in tow.

Emma Weetch plays the older sister Julie - a mess of contradictions, desperate for some human contact yet rejecting any show of affection or sense of connection when it is offered. She is scratchy and awkward and at times downright abusive. But there are cracks in her armour that begin to spread and widen as the play progresses.

Stephen Sharkey gives a deceptively understated performance as Gerry, the unfortunate man caught up in the middle as the two sisters fight and spit a each other like cats. Equally desperate for human contact but in a completely different way to Julie, he hides behind an array of bad jokes and astonishing facts on almost any subject - like a walking encyclopaedia. He offers advice for every situation sounding as Ruby puts it "like a self help book". Of the three characters, he is the most likable and yet also the saddest and perhaps most tragic with his doggedly optimistic veneer hiding a lonely and sorrowful life.

Sarah Mulgrew plays the younger, damaged teenager, Ruby. Like Julie , she is damaged emotionally and psychologically, but Ruby is also physically damaged - having lost an eye in a childhood accident. From her first appearance on stage Sarah Mulgrew exudes a mix of angst and apathy and teenage antipathy. Though all three actors gave brilliant performances, Sarah was the outstanding performance of the night for me - she was completely convincing in her role.

Though I knew what was coming I was still entirely engaged throughout the play - anticipating some of the events and recognising and remembering others as they happened. The second act almost had me in tears as the truth of the sisters situation began to be revealed. it was a highly charged, emotional experience.

An excellent start to the new season, Iris plays until Saturday, and is sold out.  If you have a ticket, you are in for a rare treat - take your tissues. If you don't have a ticket, get your name down on the waiting list and hope someone else cancels!

Denise Sparrowhawk

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

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky - Review - People's Theatre

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky

People's theatre
11th June 2019

Written by Nick Dear
Directed by Hugh Keegan


The Dark Earth and the Light Sky is the story of the friendship between poets Robert Frost and Edward Thomas.  There are four main characters - Edward Thomas, Helen Thomas, Robert Frost and Eleanor Farjeon and the play follows the relationships between these four friends. Though the play is ostensibly about the friendship between Frost and Thomas and the influence they each had on the other's career, for me, the relationship between Helen and Edward seems the strongest thread and Helen's voice the strongest, throughout.

Each character addresses the audience at some point - the first we hear is Helen and her voice throughout is the strongest. Even as she is moved away from Edward's focus she remains steadfast and forthright. Anna Dobson plays the role beautifully - capturing the transition from the joy of the young lover, through the drudgery of motherhood and housekeeping, essentially bringing up the children and running the household alone as Edward pursues his own dreams. Her devotion to Edward shines through even as he pushes her away.

Edward Thomas (Sam Hinton)  is an unhappy man - he doesn't fit comfortably into the world - at odds with his father, labelled failure by him because he does not share his hunger for financial success. Thomas wants to enjoy life as he lives it, not spend life striving in a job he hates in order to get on in society. His affinity is with words and with the land and the countryside. City life stifles him. He makes his living - such as it is writing literary criticisms, biographies, essays, reviews but it takes the friendship with Frost for him to realise he himself could be a poet. And yet still he feels that something is missing. Ironically, having fought against the constraints of city life, and the daily grind of marriage and children, he finally finds purpose by joining the army. And therein he finally breaks Helen's heart.

Robert Frost (Mark Burden) is a more enigmatic character - though he is one of the main characters in the drama I feel  we learn very little the man himself - other than his love for words, and his affection for Thomas, other than this we are given only glimpses into his own private life, snatches of his family history and background.

Finally, we have Eleanor Farjeon (Alison Carr), hopelessly in love with Edward but never more than friends. Their relationship brings light into Edwards life and darkness to Helen’s – she befriends Eleanor to keep an enemy close, and though the two women are friends, Helen is aware perhaps even before Eleanor herself, of the other woman’s love for her husband.  Eleanor is light, apparently carefree, and becomes the confident of Edward and Frost.  Hers is a lonely life, despite her place in society. Both she and Frost feel the loss of Edward keenly.

There are many, many layers to this play – it explores intellect and intelligence, but also emotion, and the nature of love, and expectation, success and failure, and self-worth. It is threaded through with images of nature and the love of the natural world, and the love of words. But also the power of words, both those spoken, and those not, their power to enlighten, and to educate but to also to confuse, to crush and to undermine.  The themes of language and nature are embodied in the stunning set created by Rolf Wojciechowski – with its draped images of distant hills and trees, and skies filled with cloudlike words – some legible and some just a hint of language.

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky is a beautifully sad play. A story of love, and loss. The cast portray their characters with such empathy throughout. Lovely performances from everyone involved. Performed in the round, this is an absorbing and intimate experience. As the audience, we switch from being voyeurs of these people's lives to being included in them, and back again.  

Studio productions never disappoint at the People's Theatre. This one takes them to another level.

Denise Sparrowhawk

Noughts and Crosses - Review - Northern Stage

Noughts and Crosses

Northern Stage
7th May 2019

Arriving at the Northern Stage was a shock: the place was heaving with teenagers. I have never seen so many young people at a theatre production. Aha! of course, Malorie Blackman!

Noughts and Crosses is based on the book series of the same name by award-winning Young Adult writer, Malorie Blackman, who as Children’s Laureate initiated the Young Adult Literary Convention, which takes place at London ComiCon. She saw a way of bringing books to where her young audience was already. More recently, she wrote the Doctor Who episode concerning Rosa Parks. You may begin to detect a theme here. What Malorie Blackman excels at is taking highly political themes, of oppression and resistance, racism and direct action, and examining them through the lens of young lovers and fighters, in a speculative world that resembles but whose difference sheds light on our own.

Noughts and Crosses is set in a world divided between the privileged (black) Crosses and the exploited (white) Noughts, who are derogatorily referred to a ‘Blankers’, a term which has the same hateful power as the N-word in our world. It features two young people, Sephy and Callum, who fall in love across this divide. So, as my friend put it, just Romeo and Juliet then? In a sense, yes. But its dilemmas seem very modern, with echoes not just of Apartheid South Africa and the US Civil rights Movement, but also of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, whose spectre has been re-raised by the murder of Lyra McKee by the New IRA.

The young lovers are: Sephy (Persephone), daughter of the Cross Home Secretary, Kamal and alcoholic mother, Jasmine; and Callum McGregor, the Nought son of their sacked servant, Maggie. Sephy and Callum are childhood friends who, as they grow, are forced to keep their friendship secret. Under external political pressure, Kamal is forced to begin desegregation, allowing the first Nought pupils into previously exclusively Cross schools. Callum is one of the first of this experimental intake.
The violent reaction of the Crosses to this is reminiscent of the racist violence against the US Civil Rights Movement. Sephy is ostracised and later assaulted by her Cross friends, for attempting to bridge this violent divide. Callum is forced to publicly deny his friendship with Sephy, a betrayal he attempts to justify by saying it was for her own protection.

As the political tension increases, Callum’s brother Jude and his father Ryan are drawn to the Resistance Militia. Callum and his mother Meggie maintain that resistance must be non-violent. The divide is not just between communities but is causing a rift within families. We learn that Callum’s sister has been the victim of violence from within their Nought community for having a Cross boyfriend, and the internal conflict has driven her mad. She refuses to leave her room and labours under the delusion that she is not a Nought but a Cross.
When the Resistance Militia set a bomb in a crowded shopping centre, Jude and Ryan are forced to flee in the ensuing anti-terrorist crackdown. Ryan is caught but, refuses to betray his son’s whereabouts. He is prepared to die for the cause. He is tried and sentenced.

Sephy finds the whole situation unbearable and resolves to escape: either to boarding school or to run away with Callum, who she asks, in a smuggled letter, to meet her.
Thus ends Act One.

Act Two opens, three years later.
Sephy is back from boarding school; Callum is on a brief visit home from the Militia which he has joined following his father’s death. It is only now that he receives Sephy’s letter. They meet, but in a shocking twist Sephy is taken hostage.
Callum is left alone to guard Sephy, while the others go to pick up the ransom. She angrily confronts him and they are reconciled.

The kidnappers are betrayed and the plot darkens further; options are offered and choices made leading to a horrifying finale.  However thehearbreaking final scene offers a slither of hope for the future, in an echo of the opening scene.

The play packs a huge amount of action into its two hours. It felt Shakespearean in its weight and complexity, but also startlingly modern. The staging, set design, video, sound and lighting design, all added heft and drama to the powerfully adapted script by Sabrina Mahfouz. Stark black and rusty red walls, minimalist set, banks of tv screens, the discordant soundscape created a pressing sense of drama. The surreal slo-mo physicality of the fight and bombing scenes used the minimal props to extreme effect. The massive steps up to the gallows and the eerily lit noose, dwarfing the onlookers, added dramatic tension and shocking power to the climax of each act.
I was weeping at the final scene and praying for a reprieve. But this is a modern Romeo and Juliet.

My only quibble: in compressing such a vast story, summarising the 3-year gap when Sephy is at boarding school and Callum in the Militia, felt a bit feeble, and the device of the undelivered letter strained credulity – but I’m not sure how you would do it otherwise.
Malorie Blackman is quoted as saying that she is sorry that the themes are still as relevant as when she wrote the book 20 years ago. Which is sadly true on a societal level, but as drama it gives added grip. And that teens could still be talking animatedly and identifying so intensely with a book written before they were born, is a tribute to both Malorie Blackman and the production team, from the writer, director, designers and cast, who played their roles flawlessly.

It sent me back wanting to read the whole series from the start to the latest book, Crossfire, due out this summer.

Gerry Byrne

Spark Plug - Review - Live Theatre

Spark Plug 

Live Theatre

14th March 2019 

David Judge is one talented person, the writer and performer tells his story without really focusing on himself.

The stage is set up like a garage with a climbing frame car which certainly creates a centrepiece to the play.

Based in and around Manchester the play focuses on the relationship between David and his step dad (Dave) who is white, working class.

Dave is not seen yet you seem to have a picture of what he is like by the end.
We hear about David's Mum, Joanne who is also white.
And we hear about Dave's Real Dad (Ainsley) who is Black, making David Half Cast which in Manchester would probably be a great disadvantage. 

His situation is then made worse when his mother starts to date women!

Set in the early 90s it asks some great questions like - is blood thicker than heart? 

Having a strong relationship with my Dad (biologically related to me) and also having a step father who I've not had the strongest relationship with, I feel this show illustrates just how different as people we can be. 

With only one man on stage at all times this show manages to be packed with action and excitement - and even working windscreen wipers! This play allows you to go on a journey with Dave through David. It is 70 minutes of my life that, if I could, I would definitely repeat! 

The team behind the scenes deserve much praise, as you can't create anything this good on your own and the technical staff, sound and lighting, and direction all contribute to the success of the finished production. 

Directed by Hannah Tyrrell - Porter

Designed by Katie Scott 
With Sound by Richard Owen and Lighting by Chris James and Many Many More.

Another show not to be missed - it runs until Saturday 16th of March.

Reuben (Rubes) Hiles

Picture credit: Live Theatre/Decoy Media

Arcadia - Review - People's Theatre

Arcadia

Peoples Theatre
12th Feb, 2019

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is a complex play. It examines ideas of time, truth, preordination, advances in scientific thinking, nature and artifice, truth and beauty. Complex mathematical and scientific formulae are juxtaposed against philosophy and religion in an attempt to explain life. There are layers upon layers in this play and at times the ideas and theories fall so thick and fast that the audience struggles to keep up.

In the 19th Century Septimius Hodge is a tutor to Thomasina, a child prodigy. Her intellect is vast and she sees the world differently to everyone else. Her mother, unable to understand her leaves her education to the tutor. The tutor seduces his way around the women in the household - including Thomasina's mother.

In the present day a group of researchers try to make sense of events from the past - they have some information, but not all, and are left to interpret the clues left to them to recreate the past. Naturally, since they do not have all the information, their interpretations are a little wide of the mark.

The friction between the characters, and between the actual events of which the audience is aware,  and the inaccurate perception of the present day characters, makes this a very funny and clever, yet poignant play.

The complicated plot is served very well by a simple set - a table and chairs, a basket containing dress-up costumes, and a backdrop of opaque screens representing the windows and doors leading to the garden. Though the garden is key to the play, it never seen. Subtle lighting and music signal the changes between past and present.

The cast give impressive performances, citing theories and explaining algorithms with confidence. You would swear they understood it all exactly as they are saying the words. The chemistry on stage is tangible as they fight and bicker and flirt with each other.

This is a very clever play, skilfully produced and performed. It will make you laugh, but it may also make you scratch your head in consternation as you try to follow the mathematical and scientific arguments - unless of course science and mathematics are your thing. Fortunately for me - neither one being my thing - you can just enjoy the humour of the social situation and appreciate some great acting.

Arcadia plays until 16th March.

Denise Sparrowhawk