Blackadder Goes Forth - Review - People's Theatre

Blackadder Goes Forth

The People’s Theatre
30th October 31, 2018


Richard Curtis and Ben Elton’s classic sitcom comes to The People’s Theatre in all its glory. All the wit and dry humour is here and delivered with great comic timing. It’s been put together very much like the series, in four chunks of unrelated stories. The script seems almost untouched from the original series, though there are a one or two changes and additions, such as borrowing Bob from another Blackadder series.
The sound is great with the Blackadder score used throughout. In the intro we are given a warning by the Baron about switching off our phones which is hilariously delivered. It’s great they are commemorating the end of the First World War with this performance.

The premise, in case you didn’t know, is that Blackadder and his faithful band of soldiers are in the trenches waiting to battle the bosh, the mighty Germans and company. Except not very much battling is actually going on, and neither side is making much progress. The sounds are powerful in places really bringing you into the war. I actually jumped at one point.

The cast are well chosen: Captain Blackadder played by Sam Hinton (who was in last year's Season's  Greetings) is very commanding and his wit really hits the mark. George is played by Ben Ostell (seen recently in Heaton!) and he plays the goofy part well. Baldrick, played by Tony Sehgal, is spot on with his mannerisms and looks the spitting image of the original Baldrick. As General Melchett, Steven Robertson - also recently in Heaton! - pulls off a bold impression of Stephen Fry's original characterisation. Captain Darling - the joke that keeps on giving - is played by Oli Pages. Other notable performances are Bob, the Baron and Captain Bosh Bosh Flashheart.

The director Matthew Hope has done a great job with the scripts, placement and general pacing. The sets are beautifully made. The ladders to no man's land were quite haunting. All the costumes were excellent and it all really adds to the feeling of the piece. Three main locations on stage are outside the barracks, inside the barracks and Melchett's office.

This is a great production and really brings Blackadder back to life on stage. Some of the jokes are not exactly pc now, but are very much of their time. I enjoyed this a lot. Watch out for the nice surprise at the end, very touching.

Blackadder goes forth is playing at the people's theatre every night from 7.30pm until and including Saturday the 3rd of November.

Frank Cromartie Murphy

Bankers - Alphabetti Theatre - Review

Bankers

Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle
15th February 2018 7PM

“As a company, Write On Tap aim to make work that is culturally aware and politically relevant” writes producer Becci Sharrock of Bankers.

Ten years after the Northern Rock collapse this theatre production, written by 4 emerging North East playwrights, looks at the issues, the aftermath (including the ever increasing usage of food banks), and even the possibilities beyond the present day. 

The theatre was packed (some people had to stand it was so well attended) as the show began. For research and inspiration, they had spoken to food bank volunteers and clients, ex Northern Rock employees and academics - some of whose words could be heard playing through the speakers. Statistics, both informative and more tongue in cheek, were displayed on a screen behind. This changed and updated throughout the different scenes.

The four stories performed by local actors, ranged from an unapologetic banker looking to expand on his social portfolio, a couple caught in the crisis when Northern Rock crumbled, to 2 families' first hand experience of food banks. They gave an informative and entertaining look at one of today's very current and real facts of life. I found it very interesting and informative and whilst certainly the subject matter is a serious one, it was written and told in a realistic and believable way, that got the message across without being patronising or preachy in any way. There was lots of topical humour interspersed throughout. 
I found this a great balance of telling a story and giving information.

Alongside the show Write On Tap are also running a special campaign in partnership with Alphabetti Theatre and Newcastle’s West End Foodbank, encouraging audiences to support the foodbank. It aims to fill Alphabetti’s lift with donations from Tuesday 13th February to Saturday 24th February. Donations can be dropped off during the theatre's opening times.

The following items are requested for donation *tea bags *instant coffee *sugar (500g) *cereal *pasta *milk (UHT or powdered) *fruit juice (long life) *tinned tomatoes *tinned vegetables *tinned fish *biscuits/snacks *tinned rice pudding *rice *tinned fruit

Alternatively if you wish to make a financial donation via a regular direct debit go to https://newcastlewestend.foodbank.org.uk/give-help

Belinda Bekki-Winter

Bankers showed for two nights on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th February at 7.00pm as Pay What You Feel shows. Hopefully people felt a lot. 

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

Grimm Tales - Peoples Theatre - Review

Grimm Tales
People's Theatre
13th Sept 2016

Grimm Tales is, as you might expect, a selection of stories from the Brothers Grimm. Fairy tales - tales of wicked witches, enchanted princes, evil stepmothers, of strange creatures, and lessons to be learned.

But these are not the sanitised stories we might have heard today. These short plays hark back to the original stories from the Brothers Grimm, so they are darker and more sinister, and in the case of "The Mouse, The Bird and The Sausage" quite brutal! The wicked characters are truly wicked, selfish and cruel. Even the good characters are not all wholly good, some are weak and easily led, though some do have true innocence and purity and it is these who triumph.

Each story has a narrator who also takes up one or two character roles within tale. Each one has a distinct "narrator's voice" so it is easy to tell when they move from character to narrator. And the stories are told through a mix of narration and dramatic enactment.

There is no scenery. The only prop on stage is a plain wood block that serves as seat, bed, headstone. Scenes are created by the actors who stand to represent trees in the forest, or donne a costume to symbolise a change of scene. Very few props are used - some sticks for firewood, a stool, a handful of dust or pebbles, a mask and a sack of straw...Actors and audience must use their skill and imagination to envision the scenes.

Performed in the round with the audience on stage, it is a very intimate setting. The audience are close to the action and the narrator speaks directly to them - inviting them into the story as any storyteller would.

There is clever use of costumes and puppets to denote the different characters - especially where the narrator is doubling up as one or more characters. The fact that each tale has a different narrator's voice also works very well. And there are some grood performances from the young cast - notably Phoebe De'Ath as Gretel, Henry Freyne, as Hansel and Dummling, and Rheanne Boothroyd as the steadfast youngest daughter in the Lady and the Lion. The senior members Ian Willis, Eileen Davidson, Andrew De'Ath, and Karen Elliot do sterling work keeping the tales and the action moving, playing narrators and various wives, husbands witches and charming princes!

This is a charming play by the People's Youth Theatre. It covers 8 tales from the Brothers Grimm in just over an hour and so each one is quite a compact telling. While it may not have quite the finesse of previous productions, it is an imaginative, clever and carefully thought out solution to the challenge posed by the current building works for producing a studio play without a studio.

Grimm Tales runs until Sat 17th Sept and is great viewing as the nights begin to draw in.

Denise Sparrowhawk

Eight - Review - People's Theatre

Eight
People's Theatre
9th February 2016

The People's Theatre's first studio production of 2016 is a challenging one - both in terms of the content and the production process, eight actors, three directors, eight monologues, one play.
Eight, by Ella Hickson, was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe back in 2008 and the monologues are of that time - they deal with the bombings of 7.7, the post Thatcher demise of the Conservatives, the War on Terror. But almost ten years on they still have an impact because they are also about the people, young people, struggling to fit into a world that seems increasingly alien to them. We have injured squaddies, broken homes, criminals, financial whizz kids, single mothers, teenagers learning about life in the adult world. Each one of them a misfit, just trying to find their place in a world that doesn't seem to want them, into which they have to justify their place.

The stage setting is simple - a black background, with eight shutters and in the first act, a black block. Characters appear from behind the shutters to tell their tales. The block serves as a bed - in a mortuary, in a French Riviera guest house, in an adulteress's bedroom. At times other people - or bodies - occupy the bed to illustrate aspects of the tales. As each tale is told a shutter is turned to reveal an illustration representing their story. The only spots of colour in the blackness, though they are not necessarily bright. In the second act the bed has gone and more props are introduced - a table and chair, or nothing at all in the case of Miles and Buttons who simply pace back and forth on the blank stage, with this shutters turned to show the graphs and figures of a business high flyer, and the  cell door of a criminal about to be released.

The direction is seemless, despite there being three different directors. The play comes together as a whole and there is a symmetry in the way the stories unfold.

The performances by the young actors are powerful and moving. Their characters are complex and their situations difficult. It would be easy to dislike them, and yet there is a redeeming fragility about each one - sometimes only a glimpse, but there. There is humour - black, black humour - and passion, and horror. Innocence is lost, and guilt is hidden. There are arguments, dishonesty and self-delusion, and honesty and openness and fear. 

These are dark tales. They will make your flesh creep, and your heart ache and by the break for the interval you will wonder if there is any hope at all for these young people and their world - every moment of joy or hope is countered with even greater bleakness. But you will also laugh out loud, and you may possibly leave on a note - faint and tremulous - of hope.

Powerful, engaging and brilliantly performed and produced.


Eight plays until Saturday 13th Feb. There are still tickets available. Buy one.

Photo by Paula Smart

Denise Sparrowhawk

Mixtape: Boy Band vs Girl Band - Review - Live Theatre

Mixtape: Boy Band vs Girl Band
Live Theatre 
5.9.14

Last weekend I went along to check out Mixtape at the Live Theatre, not entirely knowing what to expect. I needed some company for the evening so invited my sister to come along. I lured her in with the Boy Band/Girl Band thing, and carefully avoided any words like quiz night or audience participation. She doesn't really do either of those but she does do pop music. In hindsight that may have been a mistake but as the Reluctant Teenager was more reluctant than ever over this one (he really doesn't do the boy band/girl band thing at all, and he enough audience participation at our last outing to last him a lifetime!).
Anyway, I digress!

Mixtape, as you may have gathered, is a kind of music quiz/sketch show hybrid kind of thing. Groups of young actors write and perform mini sketches based on pop songs - in this case by either girl or boy bands. There are many Mixtapes and they are all themed differently. The sketches cannot be any longer than the duration of the song and can only use words from the lyrics of the song. The same words, not necessarily in the same order (to misquote Mr Morecambe). The audience, complete with Playlist answer sheet, have to guess the song and artist. Points are awarded for correct answers.

Sounds like a piece of cake (and inded, there was cake at one point). It was almost as infuriating as the old Bits and Pieces intros quiz from the Radio 1 Roadshow (anyone else old enough to actually remember that?) The words were tantalisingly familiar but just not enough for us to guess correctly. The answers hovered out of the grasp of our braincells. But maybe that was just us? Other teams managed to score loads. I'm not good with Boy/Girl bands, they all sound the same to me! (Good grief am I sounding more and more like an old person?) But my sister is a Boyzone, Westlife, Take That fiend...and she was no help! We did abysmally but had a load of fun (well I had fun, my sister was not quite so thrilled by it all, but she's even older than me so, y'know...)

Some sketches were laugh out loud funny, some were painfully real and you laughed with that uncomfortable  "Should I really be laughing at this?" question in your head, others were just plain strange! But, isn't that just the pop world for you?

Mixtape is a quiz night with a difference. It's a bit of lighthearted fun. If you are looking for something other than the usual Friday night crush in the bar, pay them a visit! Next shows are 25th October and 7th November. Who knows, you might even win the coveted Golden Mixtape.

Denise Sparrowhawk