Theatre

The Off Cut Festival is an annual short play festival that happens at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington. Each year, 24 plays are chosen, with 8 being voted through by audience and panel votes and a wild card being chosen by the producers to make up the final 9. From that, a winner is chosen. What the winner actually wins, I’m not exactly sure. Possible a meat tray, but who knows.

The thing that struck me about the 9 2010 finalists was the calibre of the writing. No recognisable names were behind any of the 9 finalists, yet they each showed that there are British playwrights out there with untapped potential. Additionally, the general calibre of performance throughout the night was also something worth sitting up and paying attention to. Apart from a lone C-grade celebrity (‘Stenders, anyone?), most of the cast seem to have CVs littered with regional and touring performances, with nothing London based in sight, apart from the odd fringe production.

The Inspiration started the night. Written by Virginia Hayden, it tells the story of a woman who finds out about her husband’s adultery and has an inspired plan to share her husband with his mistress in return for the other woman to take up half the husband’s domestic upkeep. The script was possibly the weakest of the night, but wasn’t entirely horrible. The monologue for a middle aged woman felt laboured and didn’t flow like a conversation, which it should’ve. This wasn’t aided by a combination of poor directorial choices and rather flat acting. All in all, not a great way to start the night.

However, the following play, I Love Paris, was the stark opposite. The script was simple, effective and, most importantly, funny. I Love Paris tells of an unemployed Balham boy who discovers away to meet and marry Paris Hilton. The direction and acting are tight, which is aided by Mark Conway and Nicholas Agnew’s fantastic comic timing. Agnew was definitely one of the standout performers of the night, and if he isn’t seen in much larger venues soon it’s, quite frankly criminal.

Room With a Door, which tells the story of an agoraphobic man who may overcome his fears because of the volcanic ash cloud, was up next. Robert Mason as Benny did a fantastic job with a script that seemed slightly forced. However, this may have been due to the fact that the male character in the piece was much better off than the female character, Rose, played by Brigid Lohry. It felt like she had absolutely nothing to work with, with absolutely no exploration of character.

On A Day Like This followed, with the best performance of the night by Aidan McCarthy. On A Day Like This is a monologue Baz, a racist East End skin head, who undergoes a life changing experience involving Asbo Dexxie, Rupert and Coco, industrial amounts of drugs and alcohol and Victor, a soulful African with no front teeth. The writing, by John Turley, is quite good, but it’s McCarthy’s performance that takes Turley’s words and shapes them into perfection. His delivery is fast, fluid and conversational. In fact, by the end of the piece I’d forgotten that someone else had written it, and genuinely believed that this was McCarthy’s story.

Rounding off the first act is Mexcio Way, which I’m now in two minds about. While I loved the writing by Tracey Whitwell, I thought the subject matter was bland and slightly predictable. Also, while Matt Jamie as Clive was brilliant in his portrayal of a beaten down, weary husband to Olivia Caffrey’s neurotic wife, the other two, Caffrey and Don Gilet, didn’t live up to the words that were written for them. However, Jamie’s performance sold this piece enough to worm it’s way into my top three

The second act began with the Off Cut wild card, Mike Carter’s The Trunk. Slightly absurd and quite well written, I felt this play wasn’t acted as well as it should have been. it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either, which seemed to be a theme for the second half. Following The Trunk was I Just Called by Tanja Mariadoss. Again, it wasn’t bad, and the concept of an awkward wedding speech from the groom’s psycho ex-lover from 5 years old is great, it becomes highly unbelievable that she’d be allowed to rant on for 15 minutes at a wedding, a sentiment that I overheard was shared by a few audience members. Kate Walsh’s performance was quite good, and Luisa Hinchcliff did what she could with the direction, but really, there wasn’t anywhere it could go.

Mitch Feral’s Sweet Engineering of the Lucid Mind was an interesting piece. Dealing with mental illness is a sure fire way of getting votes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one wins the festival, but I’m not entirely sure it deserves it. The problem is that the sentiment and concept is all well and good – what it’s like for a spouse to live with her 40 something husband with Alzheimers – but the play itself wasn’t that good. Simon Nicholas as the man in question did an extremely believable job of a sufferer of Alzheimers, which was so real it must have been based on observation, but the female character wasn’t altogether believable or likeable, just cold and detached.

Finally, Joseph Murray’s Rise and Shine concluded the night with a small piece of absurdist theatre that felt a little like a high school drama piece. It was funny enough, the cast, Naomi Reynolds and Harry Lobek, did a great job, the direction was spot on, but the piece as a whole felt a little forced and a touch pretentious. It felt as if Murray was trying to channel Noel Fielding and be slightly surreal and quirky, while keeping in the realms of absurdism and physical theatre, and it just seems he tried a little too hard.

Overall, the calibre of the writing, directing and performances in these nine plays is a good sign for London theatre. I would strongly urge you to head down for their last three performances this week, cast your vote and have a look at the new breed of UK theatre.

The Off Cut Festival is playing until Saturday 8th October at Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington.

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Angela Unbound is playing as part of the London Fringe Festival.

This is the first of it’s problems.

Why the organisers decided to run a fringe festival in London simultaneously to not only Edinburgh’s far more popular fringe, but also to the much closer Camden Fringe Festival, I’m not entirely sure. This may explain why there were only seven people in the small basement theatre of Leicester Square Theatre, including members of the production team and three reviewers.

The other explanation could be the play itself.

Angela Unbound is a new work from William Whitehurst and tells the story of Frenchman Charles Duprey (Peter Glover) and his attempts to persuade renowned American author Daniel McBain (Jonathan Hansler) to let him translate his book, about a girlfriend (Ewa Jaworski) who happens to be with him in Paris.

Actually, story is a rather strong word to use for Angela Unbound. What is performed for 50 odd minutes is more a snapshot of a moment, allowing for very little character or exposition. It’s a shame, really, because there is some great talent in this show that almost make this an enjoyable 50 minutes, but not quite. Hansler’s American author is thoroughly unlikeable in a Billy Bob Thornton meets Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing (or is it Jim Carrey) kind of way. Similarly, Glover as the caricatured Frenchman does an admirable job of acting a character with little depth and a profuse sweating problem. Jaworski as McBain’s muse is definitely the weakest of the three. However, I’m not entirely sure whether this is the fault of bad writing, bad direction or plain old bad acting, as she really isn’t given much to work with.

The production itself is nothing. It’s the kind of show you leave after less than an hour and after the same amount of time, you’ve practically forgotten everything. It may be harsh, but I left Leicester Square Theatre feeling absolutely nothing, which to me is sometimes worse than downright hatred.

At least that would produce some kind of passion.

Angela Unbound is playing at the Leicester Square Theatre as part of the London Fringe Festival until 29th August.

My first introduction to Edgar Allen Poe was at a relatively early age. In our house we had a weighty tome that housed the entire collection of Poe’s stories and poetry. I remember as an 8 year old asking to be read one of the stories, choosing the Pit and the Pendulum, thinking it sounded a delightful romp with clocks and ditches.

I’m fairly certain I didn’t sleep for a week.

However, my interest in Poe was sparked and I continued to read his work, first focusing on his beautiful, morose poetry and then later visiting his gruesome stories. His unique style of American Gothic had me hooked and scripted my love for all things in the style, from the films of Tim Burton to the music of the Dresden Dolls.

Add to this my unhealthy love of musical theatre, and you can understand my excitement at the prospect of Canadian troupe, Catalyst Theatre’s ‘Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe.’ To say that the story is Poe’s life would be lying. To say that Poe’s life informed the story would be more accurate, as they weave fiction, fact and fantasy to recreate Poe’s sad life on stage from the aspect of his twisted, macabre mind, set to a score drawing from musical theatre, vaudeville, folk and Weimar cabaret.

To say I enjoyed this show is somewhat of an understatement. In fact, it’s akin to saying that World War II was a minor argument. Everything about this show fit together like clockwork and resulted in an inspiring, wonderful, dark, witty, amazing play. I could sit here and think of another hundred or so adjectives to describe it, but that would just be time wasting.

The sets worked beautifully with the action, with a dark, Victorian chintz style scrim over a bare metal frame that featured three opening and closing doorways. Whether it be characters leaping into the darkness through an open door, monsters behind the scrim, half obscured and in shadow, or ghastly hands protruding from a doorway with the rattling, sinister sound of consumption scoring the action, the way the play interacted with the set was simply genius. I also have that I am a sucker for lighting that is almost as important as the set. The atmospheric lighting, always painting shadows over the actors, was simply beautiful and played an integral part in the horrors onstage. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve seen horror effectively done on the stage. Notably, his mother screaming in her coffin, the return of his mother with her claw like hands and the raven will possibly make those nightmares I had as a child return.

The cast were all phenomenal, embodying the twisted figures in Poe’s life perfectly. However, the standout was Poe himself. His movement, voice and demanour suited the character so perfectly that I can’t imagine anybody else ever doing that part as well. His flawless, clean and beautiful high tenor voice sent chills up your spine in the few times he was allowed the opportunity to sing. The costumes were amazing, which you can see on countless production photos, and fit the piece perfectly. However, one of the absolute standout aspects of Nevermore was the choreography. The precise, simple movements that seem a mixture of contemporary dance, mime and buko, give every character a puppet-like quality that, as Lyn Gardner mentioned, seem to suggest that fate, not free will, is guiding these characters along.

It’s rare that you leave a theatre feeling like you’ve seen something before it gets huge. I seriously hope that this is the case for Nevermore, as it deserves to be as big a cult hit as something like Nightmare Before Christmas, that it firmly sits in the same genre as.

Hell, they even got a standing ovation out of me, the second in my life. The first was for Stephen Sondheim. Enough said.

Nevermore is playing at the Barbican Theatre until July 10. I’m hoping it comes back to London soon, as nowhere near enough people saw it.

This is theatre I love.

Everything Must Go is an original piece by Kristin Fredricksson that is nothing more than an homage to her father. Orginally written for both her and her father, Karl Fredricksson, to perform, Everything Must Go is a celebration of an extraordinarily complex, brilliant, funny and sometimes slightly insane man through theatre, multimedia, puppetry, dance and sound. It is, at it’s heart, a chronicle of his life and testament to the amount of love that  his daughter holds for him.

As a piece of theatre, Everything Must Go has flaws. It’s structure is a little muddled, with some sections going on for far longer than they should, and others getting the briefest of glances. There are moments where you question the narrative style chose for the segment, propped up against others where its a perfect synergy of theatrical styles. However, none of this matters much, as it feels as if this is intentional to mirror her father’s life. Some bits are only glimpses, whereas others are ran out until it’s exhausted. Also, the story itself is so heartfelt and charming that it smooths over the flaws in the piece.

Fredricksson as an actor isn’t the strongest I’ve ever seen, but nobody else could, or for that matter should, perform this piece.

It truly is a masterpiece, and no amount of adjectives on my part can do it justice. If you’re not a sentimental person, this might not be for you. However, if you are then this could just be the thing you’re looking for.

Everything Must Go is playing at the Barbican until the 26 June