Scene Change – YEP Producers at the Everyman – 24/07/2014

In May I wrote about Scene Change, the new initiative for Young Producers from Young Everyman Playhouse to present a mixed programme of work by a wide range of emerging local talent.

 

Last night they transferred from their usual Playhouse Studio venue to take the main stage at the Everyman, and the programme contained two short plays, stand-up comedy, an extract from a comedy sketch show and a presentation by a visual artist.

 

Firstly, Sarah Van Parys directed Inference, a play by Michael Rumney in which Sean Patrick Croke and Claire Crossland play two couples – one from the past and one from the present. Interwoven scenes reveal both links that bind the two couples across the decades and draw parallels in their experiences. Why were there pages missing from an inherited diary and is it possible to do the same to a modern blog? Some of us feel the need to leave an indelible record of our thoughts while others prefer to forget. Crossland and Croke both give compelling performances in a piece that has more weight to it than you’d think possible for its brevity.

 

In The Undesirable Man by Dave Griffiths we meet Mick Ledwich, playing an unfortunate job-seeker being interviewed by a Job Centre advisor, Jay Podmore, who is using an ingenious piece of software that not only matches applicants to the perfect vacancy but predicts just how successful they will be – or not – thereby cutting out the need to bother applying at all. A piece with an amusing twist in the tail, it afforded opportunities for both actors to demonstrate their considerable ability for comic timing, as well as Podmore’s particular forte for vocal and facial gymnastics. Witty, sharp and cleanly presented under the snappy direction of Peter Mitchelson.

 

We saw an extract from Greg Bike’s Play With Myself at the last Scene Change and were treated to another segment this time. Liam Hale and Dominic Davies again play the father and son with a passion for theatre, who appear to be engaged in a hilarious contest to outdo each other in overacting. Aided and abetted by Rio Matchett, David Paes and Sean Stokes, this is very funny material that makes us want to see the full show. We can if we travel to Edinburgh next month, where they are heading with a little help from the Scene Change bursary they won in May.

 

Winning the bursary this time is Rachel Slater, who is also heading to the Edinburgh Fringe with her stand-up comedy performance. Rachel’s deadpan delivery and lugubrious appearance are something to behold and somehow we actually feel really sad about that goldfish even though we’re laughing about it. There is so much stand-up on the circuit that individuality is a must, and Rachel Slater has individuality to spare.

 

Forming an interlude in the regular performance pieces was a brief presentation from visual artist Niamh McGee. Having recently graduated from Liverpool JMU, Niamh has produced a body of work in the form of screen prints based on photographs from a found album. She has enlarged and reproduced the monochrome images of scenes from people’s lives and “interrupted” the moment captured by overlaying shapes and marks over the surface. All of the work is for sale. The slot here took the form of a Q&A, with a selection of the screen prints hung in the centre of the stage. I later pondered whether accompanying this with projected images of her work may have added impact, although the full range of her collection was available on display after the show.

 

Scene Change is gaining momentum and, with continued publicity and word of mouth its audience is growing. At this rate, hopefully, it may become too big to return to the Studio. Keep an eye open for the next instalment and read the flyer attached for details of where you can catch up with the performers from this show.

 

Shiny New Festival 2014 – Lantern Theatre Liverpool – 14th to 20th July 2014

This is the third year for the Shiny New Festival and once again it has the Lantern buzzing with enthusiasm.

 

With a varied programme and three different performances nightly there is something for almost everyone, from serious theatre to anarchic comedy. It’s also tremendous value, with the already low ticket prices available at even better bargain rates by booking a multipass, to see all three shows in one evening, effectively giving you a 3 for 2 offer.

 

I have managed to take in seven different shows over three nights this year, two of which I saw twice

 

Three Women is a play by Mari Lloyd, featuring Ann Edwards, Jackie Jones and Lily Shepherd as a Nan, Mother and Daughter coming to terms with birth and death. Preparing to leave for a funeral, Ellie is feeling sick and doesn’t want to go but her mother Lorraine is insistent to the point of being unreasonable. As Nan gets involved and tries to find an amicable solution we get to discover the family history that has led to Lorraine’s obsession.

 

Sometimes a parent’s efforts to protect children from pain can deprive them of difficult but essential life experiences. After seeing both sides of the coin from her mother and grandmother, Ellie finally makes a decision.

 

Sensitive writing from Mari Lloyd is given an equally sensitive reading from the cast of three under Peter Mitchelson’s direction, with some finely judged use of silence that gives the dialogue space to breathe. This piece goes on after its preview performances here to the 24:7 festival in Manchester, with performances to 25th July.

 

Showcasing more emerging talent from LIPA, You Boy, written and directed by Joshua Meredith, is a two-hander about adopted brothers played by Oliver Burkill and Scott Harrison. Harrison is a bag of nerves who leans heavily on his brother for advice and moral support. Sadly the brother (Burkill) is some time deceased and so the heart-to-heart conversations take place in the cemetery at his graveside. The action frequently flashes back to the past to show passages from the brothers’ school days, while in the present day scenes we find humour, irony and poignancy in one brother’s interpretation of what the other might advise him to do, set against the actual words of the brother he can no longer hear.

 

Burkill and Harrison each give powerful and energetic performances, and they slip neatly back and forth from past to present with the aid of a coatrack and a couple of ties.

 

Occupied comes from the pen of Steph Dickinson, an alumnus of the Young Everyman Playhouse writers scheme. Directed by Joel Whitehall but with an uncredited cast (unless I missed something?) this is a tongue in cheek tale of two hapless burglars who break into a university hoping to make off with the cash from the tuition fees. Of course there’s no cash there, but this becomes the least of their worries when they find that the place is far from deserted.

 

Students are protesting while staff make ready for an impending visit from the prime minister. The burglars try to hide their genuine reason for being there, but in the end they find themselves making unlikely allies.

 

There are some serious political points made along the way, but the piece delivers them with a great deal of humour and it is the comedy of the ridiculous situation that you really remember… along with some very odd eating habits.

 

Caz n Britney’s hysterical creation Scottie Road the Musical has been performed at other venues previously but I have sadly missed it. It was my good fortune to catch up with this version, albeit trimmed to fit its one hour timeslot.

 

If I try and describe the narrative I will get in a terrible mess – suffice to say that the Primani clad pair sporting the traditional rollers describe their journey “from Primark to Prison” with the aid of re-writes of songs from Chicago to Les Mis. It is enormously inventive and delivered with tremendous energy, and thrown in for good measure is some excellent and strangely congruent mimickry.

 

I have an eclectic sense of humour and happily find a lot of things funny, but rarely laugh out loud in the theatre (I’m usually laughing on the inside) but there was something so infectious about Caz n Britney (alter-egos of Gillian Hardie and Keddy Sutton) that they had me literally crying with laughter. Priceless!

 

I first encountered Jollyboat at this same festival last year and have looked forward to a repeat appearance. Once again they appear at the Lantern en-route to Edinburgh, where they will be playing at Beat, 69 Cowgate, from 2nd to 23rd August at 5:00pm.

 

Brothers Ed and Tommy Croft deliver their unique brand of musical comedy with the help of one guitar and barrels full of ingenuity and wordplay. Medleys of popular songs are re-written and presented with piratical lunacy. Try and catch them if you can - they turn up in some unusual places.

 

Sticky Labels is the latest play by Laura Kate Barrow and appears here straight from Buxton Fringe and it topically explores the long-term damage done to individuals as labels unjustly applied to them remain steadfastly stuck, long after they have proved the right to cast them off.

 

Dan and Lucy look like they have the makings of an online dating success, but as their relationship develops we hear the increasingly deafening sound of skeletons rattling in their closets. Annabel Entress and John Dayton play a game of chess with chairs as they meander round the issues lurking in their respective pasts. Played-out scenes between the couple are interspersed with passages delivered direct to the audience, in which the characters recount incidents from the past or express their thoughts.

 

Laura Kate Barrow continues to impress with her beautifully crafted dialogue that creates rounded and fully drawn characters and feels entirely natural. Entress and Dayton both give striking and sensitive performances and have a great rapport on stage.

 

Proving that there’s more to Wigan than the Pier, Spaghetti North Western (or the Good the Bad and the Fugly) is billed as “A Fistful of Stand Up and Sketches from up and coming North West comedians Gary Lunt, Joe Hughes, Matthew Gabrielli and friends.

 

Playing the final hour of the closing Sunday evening of the festival brought them the delight every comedian looks forward to of performing stand-up to those few audience members who refused to go home even on a school night – that is to say - we were about as thin on the ground as the hair on my head, but nonetheless appreciative. Their material was both original and undeniably northern.

 

As with a few other performances this week, this was effectively a preview for the group’s appearance in Edinburgh, where they will be giving 15 performances between 4th and 22nd August, each at 6:30pm in Sportsters Bar, 1a Market Street.

 

There is always a convivial buzz to the Lantern, but the Shiny New Festival seems to bring an added edge, with some audiences stopping the whole evening, some coming and going for specific pieces and others, like myself, returning on different nights. I look forward to next year’s line-up but meanwhile keep this theatre space on the radar for its varied and adventurous programming and great atmosphere.

 

Lantern theatre Liverpool is at 57 Blundell Street, just off Wapping opposite Queens Wharf. Visitwww.lanterntheatreliverpool.co.uk for details and online booking.

Betty Blue Eyes – Liverpool Playhouse – 09/07/2014

A pair of turkeys? We’ve got 150 people coming and Jesus isn’t one of them!

Anyone who loved Alan Bennett and Malcolm Mowbray’s 1984 film A Private Function will be glad to find lots of references to some of its wittiest moments happily resurfacing in this affectionate musical retelling, originally produced for the West End stage by Cameron Mackintosh and seen here in its first revival in this regional tour.

Gilbert Chilvers is a mild mannered mobile chiropodist. The mobility is provided by his bicycle, whilst his socially climbing wife Joyce would prefer it to be in a more upward direction. In post-war austerity Britain he’s trying to find a shop in the parade to build his business, and in the process they discover plans that the town’s bigwigs have for a very select Private Function to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth.

Finding himself and Joyce excluded from the guest list, Gilbert plans to abduct the unlicensed pig that is being secretly raised to provide a festive pork roast. Cue Betty, the ill-fated, blue-eyed porker of the title, and we have the makings of something bordering on musical farce.

The book, adapted by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, has pared the plot down to its primary colours and provides a vehicle for the frothy, tongue-in-cheek music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Andrew Wright’s Choreography has some surprising high-kicking routines, affording an opportunity for a few flashy costumes to contrast against the homespun post-war look of most of the show. A cunningly designed set by Sara Perks transforms from scene to scene with seamless panache.

The large and multi-skilling cast have honed their performances to the point where it all works like a well-oiled machine. Haydn Oakley’s tank-topped Gilbert is clearly played with Alan Bennett in mind and he has a resigned haplessness that provides a great foil to Amy Booth-Steel’s relentlessly ambitious Joyce, while both of them are occasionally overshadowed by the figure of “Mother Dear” who lurches back and forth from battleaxe to bumbling in a very funny portrayal from Sally Mates.

Tobias Beer is suitably maniacal as the paintbrush-wielding meat inspector Wormold, while Kit Benjamin’s Machiavellian Dr Swaby and Matt Harrop’s Porcophile Mr Allardyce provide some madcap humour.

Unsurprisingly though, it is Betty who manages to steal the limelight. While the character was originally created at the Novello Theatre as an animatronic creature, this new production takes a low-tech but ultimately more delightful approach created by Sarah Wright, who is currently to be seen animating some of her other creations up the road at the Everyman in Dead Dog in a Suitcase. Betty is brought to life at the Playhouse by her handler Lauren Logan, making her professional debut and now able to add the new-found skill of puppetry to her CV.

With a four piece band (three of whom hail from Liverpool’s own Institute for Performing Arts) augmented by some onstage instrumentalists, the production overflows with enthusiasm and good fun under the direction of Daniel Buckroyd.

This is the sort of fare more often seen entertaining visitors to London and of a style that rarely reaches the Playhouse. It is light of heart, fleet of foot and full of charm, and it makes a perfect cheerful and entertaining close to the summer season.

This regional premiere touring production is co-produced between Mercury Theatre Colchester, Salisbury Playhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, and it is on the last leg of a seven venue tour that has also taken in Ipswich, Norwich and Oxford.

It continues at Liverpool Playhouse to 2nd August and seats are selling fast.

Gaffer! – Unity Theatre – 30/06/2014

Simon Hedger delivers a tour de force in this duathlon of a one hander, in a well deserved and timely revival at Unity under the impeccable direction of Sam Freeman.

First presented at the Rose and Crown Hampton Wick in 1999, Gaffer! was Chris Chibnall’s third play for GRiP Theatre, but gained recognition in what seems to have been its only revival so far in 2004 at Southwark Playhouse with Deka Walmesley.

A decade later we might have hoped the subject matter would feel more dated, but recent events sadly continue to prove that its message is as relevant today as the day it was written. In 1999 the football world was coming to terms with the suicide of Justin Fashanu. Sadly 15 years later homophobia “the last taboo of football” remains as embedded as ever.

Possibly a factor in the play’s rarity is in finding an actor both able and willing to undertake the task. There are a lot of words and numerous characterisations. Simon Hedger reassures us that the rhythm of the writing gave him plenty of help but nonetheless it’s an impressive feat that he carries off with tremendous style. No stranger to multiple roles, Hedger switches seamlessly between characters, not only using a range of voices but seemingly able to shape-shift so that we see them all too.

The Gaffer, George, is manager of the enthusiastic but struggling Northbridge Town football club. Times are hard and the administrators are at the door, and a new chairman brings in a consultant who has different ideas about what makes for success on the pitch. One tactic is to hire a promising new striker from the youth team, only seventeen but with the will to make his mark and a Rottweiler of a father for an agent.

When Northbridge are drawn to play Liverpool they’re prepared for valiant defeat, so a draw is cause for elation and a night on the ale, and it is on the way home that the young hopeful declares his unlikely and unbidden love for George and plants a big kiss on him. Cue for an interval - sorry - half time.

George is prepared to shrug it off and put it down to youth and alcohol, but when he finds the moment captured on film and plastered all over the morning papers this becomes harder than he thought. The ensuing media feeding frenzy rakes up memories from the past and rocks the foundations of George’s life.

Simon Hedger’s Gaffer would be a larger than life performance but for the fact that it is so incredibly true to reality. It is an amalgam of so many familiar managers past and present and the passion is infectious even for a self-confessed football ignoramus like myself. But he doesn’t stop at George. Among his other creations are several team members, various management, and a died-in-the-wool traditionalist of a groundsman who believes the way to beat the opposition is by having a pitch so uneven that the divots confuse them into submission. The marketing consultant who suggests a list of phrases that can’t be used in an interview is someone you’d happily throttle.

The play takes a serious gear shift at half-time, from the nostalgically comic to something much more dark and brooding. Act one is full of the energy of the game and laced with humour, while act two becomes a study of the damage that the press can inflict on individuals when they turn private lives into public property. Some of the most telling moments in both halves come when George reflects back to his past with genuine affection for those who nurtured his early career. A recalled gesture handed on from past to future makes a moving and poignant turning point.

Each character’s orientation is never explicitly defined, and rightly so. Ultimately it is the opinions of others and the destructive power of the media that are under the microscope here.

Gaffer! plays at Unity Theatre Liverpool until Saturday 5th July.