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.
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