Tag Archives: Mill Studio

Graft: Tales Of An Actor – February 2010

8/10

By Steven Berkoff

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Saturday 6th February 2010

Another one and three-quarters straight through! Performed wonderfully by George Dillon, this play is basically a series of sketches, snippets from the life of a generic actor, from the first innocent auditions for drama school to the final final curtain. In the intimacy of the Mill Studio, Dillon held us in the palm of his hand throughout, moving with ease from exaggerated, over-the-top declamation to subtle, quiet moments. We’re shown some of the other people who inhabit the actor’s world – the agent, keen to get the fading talent out of his office, sticks in the mind best – and the corrosive effect of constant criticism is well documented. There’s not as much humour in the later stages as in the earlier, but overall it’s a very good piece, well performed.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Baby Makes Three – February 2009

6/10

By Georges Feydeau

Directed by Michael Friend

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 27th February 2009

This evening’s entertainment comprised two one-act plays by Georges Feydeau.  The first was titled An Interesting Condition, and started with a husband and his very pregnant wife marching up and down the dining room carpet making noises – all the variations on “ooh” and “aah” you can think of. She’s suffering all sorts of agony as the baby is apparently due that day, although it’s one month early. The husband is just trying to have a little dinner, but somehow that simple desire brands him as a selfish bastard who doesn’t care a jot for his wife, despite getting her into this condition. Good job she’s not the complaining sort!

Her mother arrives and soon takes her daughter’s side. Between them, they manage to get the husband to put a chamber pot (unused) on his head (it was a dream the wife had had). The wife retires to her room.

Then the midwife arrives and starts bossing everyone around, demanding food (there’s only macaroni cheese) and wine (she settles for champagne). The wife’s father also arrives, annoyed at being dragged away from a game of cards at his club, and the exasperation of all parties mounts until finally the midwife announces that it’s all been a lot of fuss over nothing. The wife has had a phantom pregnancy. Aspersions about the husband being too useless to get his wife pregnant lead to references about his chamber-pot-wearing predilections, and the lights go out just after the husband has put the chamber pot on the father’s head so we miss out on the final punch up. But we can tell it’s going to be fun.

This was quite a funny one act play, though if we judged by the mortuary audience they had in tonight you wouldn’t have known it. The couple behind us spent the early stages scraping ice cream tubs and squeezing coffee cups, another woman leapt about a bit before settling down (she was in the front row, so it was a bit distracting) and the audience in general seemed indisposed to laugh. I thought the performances were all good and I would have rated this experience higher if the atmosphere had been more conducive to merriment.

The second piece was called Going to Pot. Another husband and wife have a number of altercations, mainly about the wilful refusal of their daughter, Toto, to take a laxative. She’s been constipated for, ooh at least three hours, so it’s obviously a major concern. All this while the husband is trying to convince an official from the Department of Defence to buy umpteen thousand chamber pots, soldiers, for the use of, which he believes will make him a fortune. One slight drawback is the tendency of the ceramic pots to smash when thrown on a solid floor. The other drawback is the presence of the wife, still en déshabillé, and the rebellious daughter, who contrives to get both the official and her father to drink the unwanted laxative while she munches on the sweeties.

It’s very funny, especially when the idea of the husband wearing a chamber pot on his head is briefly mooted, a nice echo of the earlier piece. It starts with the husband not able to find ‘les Zebrides’ in the encyclopaedia, under ‘Z’. It took me a few moments, but then I realised he was looking for the Hebrides. His wife comes in and corrects him pretty quickly, telling him he won’t find them under ‘Z’. He has to look under ‘E’. For ‘les Ebrides’. More laughter. The audience had finally warmed up, relocated, and shut up too, so this half was much more enjoyable than the first.

At long last the wife finds the entry under ‘H’, where the husband had sarcastically suggested she look. Cue an argument about whose idea it was to look there. And this was just the warm up. As the battle over the laxative heats up, the wife becomes ever more crazed, eventually forcing the official to drink a dose to show their daughter that it’s OK. He has a nervous stomach so it doesn’t do him much good. When the official’s wife and her male cousin turn up, the wife rashly informs the official that he’s a cuckold, as the closeness between the two cousins has been common gossip for some time and the rumour mill has done its worst. With that threesome storming off, the husband dashing to the loo (he took a glass of fruit salts by mistake) the daughter can pretend to her mother that she actually drank off the glass of laxative, and the play closes with mother and daughter in a fond embrace, happy at last.

Again, we liked all the performances, with Keith Myers, who played the husband both times, and Raymond Daniel-Davies (father-in-law and official) just nosing in front of a very good field. The set was straightforward, though tight for space, and the costumes were all fine. Even with the lukewarm audience response, this was still a good evening out.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Bouncers – November 2008

10/10

By John Godber

Directed by Keith Hukin

Reform Theatre Company

Mill Studio

Friday 14th November 2008

Excellent play, excellent performances, and only inches from where we were sitting most of the time. This was great fun.

The four actors play three different groups; the bouncers at a Sheffield disco in the eighties, a group of four women celebrating one of their number’s 21st birthday, and four men on the pull. It’s a compilation of all the sorts of things that happen on a Friday night in the pulsating heart of a big city, or something like that.

The bouncers were all in suits, and hardly moved an unnecessary muscle. They were well hard. Their dialogue took a long time coming, but we gradually learn that Lucky Eric, head bouncer, is having difficulty coping with his wife leaving him, especially as she flaunts her stuff down at his disco, trying to get a new man. He’s also having trouble with Judd, another bouncer, who clearly feels he should be top dog. The others are OK with Eric, but the tension still builds through the evening.

The girls were wonderful. No costume changes here, just a few props – handbags and the like – and we’re in a different world. With all the doubling, there were a few jokes based on thinking one actor was playing somebody else, but there was no confusion for the audience. They nailed us women good.

The blokes were also shown in all their unattractiveness. A scene in the gents, with all four pissing in a line, was a real treat, and hilariously funny, running through just about all the urinal jokes you could wish for. With a bit of careful switching, a couple of the lads nearly got off with a couple of the girls, but nothing much came of it, despite the bouncers commenting about the after effects of a Friday night – “Durex lay like dead Smurfs” – great line.

One recurring motif was Lucky Eric’s speeches. These were introduced very dramatically by the other bouncers, as Eric’s first speech, second speech, etc. There was a bit of over-enthusiasm from the audience by the time we got to the fourth (and final) speech, which they handled very well, and it all added to the fun. Eric was joined by the others in a rendition of an Elvis Presley number (I’ve completely forgotten which one), which was lovely. In fact, the whole performance was perfect in every way, and showed what great talent these four chaps have. There was loads of humour, and every scene worked really well. I especially liked the changes from one group of characters to another. A brilliant evening, and a play I’ll be very happy to see again.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Changed My Life Forever – October 2008

6/10

By Patrick Prior

Directed by Jim Dunk

Company: Isosceles

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 3rd October 2008

What a title! With a name like that, we just had to see this one, and after seeing such a gem last week, I had to make sure my expectations weren’t too high tonight.

Two guys turn up for an audition for a tour of tribute acts for one-hit wonders of the 60s. Eric, already at the place, is warming up on his keyboard when Bob arrives and starts identifying the songs in so much detail that it’s clear he’s something of a nerd. At first he and Eric don’t hit it off, but as time passes, and the rest of Eric’s band don’t turn up, they start singing some of the old hits, to fit in with their conversation, and the ice is broken.

Bob intends to become a world-wide Viv Stanshall impersonator. He’s the BDDDB’s greatest fan, and when he got a redundancy payoff after nearly thirty years in the same job, he decided to use the money to launch his new career. His wife reckoned the money would be better spent on starting up their own business, so they went their separate ways, his ex taking half of everything, including the redundancy money. He’s now living with his mother in her council flat, and giving informal performances in her  sitting room.

Eric’s been rocking for many years, never quite making it into a successful band, though he claims that he was very nearly one of the Dreamers (as in Freddie and). He’s on his third marriage, and I wondered if there was some connection between his band not turning up and his wife being home alone. To be fair, he had had a row with the band the night before – artistic differences – so it may be simpler than it looked. Bob has been making some phone calls and just before the interval he received one which was clearly giving him bad news – I suspect he’s not long for the tribute industry. With Eric off getting them coffee from a nearby café, the first half ends with Bob carefully removing his blond wig, so that he can bury his head in his hands and have a good cry.

The second half starts with Eric arriving back with the coffee and finding Bob in this state. He’s concerned for him, but Bob keeps insisting he’s alright, as men do, and puts it down to nerves about the audition. Eric tries to help by giving him a shot of whisky, and reckons that Bob still hasn’t got over losing his wife, Juliet – cue for song. Then Eric gets a phone call from his band, and isn’t happy. We can guess what’s happened. The two men keep on at each other until all is revealed. Bob has prostate cancer, and Eric’s band has given him the sack. To fulfil Bob’s ambition to leave something that will live on after his death, something that will show the world he existed, Eric suggests that he film Bob doing his Viv Stanshall routine, and then he can put it on the internet for everyone to see for a long, long time. This cheers Bob up, and they finish with a rousing rendition of Urban Spaceman, to celebrate.

This was another lovely piece, with lots of humour, good music (for the most part – I defy anyone to cover My Boy Lollipop successfully), and some moving moments, though not enough to give me the sniffles. Apparently these actors spend their time touring a number of productions, and they put on whichever show the venue wants to see. Tonight was only the second time they’d performed this one, which accounts for some slightly fluffed lines and minor hesitations. (Steve picked up this info during the interval, while the director was chatting to someone else.) Still, it was an enjoyable evening, and I’d certainly be happy to see their stuff again.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Drawer Boy – September 2008

9/10

By: Michael Healy

Directed by: Gavin Stride

Venue: Mill Studio, Guildford

Date: Friday 26th September 2008

This was a fantastic experience, and although we’ve seen a lot of good stuff at this small theatre, this was probably the best of them all. My heartstrings weren’t just tugged, a piano’s worth of them were pulled right out of me as we went on this emotional rollercoaster, and I don’t expect to get them back anytime soon. Exquisite agony. And there was a good deal of humour as well, to lighten the load. Heaven.

The set was quite elaborate for the Mill Studio. At the back were two blue sheets, hung one in front of the other, to allow for an exit to the farm proper. In front was the farmhouse kitchen, cut away so we could get a good view of anyone approaching from the direction of the farm. There was a stoop to our left, and a door to the rest of the house on our right. The kitchen had a sink next to the stoop, a stove to the right of that, then the fridge. A table stood by the wall along from the door, with butter and jam on it, and there was a bread bin underneath it. There was a small table with a telephone beside the door. A larger table stood in the middle of the floor, with two chairs and box to sit on. Above the sink was a window, and through this we could see tall stalks of corn growing. Outside there was a stool and a trestle stand which Morgan used as a seat.

The three characters are Angus, Morgan and Miles. Angus is a simple, gentle character. From the start he’s a character we care about, even before we learn about his accident during the war and how it left him with no memory. Morgan is his life-long friend who takes care of him, and he shows a great deal of love in the way he handles Angus’s little ways. Miles is a young actor, part of a collective who have descended on this small farming community to learn about the farmer’s lives and devise a play based on what they find. Miles is not the sharpest tool in the box. He shows so little aptitude for the farming life that after hitting Morgan with the tractor, Morgan gives him nothing but spurious time-wasting jobs to do. Like gravel washing. He fell for every tall story Morgan told him, including the one about rotating the crops during the night, so that the corn that got the morning sun could get the afternoon sun as well. Over time, as Miles gets to know more about these men than Morgan bargained for, he brings to the surface some long-buried secrets, and we get to go through this painful journey with them.

As Angus has no ability to retain memories of anything since his accident, Morgan has been telling him the story of their lives every day for years. It’s a beautiful piece of writing, and well told tonight, under the stars. (I won’t get it right, but here’s the gist.) Morgan tells Angus the story of two boys, one who could draw and was really smart, and one who was a farming boy and was his friend. They grew up together. The one who could draw, the drawer boy of the title, drew pictures of a cabin, and they built it themselves. Then the war came and they both went off to fight. They went to England and met two English girls, one tall, the other taller. The tall girl liked the farming boy, and the taller one liked the drawer boy. They made plans to marry and live together in a double house. One day the drawer boy was outside during a bombing raid, and a front door hit him when a shell exploded in the empty house he was looking at. When the war was over, they all went back home, and they married. Then the women were out driving a big black car that they’d bought, and had an accident. Both were killed, and their bodies were buried at the top of the highest hill in the place. Then the two men lived together in the house.

It’s a sad enough story, but even more moving as told properly in the play. Miles was listening in, and took notes, and in the next scene we see the results. Angus and Morgan have been to a rehearsal by the collective, and see Miles doing this story. Angus is delighted – he recognised the story and that Miles was playing Morgan – but Morgan is furious that their personal story has been used like this, and is in the process of sending Miles packing, when Angus starts to remember things. Up to now, he’s not remembered Miles’s name at all, and Miles has learned to introduce himself whenever Angus walks into the room, or even turns around and catches sight of him after a gap. Now Angus not only remembers his name, he starts to remember why Miles is there, and insists that he stays.

This took us up to the interval. After the interval, we get the gravel washing scene, where we come in part way through Miles telling Angus the story of Hamlet. It sounded as though Miles is talking about himself at first, but we soon picked up on the plot (handy that we’ve just seen the play a couple of nights ago), and Angus seemed to be fascinated by this story. I was concerned that he was confusing reality and fiction, but he always seemed to get a foot back on solid ground when he needed to, a remarkable achievement for someone in his condition.

Angus wants to hear their story again, and wants Miles to tell it like he did at the rehearsal. Miles feels awkward about this, knowing that it’s Morgan’s story to tell, and that Morgan still isn’t happy with him for telling it. He gets Angus to tell the story, prompting him when he needs it. As they get to the end, Angus becomes concerned about where the double house is, and where the two girls are buried, and why Morgan has never taken him there. He starts insisting that they go there, now, and Morgan can’t seem to distract him anymore. Finally Angus just ups and heads off on his own in the middle of the night, with Morgan heading off to search for him, and Miles left in the kitchen to wait.

With Angus not yet back the next day, Miles and Morgan are not getting on. It’s clear there’s more to Morgan’s reluctance to take Angus to the hilltop than he’s admitting, and finally Miles realises that it’s just a story, and that Morgan’s been lying to Angus all along. Unfortunately, Angus hears this comment as he stands outside the kitchen window, and throws a great big wobbly. For a while I thought he’d completely lost it, as he starts talking about Morgan as “him”, and claims “he” killed Angus’s father and married his mother. I thought he’d taken the Hamlet story and started believing it was his, but in fact he was just upset that Morgan wouldn’t admit that he’d lied, nor tell him why. And perhaps there was a bit of spite there too.

So now we’re set up for the final unravelling of what actually happened all those years ago. There was a slight hiatus at this point during tonight’s performance, as Ian Blower, who played Morgan, had only had a week to rehearse after replacing another actor who had broken his ankle. He carried a clipboard from time to time – to be honest, although the director had made an announcement at the start about this, I hadn’t actually noticed any problems with any of the parts up to now. But this was a big speech, and it had awkward variations on the earlier story, making it harder to learn, I’m sure. The correct speech wasn’t on the clipboard, and the director and another assistant were involved getting the right bits of paper for him. Once they did, we got to hear the full tale, and although some impetus was lost, we soon got back into it. (Steve felt it didn’t affect the performance at all – men!)

The real story was that Morgan talked Angus out of going to university, and persuaded him to join up. They saw some horrific things near the start of their service – three men being burned to death – and decided to take a back seat as often as possible, even firing their guns into the air to waste ammunition. They’d met the girls in England as before, but the reason Angus was out in the open when the bomb fell was that Morgan had sent him out to fetch a bottle of brandy which Sally, the taller girl, had in her car. It was a piece of shrapnel that got Angus, in the back of his head, and then no memory.

When they all got to Canada, Sally decided to wait until Angus was better before getting married. The double house wasn’t built, but they did buy the farm, and lived in the house that came with it. One day, when Sally was baking bread, Angus hit her for no reason. She realised there was no chance of him getting better, and so she and her friend left for England. Angus had been asleep when they left, and when he woke up he knew something was wrong and spent ages searching the house. Finally Morgan grabbed him to stop him running upstairs one more time, and told him the story about the car crash to give Angus some peace, which it did. From there, it became easier for both of them to stick to Morgan’s version of events, and so he carried on lying.

There were many emotional moments during this play, but when Angus says to Morgan “you must have hated me then” or similar, once he realises that his hitting Sally has caused Morgan to lose the love of his life, I just wanted to sob for ages. I can still feel the tears now. To say that to a friend who caused him to have no memory, was tremendously moving. After this, Angus seems to settle back into the previous setup, and Miles heads off to another rehearsal. He’d been to milk the cows, and apparently broke the milking machine, so milked all the cows by hand to give them some relief. Without a bucket. Morgan heads off to see how much damage he’s done, and is delighted to find that he actually got the machine to work, and that the vat is full. With his delight still ringing in our ears, Angus takes the plans for the double house and pins them up on the back of the door, where they had been previously. It’s a worrying sign – how much will he now expect, and how hard is Morgan going to have to work to keep him happy? But at least we know all, and I don’t just mean the story.

This was such a moving play, with plenty of understanding and compassion for the characters, that it was a real privilege to be watching it. Like Calendar Girls, it’s the kind of play that makes me glad to be human. There were no heroes, but the mistakes that were made were normal for young men, and their relationship was full of caring, which tempered the guilt Morgan must certainly have felt at times. Both Morgan and Angus will stay with us for a long time. Miles, on the other hand, will not be allowed through the door, though if the acting doesn’t work out, he can always get a job milking cows.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Millionairess – September 2008

6/10

By George Bernard Shaw

Directed by Michael Friend

Company: Michael Friend Productions

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 5th September 2008

The set for the first scene comprised a green baize floor, several straight-backed chairs, with three in a row along the back, a desk to our right with a telephone and box file, and behind it was a part wall with a window made up of small panes. The only other thing I could see at the start was a big wastepaper basket under the desk. This was the office of a solicitor called Sagamore, and he was visited in the opening scene by a series of people whose lives were intertwined. The first was Epifania, a rich heiress, who nevertheless considered herself a pauper. Her father had been worth over 100 million pounds, but lost a lot of his money before he died, so she was left a measly 30 million pounds. Enough for most people, but a real come-down for her.

She’s totally spoilt, but savvy about money, and she wanted to make her will before committing suicide. Sagamore made no pretence to know anything, but managed to persuade her to give up her plan to kill herself by giving her explicit instructions on how to make a lethal cyanide potion. Her husband Alistair and his preferred woman, Patricia, arrived and join in the discussion, if I can call it that, followed by one of Epifania’s favourite’s, Adrian. The scene unfolded in an erratic way, as most of the characters ended up forgetting what they came to see Sagamore about originally.

Not that that was a problem for us. We learned about the reason why Epifania married Alistair, and why she was determined to kill herself and curse him by leaving him all her money. Her father, whom she totally revered, told her to test any man who wanted to marry her, in order to weed out undesirables. She was to give them two hundred and fifty pounds, and tell them to come back in six months with fifty thousand. Some had tried and failed, some had refused even to try, but Alistair, a good looking boxing champ who also played tennis, managed it. Unfortunately, he did it through a con, and as they spent more time together it became very clear that they were not at all compatible, although his good looks and her money obviously helped. He took to seeing Patricia, and Epifania spent a lot of time with Adrian, although it might be more accurate to say he spent time with her, as he liked his meals and she had a very good cook.

The con that Alistair used wasn’t entirely clear to me, but it seemed to involve writing cheques for money that Alistair and his partner-in-crime didn’t have, then writing more duff cheques to cover those, until the money started rolling in and they could cover all their initial outlay easily. Their project was putting a musical on the London stage, and, miraculously, they managed to find one that made money. Not as easy as you might think, looking at the West End listings nowadays. Anyway, that’s how Alistair got fifty thousand together in such a short time, although if he and his partner had been caught out, he’d have been in jail for a long time. One other thing we found out was that Epifania was a judo expert, and that Alistair had punched her in the solar plexus in self defence after she attacked him.

The second scene was set in a tatty pub, the Pig and Whistle. The wall and windows were moved over to our left, and turned round to reveal the pub sign and a seat underneath the window. The table was brought back on with a cloth, and another chair completed the setup. Adrian threw a minor strop because the food wasn’t too good, and Epifania used her judo skills to throw him down the stairs. This led to her meeting with an Egyptian doctor, a Muslim, or Mohammedan as they were then called, who works in a hospital in order to earn just enough money so that he can treat poor Muslims for free. She took a fancy to him, but it turns out his mother, on her death bed, made him promise to set a test for any woman who wanted to marry him. He was to give her 200 piastres (about 35 shillings), and with only that and the clothes she stood up in, she would have to make her own living for six months. Epifania accepted the challenge – she had to get her chauffeur to sub them both – and was confident that she’ll succeed. (The chauffeur had just returned from taking Adrian to the local cottage hospital, so that his injuries could be treated.)

The third scene, immediately after the interval, showed us the workshop of a couple who were employing a bunch of women at sweatshop wages making clothes. Epifania wants a job, but at first they took her for an inspector, and offered to pay her two and six a week if she left them alone. She was willing to take their money, although she bargained the price up to five bob, but when she found out how the system worked – a lorry brought them cloth and took away the finished goods – she realised she could buy out the middlemen and the business could start making some real money. The wife didn’t want anything to do with her new-fangled ideas, but the husband, possibly because he was used to being bossed about by strong women, decided to take the risk. From Epifania’s behaviour, it’s clear she learned a lot from her father, and she certainly knew her employment law. We could be confident that she’d change their fortunes before the play was out. She reckoned she only needed to spend an afternoon a week with them, so she set off to get a paying job for the rest of the week – a scullery maid at an hotel, for example.

The final scene was back at the pub six months later, only this time it was called something different (The Cardinal’s Hat?) and looked a lot posher. Alistair and Patricia were staying for a holiday, and asked the hotel manageress what had caused the changes to the place. She told them the following story. Her parents and grandparents, going back generations, had always run the pub on old-fashioned lines, and although it suited them, she felt it was too seedy for her taste. One day, about six months earlier, a woman had turned up and insisted on becoming a scullery maid with them. On her first day, she broke several plates, and the mother had complained. The scullery maid went off somewhere and came back with a whole service of beautiful plates, for next to nothing. From then on, she gradually took over the place, suggesting improvements, changing the décor, the clientele, and finally buying the manageress’s parents out altogether. They were able to retire, but at a price, with one of them having had a stroke, and both of them missing the way things used to be. She stayed on as manageress, and was really happy with the ways things were now. She let slip the name of the new boss, and yes, you’ve guessed it, it was Epifania. Alistair was horrified, and wanted to leave immediately, but Patricia calmed him down, and the manageress insisted that Epifania was rarely there these days. However, two other guests did turn up. One was Adrian, finally able to get about again after the most appalling problems with his various treatments, and the other was Sagamore.

Despite the manageress’s assurance, Epifania did indeed turn up, as we knew she would. It’s time for her to meet up with the doctor, who was also there but was shown up after all the other guests. At first Epifania was threatening to sue Patricia for taking her husband away – alienating his affections – but Patricia manageed to defeat that by pointing out that as she has no money, Epifania wouldn’t be able to get any from her, and she’d be only too happy to declare her love for Alistair publicly, so that people could see that she’d taken such an attractive and successful man from the richest woman in Europe. Backed up by Sagamore’s astute observations on the futility of such an action, and her own vanity, Epifania gave way, but then turned her attention to the doctor. She told him of her success, and he tried to counter with the story of his abysmal failure. He took the money and gave it to the widow of his old mentor, a chap who developed some technical thingummyjig which he didn’t patent, and so now private companies were making lots of money from it. He negotiated with these companies to give the old woman a pension, but with the costs of the funeral, the old dear was two hundred and fifty pounds short, hence the gift. Epifania counters this by reckoning that with the invention making so much money, she could consider the gift as a retrospective investment in the development of the whatever, so he’s actually passed the test. To the doctor’s own amazement, he realised he may have to marry her after all. However he did have one consolation. When he first got there, he checked her pulse, and found it to be one of the strongest he’d ever known. So wonderful was this pulse that he found it seductive in the extreme. At least he’ll get to feel it every day once they’re married.

This was a hugely enjoyable play, wordy, as with so many of Shaw’s, but with lots of good lines, and some interesting observations on the social conditions of the time. I don’t know how far into their tour this was, but there were a few fluffed lines, so I assume it’s early rather than late. I was very impressed with the performances, which seemed of a pretty high standard, and despite the low budget, the set and costumes were very effective. I wasn’t sure at first if Amanda Sterkenburg was putting on an accent as Epifania, but from her CV she’s Dutch, so I guess that was either her basic accent, or a general European one. I don’t remember if we’re told where Epifania comes from originally, but there are a number of references to her being European, and she reminded me a lot of Bluntschli from Arms and the Man, the Swiss hotelier. Like him, she has a clear-eyed view of the world and tremendous organisational skills, though I don’t think he was quite as enamoured with money as she is.

We had a good time, and would certainly see other productions by this company, as well as other productions of this play.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Quiz – July 2008

8/10

By Richard Crane

Directed by David Giles

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 4th July 2008

I was very much looking forward to seeing David Bradley on stage again, and in a solo performance. As it was a new play, I had very little idea what to expect and the way the play was written, neither did the character on stage.

The set was very simple. Various pallets were arranged to form a small platform and back wall in the centre of the studio space. Packing crates were distributed on either side, with candles stuck in bottles all over them. The candles were very short. Large candle holders stood on either side of the stage, with bigger candles, and a couple of rugs were lying across the platform and the floor in front of it. To complete the picture, a cross made of two strips of wood (probably off one of the pallets) was lashed to the top of the back wall. Simple, but effective.

David Bradley was playing an unnamed actor, who shambled on carrying another bottle with a lighted candle, a much longer one this time, and wearing a robe tied with a rope belt. He was obviously dressed as a monk of some kind, occasionally raising the hood. Underneath he was still wearing scruffy jeans and trainers. This was meant to be a performance of a story from The Brothers Karamazov, which the actor had been doing as a one-man show for many years, but tonight we were getting to see the effects of a serious row with his stage manager who has stormed off leaving him to do the whole show by himself. Fortunately the real stage crew has hung around, so we still get all the necessary lighting changes.

He starts by lighting all the various candles that adorn the set. This takes some time, and in the process he treats us to various candle-and-light-related comments, jokes, songs, etc. The story of his absconding stage manager, whom he refers to as a mouse, soon emerges, as does the whisky bottle, and it’s clear this is an actor who needs plenty of support to get his act together, never mind actually on to the stage. He keeps telling us about other performers who’ve died on stage or soon after a performance, and it turns out that the cause of the argument earlier on was his constant insistence each night that he’s going to do himself in. Go out with a whimper! This approach would deter most people a lot sooner than the ‘mouse’ lady, so she was obviously in love with him. It came as no surprise that years ago they’d had a one-off sexual encounter during an enforced stop-over in the only room the hotel had available at that time of night.

From time to time we get parts of what would have been the ‘intended’ performance. These are heralded by the use of the hood, and the actor taking up position on the stage and ‘acting’. These bits were fine, and showed that the old guy still had it in him, but not for long periods. Soon he’d be breaking off to tell us another story, swig from the bottle, and explain about how he’d always wanted to do a prologue, or an epilogue, but the ‘mouse’ wouldn’t let him. These statements usually led to another long-winded story about some performance where he’d deviated from the straight and narrow, and very entertaining it all was too. He also included a number of Tommy Cooper gags, and these gave us the best laughs of the evening. Not that the rest of it was lacking in the humour department.

The religious ideas were new to me, and I found them pretty odd. The character the actor was playing, the Grand Inquisitor, seemed to be saying that he didn’t want to believe in a god who would make suffering the price for redemption. A Christ who insists on pain as a precondition for heaven isn’t for him. He’d rather feed the needy, cloth the poor, etc, and to hell with god. As a result, when Christ returns, he has him arrested and sentenced to death, and this performance, and the story in the book, covers the night he spends with Christ in his cell before the execution, explaining his point of view. The actor shares this attitude towards religion with his character, whether naturally or from long acquaintance I can’t say, and gives us his own thoughts on the matter as well.

At the end, the actor takes a final swig from his bottle and collapses on the stage, a fitting ending for such an apparently disastrous performance.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Death and Life of Sherlock Holmes – March 2008

8/10

By David Stuart Davies

Directed by Gareth Armstrong

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 17th March 2008

No need for a headset tonight. Sitting in the front row, of a very small studio theatre, we also had the benefit of an older actor with impeccable diction and sufficient power to be absolutely clear throughout this engaging performance. Roger Llewellyn reprised his role as Sherlock Holmes (and a number of other characters) in a new play, based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s attempts to kill off Sherlock and get some peace. In fact, he got the opposite, and had to resurrect him, but this play concentrates more on the assassination aspect.

The set was much as before, with a chair, table and coat stand to our left, representing the 221b Baker Street flat, and another table and chair to our right, for Conan Doyle and his alter-ego Watson. Roger wore a smart frock coat over a regular Victorian suit, only adding a topper when Professor Moriarty came to call. With this, and some lighting and sound effects, Roger Llewellyn wove his magic. He began by coming right to the front of the performance space and making an announcement to the gathering of shareholders of the Strand magazine – us. As the magazine’s editor(?) he had to inform us of the sad news that Mr Conan Doyle would not be writing any more Sherlock Holmes stories after the current one had completed its run, and expressed all the regret and concern that must have been felt at the time. Not only were they going to miss out on some superb stories, but the magazine might not survive the drop in circulation.

Next we hear from Conan Doyle himself, as he explains his dislike both for Holmes and the way these stories have taken attention from what he considers to be his better work – his romances and historical novels. He’s fed up being the “Holmes man”, and determines to finish the blighter off. Holmes, meanwhile, knows nothing of this, and continues to solve whatever puzzles the writer can throw at him with the easy arrogance and self-satisfaction that Conan Doyle finds so loathsome. We get to see a glimpse of one of these, with Roger acting out brilliantly the character of the wrongly accused chap that Holmes saves from the gallows. When speaking as Holmes, he often includes Watson in his talk, and looks at the chair on the left where Conan Doyle sits to speak to us or write his letters, etc. This was a nice touch.

Eventually Conan Doyle enlists Professor Moriarty to help bump Holmes off. The Professor has been let into the secret, and chooses to inform Holmes of the writer’s plan. It comes as quite a shock to Holmes to find out he’s a fictional character, but the old arrogance soon reasserts itself. Between them, they agree to change the plan. Meantime, Conan Doyle is already planning his next work. With his interest in the supernatural and spiritualism, he wants to include these elements in a story. He’s thinking of a supernatural creature, perhaps a huge hound, that seems to haunt the moors. The only trouble is, he needs a strong character with good scientific reasoning powers to hold the work together and carry out the investigation. But who could this be? He’s determined it won’t be you-know-who, as he’s now dead; Conan Doyle’s just finished the last chapter of that story! It’s quite a problem.

The main enjoyment of the evening was Roger Llewellyn’s performance, or rather performances, as he did all the parts – Conan Doyle, Sherlock, and Moriarty – so well. His ability to change from one character to another with scarcely a beat between, was remarkable, and his accents were superb. The script was still very entertaining, though perhaps less fun than the earlier play which covered Holmes’s cases, but it was good to see Conan Doyle brought in, and to play with the idea of a fictional character having a life of his own. Which of course he does, even if it is always 1895.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rainer Hersch’s Victor Borge – November 2007

8/10

By: Rainer Hersch

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Thursday 15th November 2007

I had a weird sense of dissociation early on during this performance. I knew we were watching Rainer Hersch giving us his impression of Victor Borge, but my reactions were as if the original was standing there. I felt all the warmth and affection I’d stored up from childhood, seeing him on TV and knowing the routines. It was a good start, and it got even better.

After an opening section giving us some of Borge’s classic patter – e.g. the joke about the piano being made in China, and an ordinary keyboard having the keys going from left to right (we filled in the rest ourselves) – Rainer told us about his own background (not Jewish, not gay, hair not permed, as he said to his partner Lionel, the hairdresser from Tel Aviv), and explained how he hadn’t heard of Victor Borge while he was growing up. Once he started doing stand up and brought music into it, a process that took a number of years, he found his reviews kept comparing him to some chap called Victor Borge, and in a search for a publicist so successful that he could get his own client’s name into another performer’s reviews, he finally came across a CD of Borge’s work and the rest is history, as they say. He didn’t actually say what his reaction to hearing Borge’s work was, but I assume it was positive, as it eventually led him to research Borge’s life, and even to meet him briefly, backstage, in Denmark – he showed us the picture.

From here he took us on a trip through Borge’s life story, annotated with various snippets of his comedy routines, and including some very moving events, such as Borge’s trip back into Nazi-occupied Denmark to see his dying mother for the last time. He managed the emotional changes very well, and I was crying more often from laughter than from sadness. Hersch’s own talents as a comedian and musician were very clear. He also managed the accent and mannerisms very well, and was ably supported by a good technical crew, who brought in the music and changed the lights perfectly. At the end, he encouraged us to beg for more, then gave us one of his own routines about what they’re actually singing at the opera – definitely called for one of those discrete little pads! This evening lifted our spirits, and reminded us of a great entertainer, as well as making us aware of a new talent.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Woza Albert! – October 2007

6/10

By: Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon

Directed by: Paul Jonathan Savage

Venue: Mill Studio, Guildford

Date: Saturday 27th October 2007

Two black actors sang, danced, spoke and sound-effected their way through this entertaining piece, based on the idea of Jesus Christ coming back and going to South Africa. They had round pink things hanging round their necks (ooh, you are awful), which turned out to be pink noses, so they could “white up” at a moment’s notice and play the non-black characters as well. They started off with a representation of a jazz band – very lively, very good, then we got to meet the characters we’ll be following through the play. Mbongeni, a Zulu with a preference for dancing over work, and Percy, who sings hymns in his sleep and believes Jesus is watching over him and everyone else. They used Jesus’ African name, Morena, throughout the play, but we got who they meant.

These characters, and a host of others, show us how Jesus would be treated if he had returned during South Africa’s apartheid period. Many black folk were seen to be waiting for his return, wanting things like jobs, bricks, and even a lollipop – that one was a young girl. The white folk were smug at first, reckoning his return made them look important, but then they decided his message wasn’t so useful, so first they imprisoned him, and then they tried to bomb him, but only ended up smashing Cape Town to smithereens. They’d forgotten that the Archangels were at His beck and call, so Gabriel kept springing him out of prison, even Robben Island, where they apparently had anti-angel missiles.

Finally, Christ wakes up in a cemetery, where Mbongeni is now working, and to keep his hand in, decides to revive a few corpses. Mbongeni takes him round to all the dead black leaders – Albert Luthuli, Steve Biko, etc – and he wakes them with a call of “Woza Albert” (or whatever). When Jesus spots the grave of Verwoerd, he’s about to woza him as well, but Mbongeni steers him away, understandably.

Apart from the amazing energy and talents of the two actors, what impressed me most was the amount of humour they were getting out of some appalling situations. Even at the time it must have been funny, and I guess it just shows how important it is to keep laughing through even the bleakest times. I didn’t feel uncomfortable about laughing, just surprised. I’ve learned a lot about humour this week (see Parade), and it’s all good.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me