Poor Caroline
by Charlotte Productions, Paradise in St Augustines, Sat 20th
This was in a venue which could be well adapted for having almost a "split-screen" set. Set very basic otherwise.
It is an adaptation of a Winifrid Holtby novel, ( newly re-discovered through the BBC South Riding series recently). Winifrid was a great friend of Vera Brittain and a "new woman" influenced and shaped by the 1st World War. So this play, whilst meaning to be comic and serious at the same time, simply did not manage to develop those serious themes of post-war issues for woman; independence, education, poverty and loneliness in old age due to their having lost husbands and fiances at the front. Two actors shone out, the brilliant Emily Streete as the eponymous heroine, and Ami Woodrora( I think, my programme is smudged on this!), who played a slightly nasty young thing of the 20's, Gloria St Denis! There was attention to detail with a programme all in old typewriter print, but this young cast otherwise were simply no better than a school production giving characters no more than cartoon quality on the whole. There was clearly great effort in costume, and some were spot on, but why did they think that young woman wore above the knee A- line skirts as smart outfits in the '20's!!?
It was its last day so you can't go to see for yourselves.
It would be a great potential play, with a substantial re-write of the script, and a much smaller company, ( there were 12 of them!!) for Rural Touring; the sort the wonderful NTC would have done so well.
I'd say 2* out of five, sadly.
Flanders and Swann, Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins, Sat 20th at Pleasance Courtyard Bar, 14.30
I went to this for pure self-indulgence as I love F&S and hoped for a sure-fire RTA winner.
It was!! Complete with all the most famous songs, except, sadly, my favourite, The Slow Train, and Tim playing a tubular steel music stand as a tuba!
It is a lovely hour which went incredibly fast.
I asked Tim about touring afterwards and the unhelpful reply was that the big venues who book them will not entertain them if they have been touring the villages ( get onto this you professionals out there!!). I felt this was a bit of a cop-out excuse, and met Sian from Arts Alive afterwards and, unsurprisingly, she had booked them years ago on her circuit, and of course they were winners! Perhaps a bit above themselves now; they had also refused a complimentary ticket; the only request I had turned down.
Bones, by Fifth Word Theatre, Sat 20th at Zoo on Pleasance, ( an old church), 16.10
I went to this after a personal request from the producer by email beforeIi arrived. I'd seen it in the brochure and rejected it for RTA as too raw and "not a fun night night out"! Very shallow of me, I know. The invitation made me reconsider.
I wish I hadn't.
As a social worker in the day job, this was an all too familiarly, raw, horribly sad, unpleasantly detailled account of the unravelling of a young boy's life with a mother who had, it turned out, been sexually-abused by his beloved grandfather, ended up a drug addict and prostitute throughout his life, and now, with Mark, the 19 year old shortly out of prison, has a young female baby; we never hear her name.
Joe Doherty, pitch perfect as the supremely angry, disaffected, unloved Mark, with a perfect Nottingham accent too, gives a bravura performance worthy of any method actor; he even split his fist banging it on the cot at the beginning, and it bled through the performance. He is a hoodie none of the politicians could hug with much confidence, and if you like utterly up-to-the minute drama, with absolute contemporary resonance you'll love this amazing performance. Even the set took me to those grey boarded up flats you find on unloved estates.
With every other word the F-word, RTS audiences unless nurtured to sophistication by other gritty plays would probably have a collective heart attack at this. Mine would, I'm afraid mostly leave at the interval.
It would have been perfection for a Play for Today many moons ago, and now for the Afternoon Play slot on radion, especially now!
5* for performance and writing; 1* for suitability for RTA.
That's all for now folks as I sally forth for today's selection!
Janet
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