Cheshire’s Rural Touring Arts 26.8.11
Edinburgh Fringe Show Reviews 2011 by Carol Shadbolt
‘Me, Myself and Miss Gibbs’ – Storytelling- true life
A must for Rural Touring in Cheshire. Francesca Millican Slater was friendly and welcoming to her show and had a good rapport with her audience, props set out in an interesting display of maps, tickets etc.
Part video, lecture using overheads and laptop pc with video, brought the characters to life with her story telling. Detective papers were laid on the floor but would need to be up on a board around the stage for audience to see her paper journey tracing the family history of Miss Gibbs, with maps, pictures and births, deaths and marriage certificates. - Not just the front row. Also some raised stages would help all rural touring audiences to enjoy the show without neck craning to see the videos and overheads.
I was very sorry I had not brought my husband to see this show, as he is an ancestry research addict. A great piece of detective work and also Francesca ‘s personal journey in the 9 years since she was intrigued by the one hundred year old postcard, with the short message ‘Be Careful Tomorrow AC’ and a picture of Lincoln Cathedral. I liked the souvenir postcard we were given at the end.
‘To Have and to Hold’ Ribbon Theatre www.tohaveandtohold.org.uk
Or Things are about to get awkward! Comedy theatre drama
Featuring a cast of young enthusiastic and energetic actors who were shortlisted for the Cambridge Footlights Harry Porter Prize.
Lucy the chief bridesmaid watches her best friends wedding turn into the oddest evening ever.
Full of characters all having a good time at the reception, except for the ex boyfriend who gets maudlin and threatens suicide and has his sports car trashed by a goat and the aunt whom everyone thought had one too many drinks and was sleeping turns out to have died. The story swoops and swerves with unexpected incidents and tragic events and was very funny.
As the cast members are all very young the older characters were a stretch of the imagination but a wedding reception usually has a very wide age range and alcohol-and an embarrassing speech from the best man!
We all enjoyed this show and there is plenty of material to create a show with 2 45-minute acts. A good one for RTA.
The Alcemystorium -Gomito productions
Devised physical theatre-Universal appeal
A 5 star revue from the Catriona Macleod The Scotsman
A wonderful supernatural brew of wordless physical theatre and interesting visuals from the three characters, a genius set of slapdash café from a cart on wheels, which is also their home or at least their bedrooms.
Amazing, a gripping and entertaining story without a word spoken only rallying cries and grunts. A show that begins as a puppet piece with hands waving from a box and becomes an absorbing tale.
I really liked the photos to ‘match’ the customers and involvement of the audience as customers, I would have liked the puppets to be more clearly defined humans male and female. The bickering staff were funny and would appeal to children and I loved the way they were ‘matched’ as they were told to behave or leave.
Lizzie Sarah Franks nurtures her own longing for her absent and as yet unknown ‘match’ with a photo and the drama becomes very heart felt as we see her loneliness and will catch a chord in many a heart as we see her wander the world hoping to meet her soul mate and returns alone to a decaying café- without her leadership the service has fallen apart.
The ending is not predictable but is happy when with a knock on the door she too meets her ‘match’.
A must for Rural Touring.
‘Those Magnificent Men’ New Perspectives Theatre Company
By Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon
Ian Shaw as Captain John Alcock, a wonderfully stiff upper lipped performance and Richard Earl as Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown the navigator able to fix all emergencies and find his way in the fog, tempted to dramatize the story as a pantomime but happy to support the captain.
Wonderfully entertaining- loved the way they gave out the facsimile newspapers at the beginning setting up the show for a time when men wore tweed jackets, wool uniforms and ties whilst setting a world first record of the first ever non stop transatlantic flight.
The audience will sympathize with the characters who with stiff upper lip refuse to deviate from the facts even though it won’t make them world famous with a ‘Hollywood’ style film where the facts are embellished to make the story more entertaining.
Totally absorbing and I loved the way they built the aero plane popped in their butty box and a thermos flask and set off for a 1,880 mile journey across the Atlantic to land in Clifden, Ireland negotiating thick fog and low cloud using the stars to navigate. The drama of the flight was beautifully dramatized with the navigator de-icing blocked fuel pipes whilst balancing on wing 4,000 feet in the air above the Atlantic and the pilot unable to take his feet from the plane rudder for over 16 hours.
Another Cheshire Rural Touring must.
Thirsty- Paper Birds Contemporary drama
A piece of theatre created from hundreds of stories about drinking- and inevitably the binge drinking of teenagers or ‘youth’. Amazing physical theatre, I loved the toilet booths and use of the pans to hide props and the way the technician followed the show from his booth with the use of a carefully placed mirror, he also played the keyboard to fuse the drama with live music.
The dance became saturated with water as the main characters drank more and more and they wove the loss of physical control as intoxication over took them in to stunning physical dance.
Although impressive and I loved the set I didn’t feel there was enough of a story for a rural touring audience who are past their booze binging days and enjoy a glass of wine after the kids are in bed or with an evening meal after a hard day at work.
‘Swimming with my Mother’- Dance Base
A wonderful dance drama experience, immersing us in watery sound and I liked the way the memories of the mother were voiced over and acted out through dance with only a wooden slatted bench and a red towel. As this is a real live mother and son show I wonder if the older actress would have the stamina for rural touring and as the show was only 40 minutes would need another dance drama for the second half of a show.
‘Wound Man and Shirley’
An empathetic and entertaining storyteller, the fantasy was funny and compelling. The lighting and music was very professional and really added to the atmosphere and conjured up the variety of scenes. However we felt there was no clear resolution- a story in evolution and I am not sure if it is enough for larger audiences, as needs an intimate space.
The long pauses before each scene were unsettling and the theme of a young boy befriending an older man- dressed in a thong had over tones of pedophilia, which were not comfortable.
My daughter did not like this show, even though I tried to explain that it was a story about a teenage boy coming to terms with his homosexuality and unrequited love for a straight boy in his class and the death of his brother. I liked the idea of wound man- an idea from an old surgical book which showed how to treat the various wounds caused by a variety of instruments from arrows to swords.
Not a show I would really want for Rural Touring.
Grisley Tales from Tumblewater
Energetic and full of action, younger audiences would enjoy the blood thirsty details, the constant rain was a bit depressing and sent a couple of the members of the audience to sleep in the middle of the day despite the main characters. Enjoyed the music and original songs and banjo playing- could do a music work-shop? A work in progress?
Ten – dance and physical theatre
Very absorbing and I liked Hetain Pattel’s rapport with audience and 2 fellow dancers from Barbados and Scotland. The usually dry and often controversial question of cultural identity was explored with strong visual and physical elements but ultimately left me unsatisfied. The initial story of his drumming lessons and being taught to beat a rhythm never ended with him using the drums he had on stage and there was no physical dance just a stomping around the edge of the stage with a huge shower of red dye.
Scary Gorgeous
Amazing physical theatre and I enjoyed the show and the live band they had assembled who also became stage hands and part of the drama. The second half was overly descriptive and repetitive on an not entirely comfortable theme of graphic sex , photographed and published for young people to see as advertising for a newly formed band. Even the band did not look that comfortable at times. Loved the music and songs- there could have been more performances in practice. This was great physical drama with dance portraying the power struggle between friends and the need for a friend to confide in.
A Rural Touring show if the second half was toned down and left more to the audiences imagination.
About the international record-label and production company Hitcomet that makes the musical pop hits. Great fun and the actors were also musicians, fun and original live music all the way through with some great characters. Five comedians, real time story telling and original musical instruments and handsome power ties.
A fun show and musical with a bit of polish it is a must for RTA and also would fit on Bickerton Village Hall stage- a huge bonus.
The Star Child- Oscar Wilde Tell Tale Theatre
Charm energy and inventive theatre a great show for the family- amazing and original face painting and detailed interesting costumes. Books are surprising pop up props and the physical journey shown through physical dance climbing mountains by stepping up onto the back of the other actors pulled apart and flung in the air to show a beating received. A tale with a message. As the show is only 50 minutes would need another tale to make up a show.
Comedy stand-up.We also saw Ruby Wax ‘Losing It’ I know her charge will probably be beyond the budget or a RTA but with 1 in 4 of us affected by mental illness- worth considering?
Stand up comediennes we enjoyed were Jessica Fostekew ‘Luxury Tramp’ and ‘The Girl who thought she was Irish’
We also saw the ‘Incredible Book Eating Boy’ I would love this show- if they could put in 2 chairs we could do an audience of 24 in an hour- over 3 hours 72 @ £4 =£288 so a possible for Cheshire’s Rural Touring Network.
