Chippy Lane & Chapter: Right Where We Left Us

Cast 1

I    Hannah Daniel
P    Jacob Ifan
T    Jonathan Hawkins

Cast 2

I    Rick Yale
P    François Pandolfo
T    Jonathan Hawkins

Creative

Writer            Rebecca Jade Hammond
Director        Chelsey Gillard
Designer        Matilda Southcott
Lighting Designer    Jane Lalljee
Composer        Tic Ashfield
Sound Designer        Chris Laurich
Assistant Director    Tijesunimi Oluwapelumi Olakojo

Production

Producer        Tom Bevan
Stage Manager        Del Roberts

Having thoroughly enjoyed Chippy Lane’s last production – Blue – also produced with and performed at Chapter Arts Centre, I could barely contain my anticipation for their new and less monosyllabically named, Right Where We Left Us. Thinking back to that opening night in February of 2019… wait a minute. I never went to see that show. That was Danny. I’m not Danny, I’m Wyll.

Yes! Hello, I’m the spare emergency reviewer that Danny keeps in a box in the cupboard under the stairs. Danny dusted me off and sent me to Chapter, and despite getting pretty wet on the way there, by the end of the show I had warmed up considerably thanks to a thoroughly engaging performance of a play that required my constant attention.

You may have noticed the twin cast lists at the top of this review. Right Where We Left Us is a three-hander, but early in the production process the decision was made to work on the play with two different pairs of actors playing the roles of I and P, with Jonathan Hawkins reprising the smaller but significant role of T in both productions. It’s anybody’s guess what the letters stand for, but the important part for this production is that all the characters are written ungendered. I had a little natter with director Chelsey Gillard after the show and she explained she had leapt at the chance to explore how workshopping the play with different actors of different genders could bring different meaning out of the text. Different. Particularly significant is the fact that in cast 1 the central life-changing friendship/troubled romance of I and P is played by a woman and a man, and in cast 2, they’re both dudes.

The multi-cast decision was also made to allow Chippy Lane to work with more Welsh actors, which is a key part of their mission statement, and also just a bloody lovely thing to do. I do feel then, that it’s a shame I am reviewing only the Cast 2 version of the play, as it feels like an incomplete assessment of the whole artistic endeavour, but on the other hand, it’s unlikely many people will see both versions so perhaps this is more… authentic? Anyway…

The small set filled less than half the available space in the theatre, allowing the rest of the space to be a black void out of which things – lights, actors – could emerge. This turned out to be very apt for the play in question. A diagonal cross-section of a dirty looking diner, centreing one corner of the room so that the two adjacent walls appeared as a triangle from the perspective of the audience. Y’know, like peeking into a room in The Sims. I enjoyed how clearly Matilda Southcott’s design delineated the real from the unreal, blatantly slicing off reality like with a craft knife.

Chris Laurich’s sound design and Jane Lalljee’s lighting worked seamlessly together to bring into 3 dimensions this delineation between real and unreal, or, more precisely, the present and the past. The play alternates between a present day meeting of I and P in the dingy diner, and a series of memories enacted downstage of the set as the two recollect, chronicling their past. Tic Ashfield’s original compositions really helped give these sections their own character, adding an emotional vibrancy necessary for the heady intensity of memory. I was particularly impressed by the lighting design. I loved Lalljee’s ability to be both subtle at points – slooowly shifting the focus to one character, gradually changing the mood of a scene with change from blue to red or from dark to light – and then at other points bold – the clear shifts between the starkly lit diner and the moody blue and red of the past sequences, the crazy stuff at the end.

All three actors gave solid performances, though I was a bit underwhelmed with the delivery of lines at points, particularly at the beginning. I got the impression that these were all people who could act – and seriously well – but that it was a bit under-rehearsed and they hadn’t quite found their characters yet, or got confident enough with the script to put a bit of their own special juice into it. The energy did pick up as the play went on though, and I found myself being pulled into the characters heads and their emotions more and more.

So far I’ve tried to avoid spoiling the plot, but I’ve got a couple of notes I want to make about the direction – both to commend and to criticise – that are BIG spoilies. You have been warned

So. There is a sense from the beginning that something is slightly off about this diner. It slowly becomes clear by the end of the play that most of what we’re seeing is happening entirely in I’s (Rick Yale) head, and that his meeting with P (François Pandolfo) is some kind of therapeutical mind palace device employed by his healer, T (Jonathan Hawkins). What I thought was handled brilliantly by Gillard and assistant director Tijesunimi Oluwapelumi Olakojo was the fact that due to this, P and T exist in different realities, and only I can switch between them. The tightrope walk of enforcing this rule while pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes before slowly lifting the veil was done deftly and intelligently. I did have a sense though, that it was a bit too obvious early on that what was being shown to us was not entirely real. When the revelations came it was less of an unexpected twist, and more of an, “oh that makes sense now”. This may just be personal preference, but I think the earlier sections of the play could have done with being a bit more grounded so that the later transition into a more heightened place would have been more stark. As it was the performances started off pretty amped up, and so didn’t have as far to go later on, which left the energy curve of the show flatter than I would have liked. It should be noted though, that Gillard and Olakojo did this in four weeks, with two casts. Pretty impressive all round.

Right Where We Left Us is on at Chapter until the 5^th of October. Go see it, and if you see the company 1 perfomance, let me know how different it is!

GALWAD

This was written in response to Tuesday’s live broadcast at 6pm.

I first found out about Galwad when a variety of people I know working on it broke into a thousand yard stare whenever anyone mentioned the valleys, but in their defence I’ve always done that.

I’ve been very excited for Galwad.

It has such a large pool of incredible creatives behind it, some of the most talented people I know are working on it, and an awful lot of talented people I don’t know are working on it too. There’s a lot of money in this project, or I suppose there was until the value of our banknotes recently moved away from currency and more into wallpaper. This shouldn’t colour my expectation of the project but I’d be lying if I said it’s not at the back of my mind.

On to the live broadcasts. What is happening? I just watched someone wander seemingly aimlessly through the streets of Swansea like someone let a toddler loose on Google Street View. They took a very long time to amble through Swansea barely interacting with anyone until they ended up on the floor. Although I’ve seen many people do this around Wine Street so I suppose it’s somewhat realistic. I’m aware I’m glossing over the story aspect a bit there but so did the film. There was very little information given to us in episode two that wasn’t implied during the ending of the first broadcast that actually moves a story along. I don’t really think this short added anything to this story, which wouldn’t usually be a problem, do what you want like, but I don’t even want to imagine how much this broadcast cost to do.

Galwad, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have a live audience. It’s theatre playing to a camera. I think this is an odd choice. Why not make the medium of your performance suited to the content delivery type? A lot of the magic of city wide theatre and all that lovely real life stuff is being there with the actor and going on an adventure together, this does not track on film. Everyone seems a little too heightened for the camera and it exists in a weird space between theatre and film and all feels a bit too uncanny valley for me to begin to be immersed. 

I also have trouble understanding where the overarching tone of Galwad is sitting. Is the live element implying this is happening in real-time in this world? Or are we not suspending the disbelief that far and it’s all fiction? What is the idea that its live saying otherwise? Is it just a technical budget flex? What’s the point?

I don’t want to come across here as being contrary for the sake of it. I’m really not trying to be. This all seems so artificial I cannot bring myself to find value in what I’ve seen so far and its making me worried for the rest of the output. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe it’s not for me. Some people might have bloody loved this. If you did, please get in touch and tell me why, I’ve gotta be missing something somewhere.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of Galwad. I love immersive storytelling. I love the many techniques and methods that transmedia storytelling explores. I adore the idea of blending live video across a whole country following one story, how fucking brilliant. I can’t bring myself to love this because I’m really not sure what it’s trying to be.

Call me old fashioned, but if you’re going to spend an eye watering amount of money on a project to have this many moving parts, it’d be lovely if they were moving towards something with a bit more clarity.

The Other Room: Huno

Lowri Izzard – Branwen
David Craig – Math 
Tamar Williams – Writer 
Dan Jones – Director
Ruth Stringer – Set/Costume Designer
Elanor Higgins – Lighting Designer
Ian Barnard – Sound Designer
Annie Duggan – Fight Director
Peter Heenan – COVID19 Cover and Assistant Director 
Theo Hung – Stage Manager
Weronika Szumelda – Production Manager
Lara Sian Welford – Assistant Stage Manager 

This review does contain spoilers for the show.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have an affinity for the welsh language, to save your mind’s ear from being slightly confused I am told Huno is pronounced like a siren going ‘nee-naw’ but with a ‘he’ at the front. ‘He-naw’. I’ve absolutely called the show “hugh-no” in front of Welsh speakers so I wanted to save you some of the embarrassment. 

I have seen The Other Room take many different forms over the years but having half of the set submerged in water is a new one. I’ve always associated The Other Room with a venue trying to facilitate bold work and Stringer’s design of making a venue as tiny as The Other Room into a dock is certainly bold and made for an amazing atmosphere. Barnard’s minimalist soundscape made for a beautiful backdrop to the show, peppering the action with a touching motif, adding to the mythos and sense of hiraeth I felt was very integral to the design and the show. This, accompanied by Higgins’ compact lighting design, creating some beautiful moments with the reflections combined with the soft lighting curtained upstage came together to make something very easy to find yourself getting lost in. 

It is clear from the offset that Williams is a gifted storyteller, the way they capture characters and atmosphere in their words demonstrate their affinity and love for more natural moments which for me is what stood out in defining points of the show. There were points in the writing where I felt a little adrift from the action, sometimes, rarely, I didn’t quite know where we were, or what exactly was happening, or what was going on, but some of that is very well down to my lack of geopolitical knowledge, probably. Jones’ direction clearly identified and leaned into the battle between natural moments and timeless etheral snapshots.

If I were to put my wanky theatre reviewer scarf on and you put a gun to my head, I think a scream blackout is a little cliche for the type of production that this is and there was probably a more inventive way to handle a peak moment towards the end of the show, it seemed like a slightly weak payoff to the beautiful subtle sound design that was before it, but that being said, if we had way more time, probably a lot of theater would be a lot different, so I can’t moan too much at cliches being used. If you put another, second, big old gun to my head and made me find something else to say, I’d say as a whole the direction was a little safe, but I don’t think that detracts from the beautiful moments that are created during the show. Please stop putting guns to my head. 

The fact I am sitting here scrambling for criticisms and being able to justify all of them to myself as necessary evils tells me that this was a really well rounded show, they told a story and I came away feeling like I’d experienced something. What more could you ask for?

It feels remiss of me not to mention the two people on stage, I really don’t have a lot to say other than they were really damn strong. I wish I could add more nuance to that but they just were both great and adding more to this would be saying the same thing with different adjectives. 

Huno tells the story of two people from their chance meeting in a bar. We follow them through their life, and see the consequences of their politics, their love, and their values unfold as darker things take hold of a once serene landscape, and things start to become unrecognizable far away from home. 

You can catch Heno at The Other Room until Saturday evening, and I encourage you do!

https://www.otherroomtheatre.com/en/whats-on/seasons/writings-on-the-walls1/huno/

The Other Room: Constellation Street

*since publishing I have been made aware that the network series all have a very short rehearsal time as part of their process. Please take this into consideration when reading.

I realise that a lot of different organisations are coming together to create this lockdown content, so this god damn title doesn’t have to read National Theatre Wales + Sherman Theatre in partnership with BBC Cymru Wales + BBC Arts by The Other Room – I am just going to say it’s by The Other Room. From what I can tell since looking at stuff since my previous article on Ripples, I am not too sure about the relationship between those companies and the work but Dan Jones is directing it so that’s enough for me to attribute it to The Other Room. Despite the many large corporations including a broadcast company being credited on all the live shows, I really don’t understand how this partnership worked.

Again, my usual affidavit to my reviews – it’s less of a criticism and always ends up more like ‘with the gift of hindsight and not knowing your process at all here is how I would have done it better’ – which is obviously flawed, so take my words with a pinch of salt.

Cast
RAKIE AYOLA
MATTHEW GRAVELLE
JULIAN LEWIS JONES
REBECCA HAYES

Creative
DAN JONES
MATTHEW BULGO
TIC ASHFIELD

Technical
AMY WILDGOOSE
DEWI JONES

It seems like theatres now are in a catch-22. They don’t want to disappear off the radar so they must produce content. The content they produce will be in an unfamiliar format and lacking resources to make it as high of a quality as anyone would like it to be. Wankers like me will comment on it wondering why it’s not great. Either that or they don’t produce content and people start shouting about public money and why they aren’t doing Zoom epics like others. There is no winning really.

The way I am trying to look at the theatre produced now is in the light of how it would be received if someone were to put it out at the same time last year. It is a given that it’s fantastic that people are trying to create and making things happen, that really goes without saying. However, this is an industry based around creativity and in general there seems to be a lack of application of that trait in some regards.

Was a script-in-hand video-recorded rendition of Constellation Street the best choice? Don’t get me wrong the actors are great. The script is great. Is the finished product great? No. Not really. The video is bad quality. The sound is bad quality. When you bring these elements in and work with them, I believe that part of committing to that medium is to produce high quality content using it. This is not a problem with money and funding either, the problems with the footage aren’t the lack of physical resources. it seems to be an inherent problem with exactly what they tried to produce.

If they didn’t have the know-how on the team or were not able to seek it for this project to instruct someone how to bodge an even lighting cover using stuff from around a house, or to show someone how to get good sound quality on a phone, was this the very best medium?

You may have read that with a funny look on your face thinking they weren’t that bad. You heard it and you saw it, but is that the bar we want to set? If you walked into a theatre and were pleased because you were able to hear and see the production, I strongly suspect you need a bit more tabasco in your morning drink. The medium that they chose to deliver the content on was bland and uninviting and the visuals were unnecessary to the performance really. Theatre thrives off live energy and that energy doesn’t work through screen. A static camera looking at someone doing a piece-to-camera self-tape style for more than five minutes will get old, no matter how good the performer is. There is only so much you can do. Mix that with sub-par audio and visual and you get an experience that just does not hit at all in this format.

I suppose I am making a presumption here that the reason the video and sound wasn’t great was due to lack of collective knowledge on how to fix that problem. The other outcome is that everyone involved thought that it was okay. Make of that what you will, I suppose. I’m reserving all of my judgement for when society collapses any further and we return to Welsh theatres having a season of a monkey in a leek costume clapping on an upside down dustbin in the flaming ruins of Porters.

Also, why was it script it hand?

As some of you may know, I put out an online poll gathering peoples views on lockdown theatre, I was flicking through them before posting this and I stumbled across one response that articulates my thoughts better than I could, please see below:

Have you seen any lockdown theatre produced in Wales?

Yes

If yes, what were your thoughts on it?

Not very good. No understanding of the digital form – just theatre put on a digital platform so it didn’t work. No understanding of how audiences enjoy live differently to digital. Not enough dramatirgical input. Direction was just getting actors to sit against a blank wall. Use of props that aren’t suitable for online format. Feels like a rush to be seen rather than a creative, relevant response. I am so bored of all of it that I now just skip through digital shows and lives rather than watching the whole thing. This should be a creative opportunity to explore digital formats and not the art world speaking to itself. [sic]

– Anon

I will publish my poll results fully in a later article when I get more responses and can put them all together with fancy graphs and such.

if you would like to add your opinion into the poll, consisting of only the two questions above, please click here.

NTW, Sherman, BBC Cymru Wales, Royal Welsh: Ripples

My reviews end up looking like notes that no one asked for a lot of the time, it is a common theme with my reviews if you are new here.

I should really title it ‘Danny tells people how he thinks the work could be better when they absolutely didnt ask’ but I cant be bothered to re-edit the header image. Too busy eating crisps and staring out of the window.

Also, on the National Theatre Wales website it says Ripples was available until the 16^th of May but their whole back catalogue is just open on their Vimeo, so I am unsure what is going on there.

Cast
CATRIN WALKER-BOOTH
JOHN TATE
LUKE NUNN
EMILY JOHN
SHANNEN MCNEICE
MARK HENRY DAVIES
DAFYDD THOMAS
MERYN DAVIES WILLIAMS

Creative
TRACY HARRIS – Writer
MATTHEW HOLMQUIST – Director
TIC ASHFIELD – Sound Designer
JORGE LIZALDE – Videographer

Production
DEMELZA MONK – DSM
DEWI JONES – Technician

I remarked to a friend when I just started watching this that almost everyone looks like a Royal Welsh student. I was then told that they all are.
I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say about this other than it’s gotten to a slightly weird point where you can instantly tell if it’s a Royal Welsh cast. I suppose anywhere else would be more openly hounded for an entirely young and attractive cast.

The writing and creative team had a month to adapt this to work for Zoom as it was not intended to be performed this way, so some of my critique is obviously not aimed at the intentions of the production and more just the consequence of how it had to be performed.

Acting for Zoom is a funny old thing. It is complicated. It is not like acting on a stage because the suspension of disbelief is in a totally different place. Suddenly you aren’t in an imaginary little circle of your own attention in a black box room you are in a highly realistic environment indistinguishable from a non-performative one to an outside eye except you’ve got some lines to say.
I am highly aware that I just described acting for screen there. I suppose zoom is a screen, but whereas with screen acting you have a team around you and the added bonus of cinematography and all that comes with it to bolster you up and make things more interesting. With Zoom it is all on you, no flashy lights, bells, or whistles. It is with that burden that acting for Zoom is such a complicated issue. Directing and writing for it as well.

Choosing Zoom specifically is a bold choice. I am sure we have all been in Zoom calls before and to replicate a true feel of that in a controlled theatre setting is ruddy hard and not without its challenges. I admire the choice that has been made because it is infinitely more interesting than a script reading where everyone records their parts separately somewhere, but you open yourself up to so much stuff that can break immersion.
For a wild example, when in the history of the universe when someone asks seven people in a Zoom call if they all have pen and paper handy do they all have it in hand within three seconds? This sounds super nit-picky. It is super nit-picky, but for me that killed it dead. It planted a little seed of doubt in my mind that made me wonder how much was committed to transferring it to the reality of this new medium.
After that there was a moment where someone interrupted someone to silence during them talking.

To show my point here I need to do a little explaining. It is often presented like this:

X: Hey did you hear about Y’s Mum, she is so –
Z: Watch what you are saying!

(You can tell I really earned my C in GCSE Eng. Lit)

Which on an actual stage would work, because in real life you can interrupt people. Over Zoom people very often talk over each other a bit. there is a slight delay between you speaking and people speaking back. Due to this, being spoke over is not always a cut off. It is almost impossible to be stopped mid-sentence by someone talking at normal volume. There are a few instances here of people stopping dialogue short a few words just so we can hear the reactions clearly which would not usually seem artificial but seems so odd when you’re looking at it through Zoom as it simply doesn’t make sense within the given universe and you are reminded you are listening to a script with intended interruptions.

Someone leaves the room still in the call at one point and a character remarks “let her go.” Which in real life makes perfect sense. It is feasible that someone may go after her to talk to her or what-not.
In a Zoom call that implication quickly becomes nonsense implying he start begging the already silent characters not to suddenly start screaming like banshees down their laptops to try and halt her in her tracks.

Why on earth am I mentioning all this? What does it matter?

Even though these circumstances where it had to be filmed like this were beyond anyone’s control. It is coming out of Royal Welsh. With the Sherman’s involvement. Being hosted by National Theatre Wales. In partnership with BBC Cymru Wales. I can think of only a few extra additions to that mixing pot of huge Welsh players and originations that could be involved with this project. I am a little disappointed that with all of that there weren’t a few more cogs in the machine to really go the extra mile and create something bloody brilliant and groundbreaking.

Obviously I have not forgotten we are in the midst of a global pandemic and things are different currently, but I don’t believe lowering expectations of some of Wales’ biggest players in the arts scene is the appropriate response.

I think I’ve exhausted your attention if you have got this far.
This all makes it seem like I hated it. I didn’t. The performances were interesting for the most part. The gaps in logic with the medium made the directing a little confused at points.

I am not going to give it a star rating, what would I be comparing it against? That format doesn’t really work here. They tried to do something different and made something interesting that brought up a lot of challenges and themes that will be interesting going forward into lockdown theatre.

Spilt Milk: Five Green Bottles

You can see the review of the first time round as part of Cardiff Fringe here: https://cardifftheatrereview.wordpress.com/2018/06/09/spilt-milk-five-green-bottles/

You can see my review of the opening night as if some press guy didn’t realise it wasn’t all part of the play here: https://cardifftheatrereview.wordpress.com/2019/04/12/spilt-milk-five-green-bottles-2/

Angharad Berrow
Aly Cruickshank
Olivia Martin
Tobias Weatherburn

Writer/AD – Joe Wiltshire Smith
Co-Writer – Kirsty Philipps
Director – Becca Lidstone
Producer – Tobias Weatherburn
SM – Hadley Taylor
Design – Ceci Calf
Sound Design – Nick Laws
Lighting Design – Garrin Clarke
Set Assistant – Aleks Carlyon
Tech Assistant – Theodore Hung

Reading back over my previous review of this, it seems like my review style has changed a bit, it all reads so positive and nice, I think I have become much more jaded and bitter since then.

Writing this review in a somewhat comparative manner is akin to the blind blinding the blind as I can barely remember what I had to for breakfast let alone something last year – that being said, the script pertains it’s wit and nuance that made it stand out so much the first time round, it’s a very good script, it was then, and it is now.

It’s very hard to write about this show without spoiling plot. This isn’t usually too much of a problem, but this script to achieve its maximum impact needs the audience to somewhat enter unknowing to what the show is about. I suppose this could be said for any piece of theatre, though.

The new iteration of this script reads as fundamentally the same script as the first time round but tweaked and tightened here and there. Some of what has changed are the two principal characters, this time round they feel a lot more human and grounded – whilst some of the more exaggerated qualities still remain, which makes total sense in the journey of the piece, they have been somewhat a little more anchored to the ground.

The design overall is really nice, I feel like it’s somewhat of a staple on my review blog now to note that a lighting design is “simple, minimalistic, and did exactly what it needed to do” but Garrin Clarke’s lighting design was simple, minimalistic, and it did exactly what it needed to do, ebbing into the abstract a little further on very nicely. Nick Laws’ sound design really guided the slow descent into the weird that this production takes, so slowly that you barely notice it before you have an earful of static and remember that was once a lovely song being played, – these alongside Ceci Calf’s 60’s capture of what initially seems like a wonderfully normal living room somewhere really made for a captivating design through and through.

The show kept the same cast as the previous time and the performances were just as good as before Angharad Berrow is still a powerhouse and Aly Cruickshank still took the audience on the journey they needed, revealing slowly the detail needed for the story to piece itself together very masterfully. Tobias Weatherburn’s performance stood out to me especially, there was a certain sharpness and cold to this performance that I don’t remember from last time which really worked.

Some of these things also apply to Becca Lidstone’s directing, she succeeds in setting up a journey for the audience to be guided down, revealing bits of a puzzle as it goes forward, slowly slotting things into place as it moves forward. As I have seen this before and know what’s going on, a tell for me that she did succeed in this was a collective gasp and one “ooh” of acknowledgement towards the end when the couple behind me ’figured out’ what was going on.

There are some things that they did not get right. I don’t quite understand what the occasional jellyfish dance during some transitions was meant to achieve, it seemed quite loose and not purposeful, I don’t know why the choice was made to make one character sing over the top of a musical transition a totally different song. There is so much dance in this production, I think it would be amazing if they did this again to get someone on board to choreograph the transitions and movement to really impact as strong as some of those moments could.

Reading my old review whilst writing this, a lot of the joy that I found in the first production was that it was a minimalist fringe show with big aims, whilst it isn’t really that anymore it still had big aims, and it is still as bold of a piece as before and that is admirable.

This production is not fundamentally different enough for me to really understand how to give it another arbitrary star rating, whilst it is in a different venue with a totally different design, I do feel like it is fundamentally the same entity with other fantastic creatives on board, it feels like a reworking of the fringe show, instead of a different beast entirely.

Spilt Milk are an emerging and developing company, the first review I ever did was for one of their scratch nights and it’s fantastic they have had something in the Sherman Studio, I hope they keep growing and keep expanding and I very much look forward to whatever they do next.

Five Green Bottles is a witty exploration of overwhelming sexual intrigue and the unbridled lengths that some will go to when left to their own devices.

Spilt Milk: Five Green Bottles

(if you are seeing this independently of my other post for some reason – this isn’t actually my review, you can find that here: https://cardifftheatrereview.wordpress.com/2019/04/12/spilt-milk-five-green-bottles-3/)

I sat down on opening night thinking that this would just be an ordinary production, there was nothing to indicate otherwise – It was in the Sherman Studio which is a great space and was greeted by Ceci Calf’s set – a 60’s house, a little run down, but otherwise well loved, – and sat down to the action, the production is witty and the writing is nuanced, the performances were interesting and left the audiences wanted more. The production took a shock twist about twenty minutes into the show with some amazing misdirection and  SFX makeup (best I have seen)  there was blood everywhere but it sort of carried on as usual – now I do love a bit of abstract theatre –  all of a sudden one of the characters stops the play and the audience are huddled back into the foyer by the ushers, which was fantastic because I didn’t even realise they were actors and in on it.

This is a really interesting move for Spilt Milk to play with the space like this and get involved with more wall-breaking immersion – suddenly another character appears and you’re put in a car with the bleeding actor character, someone playing the director of the show and some other characters close to the bleeding actor.

This move really made me appreciate the logistical effort that Spilt Milk must have gone through to pull this off. Realistically this show could only be performed to one person per night as there was only one space in that car, which must mean the entire audience were also in on it – fantastic work. The dialogue in the car felt really naturalistic, everyone seemed genuinely concerned, there wasn’t much of a plot or a narrative at this point but I gathered it was going somewhere and they’ll be a payoff at some point.

The car pulled up at what I presume was a studio A&E set, but I tell you what, the budget for this show must have been huge because there were so many characters in that waiting room. Ceci Calf must have really gone into overdrive with the design of this room, it felt really realistic and Joe Wiltshire Smith must have written so much dialogue for this show because there were so many conversations being had all at once, it was like I was actually in a waiting room. The production carried on and you could see people trying to make the bleeding actor character feel better, the audience member was given the freedom to wander around, you couldn’t explore too far into the hospital before one of shows production team dressed as a security guard forcibly throws you back into the waiting room which was a great touch. After a while of experiencing this environment the bleeding actor character gets their head put back together and you can really tell at that close range how good the effects make up is on this show (and such a shame they aren’t credited on the freesheet, but I understand that it would ruin the immersion) – then the audience is put back in the car and you are taken back to the theatre where some of the audience characters from earlier are still there! I didn’t know when it was supposed to end so at this point, I started clapping and they all looked at me really strange, it’s amazing how they didn’t break character even then.

I would like to reflect of the scope of this project, Spilt Milk is still an emerging company and this really was a step up;

Presuming they were paying equity minimum on everyone involved and taken into account the choreography and timing that would have gone into it at, would have taken at least a week. I’d say there were probably about 60 actors in the audience alone, 3 on stage/car/A&E, at least another 50 coming in and out of the A&E set, that’s 113 performers! For a week of rehearsal and a week of show that’s £54,579.

That’s a lot of scratch nights. Presuming you get about £150 per scratch night, that’s 363 scratch nights just for the actors time alone.

I didn’t even realise they did that many.

Taking into account the design, materials, added costs I think this could easily cost £75’000 – which is especially impressive considering the tickets cost £7.50 and you also get a pie and a pint.

 

Dirty Protest: How To Be Brave

Katie – Laura Dalgleish

Written by Siân Owen
Directed by Catherine Paskell
Producer – Shane Nickels
SM/LX – Dave Beaver
Sound Design – Dan Lawrence
Choreographer – Bridie Smith
Designer – Cory Shipp

For the interest of total transparency, I received free tickets for this production. I saw the first preview. I have worked on this project but not on the show (I pushed the DOP around in a wheelchair filming the trailer) – but this review, as with all my others, will be my honest thoughts on the production as a whole.

Until very recently I have only been aware of Dirty Protest through whisperings of people enjoying their work, smatterings of positive reviews across the internet, and a general passive interest in any theatre company that names themselves after smearing shit over the walls.

This is an odd place to start with my usual through-line of how I approach the reviewing of a production, but as I write this slumped over a chair in the Costa in the Red Dragon Centre attempting to recall the production from the night before it’s absolutely something that stands out to me. Dan bloody Lawrence is very good at what he does. Anyone who has worked with him before or heard his designs probably doesn’t need to be told this, but he created this beautiful evolving soundscape that compliments the production at every second, there is a real constant narrative and flow to the sound that really holds the audiences hand through the journey and amplifies (pun intended) all of the action around it. I find the trouble that you get with any one actor show is that the audience tend to fall asleep, leave, or burst into tears at around the 50m mark as there is only so much of one person you can take – this incredible design really offset that.

This is a one woman show that has been absolutely grasped with full force by Laura Dalgleish as Katie. From the second you enter the room she beams with confidence when greeting people by the door, and the show goes on just as strong. I cannot think of anyone better than Laura to play Katie. She is able to embody the brutal honesty and fast paced emotional work that the play demands.  Her work as Katie is especially powerful as you are led down this absolutely bonkers story that by itself is damn hard to follow and she just picks the audience up and takes them along with her, from the mud banks near the Castle all the way to Mendalgief Road – we don’t lose that once, all the while making the audience laugh and cry alongside her. It is an exceptionally impressive performance.

After seeing the show, myself and a good friend of mine Angharad (Someone who I ironically met after writing a review on the production she was in on here, I swear I don’t use this blog just to garner friendships ((I do)) found ourselves discussing what we thought the show was about whilst watching the sea at Porthcawl beach, because I like to live my life in such a way that would confuse anyone who ever looks at the GPS coordinates on my phone. We discussed that we thought the production was about coping but that it had something so uniquely feminine about it that really resonated with her in a way that I couldn’t really comprehend, for that I think is another testament to the strength of the writing and the performance.

The design was lovely, it was minimalist, and it did all that it needed to. As with the lighting, the nit-picky part of my brain recognises that it’s a circle on the floor and it’s a square of lights around it, and yeah, there probably could have been a more interesting way to stage that, but the actual realistic part of my brain quite rightly informs me that it would be silly to make something more complicated that it needed to be, and what it was worked really nicely.

Also I want to mention how fantastic the choreography that Bridie Smith designed, even just for the few minutes in the show that the dance is happening it was really damn strong and resulted in a huge applause mid-show, it perfectly captured that era of dance and the childlike style.

How To Be Brave is an adventure through escapism, coping, and climbing over fences you shouldn’t. It’s as hilarious as it is touching.
★★★★☆

Cardiff Theatre Review’s 2018 Breakdown

Unlike the title suggests, this isn’t me having a breakdown – that is a Monday morning activity – this is a look at the year that has passed I have seen a lot of people writing their 2018 in review, some of have been amazing, articulate, interesting and thought provoking. Unfortunately, this will not be that.

I am writing this on the morning on New Years Eve as it’s the only time I have been able to sit down with a laptop for a bit. So, it will be a little more concise as It’s a focus on the things that come to mind when I am sat on my couch writing this, in somewhat more of a note format – exciting, huh?

• It’s been a heck of a year for The Other Room, haven’t they done well? They have, yeah.
• It’s also been a heck of a year for Kevin Jones, hasn’t he done well? He has, yeah.
• It’s also been a heck of a year for Clocktower, haven’t they done well? Yeah.
• Spilt Milk did Five Green Bottles, wasn’t that great? Yeah.
• Faebian Averies put on her debut piece Detention, wasn’t that great? Yeah
• Big Loop did their longest run to date of a show, isn’t that exciting? Yeah
• Performances for the Curious, wasn’t First Lady amazing? It was, yeah.
• Remember when some artistic directors were elitist? Yeah
• Remember when some artistic directors were awesome? Yeah.
• Remember all the open letters? Yeah.
• Remember the awesome amount of scratch, R&D, and exploration work that has been facilitated by big arts institutions this year? Awesome.
• Remember some of the great scratch performances you have seen this year? These are important.
• Remember some of the rubbish scratch performances you have seen this year? These are important, too!
• Remember at the start of the year when some major arts institutions revealed they had a 1970’s view on inclusion and diversity? Yeah.
• Remember when at one point about four different theatre companies held a quiz night within the space of a week in different venues? Yeah.
• What is Mike Smith doing? Nobody knows.

A shout out to a bunch of other Cardiff/Wales based critics/organisations I have enjoyed the work of in 2018;

• Get The Chance
• Wales Arts Review.
• Jafar Iqbal,
• Luke Seidel-Haas/Whiplash Review
• Gareth Ford-Elliot

Here are a few honorable mentions that really stood out to me;

Christian Britten’s video design in Terry Victor’s Clarissa

(Photo Noel Le Conte)

When thinking of cool video production and design this year, Britten’s design is honestly the one that totally stands out above the others – this photo does little justice to the wonders that were created.

Service! By Clocktower Theatre Company

I saw this towards the start of the year in The Gate – It’s so fun. Something I wish I saw more of is fun, a lot of theatre I see is so thought provoking, beautiful, measured – but rarely is it just for fun. Service! Is just pure unadulterated fun and side splittingly funny.

Flossy and Boo – The Alternativity

The same notion applies towards Flossy and Boo’s The Alternativity for just being great fun. (I was the Stage Manger for this, but it’s not a conflict of interest if it’s also just true.)

Five Green Bottles

(Spilt Milk, written by Joe Wiltshire-Smith)

The honorable mention here is for how it was marketed, the writing, and the overall quality of the performances.

Thanks to everyone that follows this little page I started about a year ago now, some people even invite me to press nights now because of this, mental. I really appreciate your support in reading these little strands of chaos I occasionally post out on twitter.

Speaking of twitter, this now has it’s own little twitter – you can find it at @ReviewCardiff

Here’s to 2019, for more awesome work, more opportunities for everyone, and more theatre subsidised free wine.

Danny.

Big Loop Theatre Company: Cheer

Written and Stage Managed by Kitty Hughes
Music/Sound by Matthew Holmquist
Lighting by Garrin Clarke
Directed by Duncan Hallis
Set Design by Ceci Half
Venue – The Other Room
Jules – Alice Downing
Todd – Cory Tucker
I have mentioned all the other Big Loop people so I’m also just going to put the name George Soave on here, did he produce it? Probably.
George Soave.

Before things about the show, an aside;

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 (I am referencing The Stage’s review of this play – https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2018/cheer-review-at-the-other-room-cardiff-cynical-but-strained-anti-christmas-comedy/)

I’m not saying that Davis’ viewpoint on the show is flawed, he makes points I agree with – however his stance on adolescence in theatre is one that presumes all theatre must present itself in a certain way and god forbid a theatre company brand themselves otherwise.

Is there no room for adolescence in theatre Nicholas Davis? What is so inherently bad about the use of the word ‘fuck’ in the freesheet that it takes up a sizable portion of your review? I hope your review was a cleverly worded satire on the elitist nature of theatre criticism, but I strongly suspect it wasn’t.

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Big Loop make it really clear that they really value feedback and as a young company
they want to grow from the feedback, which I think is great, so if at any point in reading this review you think it’s going on a bit, it absolutely is, this is more “notes that no one asked for” rather than “review”.

Cheer follows Todd (Cory Tucker) trying to obtain a fraudulent Christmas license from Jules (Alice Downing) in a world where Christmas is outlawed aside from those who can pay for the privilege. The production follows the unfolding dynamic between them both, focusing on ‘cheer’ the drug that makes everything festive, Todd’s bargaining tool.

I love the design. The Other Room is such a cool space that it is so easy to utilise the kinda weird shape it forms and turn it into so many things. The set that Half has created is great, if you weren’t previously familiar with the layout there is an awesome reveal that is a great utilisation of the space – the set on the whole looks really interesting and complimented by Clarke’s LX design to make some really stand out moments. Adding Holmquist’s (a man, who between me seeing this play and writing this review have been mistaken for twice) sound design into the mix makes for some really atmospheric moments

I first saw this production on the first preview and went to see it again on one if it’s last days to see how it progressed and evolved during the run.

To be candidly honest it had improved, but not as much as I would have expected given the time the show was going on for. There were some fundamental problems in the show that I do not feel ever got addressed to the extent they needed to get addressed.

The first show I saw the lines were still a bit uncertain but the actors felt like they were listening to each other and there was the blossoming hope of a powerful dynamic forming that would grow as the show went on, however when I saw the show a second time it appeared to have fallen into a tennis match of lines just being fired back and forth and it didn’t really feel like anyone was listening to each other on the stage, it had gotten to the point where it had settled into comfort – which I totally understand can happen on long runs, but it’s really important to recognise when that is happening and make provisions to ensure that the run doesn’t stagnate like this.

The play teases the audience with some physical theatre moments towards the end, but not enough for it to be a ‘thing’ and it isn’t utilised in any other points, which I think is a great shame. I believe if utilised with more precision it could have sculpted the piece into a more formed direction.

A lot of the things that I don’t understand about this production would fall into a collection of small things for which I can’t understand why the decision was made to keep it in the production. Whilst you can have a character fall to the floor screaming looking like they are fitting to show that they are going through something, is there a less literal representation of that which would hit harder? To see an actor faux-fit on stage may feel powerful, but it makes an audience member think is “oh, they’re pretending to do that now” as the reality is, unless your audience is absolutely taken away and it’s done perfectly, the room is aware that such a raw display of chaotic energy will generate discomfort that will sap away at the immersion, not add to it.

When you make a ‘drug play’ one of the conventions of that style are kinda wacky trip scenes, which this play has a few of, which were alright and later on displays some awesome LX/SFX/VFX design, but the first two at least we see Todd and Jules do the classic overhappy fool routine that you see people mashed doing, which is great, but once the audience got that I felt it reminded the audience a fair few times that this was what was happening – whilst there was loads of exposition that needed to happen in those moments early on, but I think it would have been great for it to be more crafted slapstick than mashed up antics as there isn’t much dramatic value in watching people sorta dope around a stage for a bit after we get that.

I recognise that’s a lot of moany nonsense. There are things I really did enjoy about it. The writing on a whole is interesting and the story is woven well, there are many moments that are genuinely really funny, the structure is solid, I had a lot of fun. – my lengthy paragraphing is more a response to them wanting feedback and criticism more than me thinking you all needed to know that was all stuff I thought.

A Christmas dinner made up of intrigue, comedy, drugs, and drowned in the delicious gravy of classist undertones.
★★★☆☆