Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Nine

Lord of the Flies (ballet), Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2014.

We'd not been back from our holidays a week before I was off to the theatre again and after enjoying Swan Lake so much last year I leapt at the chance to see another Matthew Bourne ballet.

Here's a shocking confession for a bookworm to make - I've never read the Golding novel Lord of the Flies. I know the basic plot premise but none of the details.  I considered reading it while we were away and then decided that I wouldn't - I'd watch the ballet first and see if I could follow the story.

The answer is a resounding yes - from the very first movement on the stage to the last I understood and followed the storyline throughout, and just like Swan Lake I found it incredibly moving and powerful and at times incredibly tense and scary.

This wasn't traditional ballet but it was all about the choreography and movement and this time the cast was all male. Interestingly not all of the cast were professionals either. Back in April a call went out for people interested in the project to come to a taster session and since then local boys and young men have been trained to such a standard that I could see no way of telling them apart from the fixed touring cast.

I was transfixed throughout the whole performance and like so many theatrical experiences this year if it was possible I'd go and see it again like a shot - there is so much happening on the stage all of the time that I don't think it would be like seeing the same thing twice... I am going to read the novel now and see how they compare.

The new season has just been announced at the theatre and I already have tickets for Bourne's Edward Scissorhands but I am also contemplating some of the more traditional ballets and giving opera another go.  Good productions are dangerous as they just make you want to see more and more!

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-One

To Kill a Mockingbird, Theatre Royal, Norwich. September 2014.

I ran out of time to see this at the Open Air Theatre both last summer and this so I was very pleased to read it was coming to Norwich and that some colleagues were as keen as me to see it.

From the moment the actors appeared on the stage to the moment the curtain fell I was transfixed and I was living in 1930s America with the cast.

Rather than turning the book into a straight play and adding too much new dialogue to a classic story the cast read from the novel and various scenes are then acted out, I'm not familiar enough with the text to know if this was the original dialogue but for me it worked absolutely.

The big courtroom scene blew me away totally and even though I knew how it ended I was swept away totally and really couldn't believe that a anyone would have reached the verdict reached.  I loved the playing of the scene to the audience as well, making us the jury worked brilliantly.

The whole production was incredibly strong, with a very small part of me finding the young actor playing Jem to be a little weaker than the rest but apart from that the staging, the music and the who thing were just fantastic.

By the end I had a definite lump in my throat (as did my companions) and this play has jumped right up towards the tops of my favourite plays of the year.

The pictures are better on the radio

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue recording, Theatre Royal Norwich. April 2014.

Radio comedy often beats that on the television hands down, there are a few exceptions but in the main I'd rather hear things on the radio than watch them - the pictures are better!

Thanks to the generosity of a friend who stood in line outside the theatre on the day the tickets went on sale Mr Norfolkbookworm and I (along with said friend and another) got the chance to attend a double recording of the next series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. 

Without a doubt I think that it was possibly the funniest thing I have ever heard.

I've attended the recording of a radio sitcom before but this straight antidote to panel games was fantastic.  The regulars were all present (Jack Dee, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Crier plus Collin Sell on piano) and the fourth panelist, making her debut on the shoe, was Susan Calman.  Scoring was looked after by both Sven and the ever delightful Samantha.

Each episode recorded at least an hour of comedy and we were lucky enough to have all of my favourite rounds played - Uxbridge English Dictionary, Mornington Crescent and Sound Charades.  Even rounds I don't like so much normally - letter writing with players alternating words - is hysterical when you can see the faces the teams pull at each other and the corpsing it caused!
The laser display screen malfunctioned at one point with the audience thinking one thing was being 'mimed' but the teams acting out another!

The two shows we saw recorded will be broadcast on 30th June 2014 and 7th July 2014 and I can't wait to hear them and see what made the cut.  Oh and even though it was fun to see behind the scenes as the show was taped I still maintain that it makes better radio than it ever would television.

Theatre 2014: Review Eleven

Propeller's The Comedy of Errors, Theatre Royal Norwich. March 2014.

I've heard a lot about Propeller over the past few years and this year was the first time that I've been able to see them as they visit Norwich.  They are an all male company but they update Shakespeare rather than follow any of the other features of Original Practice.

Several days on I am still not sure what I think about what I saw. Propeller certainly took the word Comedy and ran with it but for me it went so far that it stopped being funny.  This is one of the plays I have studied this year and I do know that there is more to the play than the slapstick humour.

The modern dress didn't bother me too much, nor the setting in a Spanish/Mexican town but the way the lines were delivered and the modernising of them to get light-saber jokes in went too far.  It was a master class in slapstick but that it was always a slave being beaten may not have been clear to the audience.

Men dressing as women obviously appealed to the rest of the audience I saw the play with as every time a man in a dress appeared there were hysterics. Mind you as the characters were played in a manner that reminded me of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Rocky Horror and a Vicars and Tarts party perhaps they weren't to far wide of the mark...!

I was looking forward to seeing this play from this company and I came away feeling very disappointed. It was like bad student pantomime, roll on the version at The Globe later in the year.