Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Monday, 31 March 2008
Arms and the Man
Another success! Well done to all concerned; it is, as always, invidious to single anyone out but The Director/Set Designer/Costume Maker consortium deserve praise and as far as the cast is concerned it is so encouraging to see more new faces on the stage. We look forward to seeing more of them and a special word of praise for Mike Chapman who stepped so nobly into the breeches when an original cast member left in a hissy fit.
Audience feedback was very positive ( a Full House on Saturday) and several first timers expressed firm intentions of coming again.
So here's to Lettice and Lovage !
Incidentally, Mistress Henslowe and I attended a performance of "A Small Family Business" at the RWCMaD last week; very enjoyable with good ensemble acting and a very interesting skeleton set but certainly no better than what was on offer at the Market Theatre.
Audience feedback was very positive ( a Full House on Saturday) and several first timers expressed firm intentions of coming again.
So here's to Lettice and Lovage !
Incidentally, Mistress Henslowe and I attended a performance of "A Small Family Business" at the RWCMaD last week; very enjoyable with good ensemble acting and a very interesting skeleton set but certainly no better than what was on offer at the Market Theatre.
Saturday, 15 March 2008
AN EVENING OF DELIGHT
Brave man that he is Lloyd Lee asked me to write a review of his show 'Educating Charlie,' so I have.
AN EVENING OF DELIGHT
It is impossible to use too many superlatives in describing Lloyd’s Lee’s one-man show based on the entertainments that Charles Dickens himself used to give. But ‘Educating Charlie’ is much more than a series of readings - it is a full-hearted theatrical event, both excellently written and magnificently performed.
In the show we trace the story of Dickens' life from his humble Portsmouth beginnings, through his happy youth in Chatham and then to the great London wen, following in the footsteps of his father’s distress. We feel for him as he is put to work, aged 12, as a humble toiler in a boot blacking factory by the Thames. As he tells this tale of the ups and downs of a young life, he describes the real adults who peopled it and shows us how he used them as models for the characters in his novels whom we know and have come to love - Pickwick, Mr Jingle, Wackford Squeers, The Micawbers, Sam Weller, Fagin and so on.
Lloyd manages to bring real Victorian authenticity to this eclectic family. He commands a range of accents and voices that is at once as at home in portraying the squeaking high Cockney treble of an agonised Mrs Micawber as it is the low Yiddish bass of Fagin. And as with the voice, Lloyd’s action and gestures convince us that we are in the actual presence of these souls so that we, the audience, experience the same astonishment and bewilderment that Dickens himself must have done as a boy in his encounters with the poets and schoolteachers, cabmen and boot boys he found in his new London world.
Truly, this is a mighty show and as good an evening’s transport of delight as ever one might hope to encounter on the London, or any other stage.
Peter Sain ley Berry
EuropaWorld
15/3/08
AN EVENING OF DELIGHT
It is impossible to use too many superlatives in describing Lloyd’s Lee’s one-man show based on the entertainments that Charles Dickens himself used to give. But ‘Educating Charlie’ is much more than a series of readings - it is a full-hearted theatrical event, both excellently written and magnificently performed.
In the show we trace the story of Dickens' life from his humble Portsmouth beginnings, through his happy youth in Chatham and then to the great London wen, following in the footsteps of his father’s distress. We feel for him as he is put to work, aged 12, as a humble toiler in a boot blacking factory by the Thames. As he tells this tale of the ups and downs of a young life, he describes the real adults who peopled it and shows us how he used them as models for the characters in his novels whom we know and have come to love - Pickwick, Mr Jingle, Wackford Squeers, The Micawbers, Sam Weller, Fagin and so on.
Lloyd manages to bring real Victorian authenticity to this eclectic family. He commands a range of accents and voices that is at once as at home in portraying the squeaking high Cockney treble of an agonised Mrs Micawber as it is the low Yiddish bass of Fagin. And as with the voice, Lloyd’s action and gestures convince us that we are in the actual presence of these souls so that we, the audience, experience the same astonishment and bewilderment that Dickens himself must have done as a boy in his encounters with the poets and schoolteachers, cabmen and boot boys he found in his new London world.
Truly, this is a mighty show and as good an evening’s transport of delight as ever one might hope to encounter on the London, or any other stage.
Peter Sain ley Berry
EuropaWorld
15/3/08
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Sunday, 17 February 2008
West Side Story
The students at the Welsh College of Music and Drama have been performing West Side Story over the past fortnight and last night was the final performance, so they gave it a bit of welly. And then some! Wow! It was one of those magical occasions when the audience has a perfect rapport with the cast and the magic of theatre creates a electric atmosphere that raises the whole performance to new heights. Of course, we all know the songs, veiled as they are for most of us in our younger romantic years and hearing them again, with the emotion of the story, I found the tears just pouring down my cheeks.
But it was just so well done. The choreography was perfect - perfect - the design could not be bettered, the energy of the boys and girls, who will in a year or two be taking their parts in West End musicals and in the Bill, Casualty or Coronation Street, was abundant, the singing, raw with feeling and deeper meaning, the orchestra superb, brassy, rhythmic, passionate.
At the end the 700 hundred seat Sherman rose in acclamation. A standing ovation and worth every thunderous minute and whistle. That is what live theatre is all about.
But it was just so well done. The choreography was perfect - perfect - the design could not be bettered, the energy of the boys and girls, who will in a year or two be taking their parts in West End musicals and in the Bill, Casualty or Coronation Street, was abundant, the singing, raw with feeling and deeper meaning, the orchestra superb, brassy, rhythmic, passionate.
At the end the 700 hundred seat Sherman rose in acclamation. A standing ovation and worth every thunderous minute and whistle. That is what live theatre is all about.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Lettice and Lovage
We shall now be reading 'Lettice and Lovage' at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 19 February (this being the preferred day). Everyone is invited. The play is a comedy by Peter Shaffer. Time: the present.
The venue will be my house - Llanquian House, St Athan Road, Cowbridge. For those that don't know it, this is a white house with dormer windows with a Citroen Picasso outside about 150 yards down from the traffic lights and on the left hand side of the road. Telephone is 01446-773874 Look forward to seeing you all there.
If you are interested in being a part of the production but can't come to the reading, please let me know. Subject to casting etc the production is planned for around 3rd week of July. It will go into rehearsal at the beginning of May. As before please extend this invitation to anyone who does not appear on the mailing list whom you think might like to come along. It would be helpful if anyone that hasn't told me already they would like to come, could let me know as soon as possible either by telephone or email pslb@mac.com
Peter SLB
The venue will be my house - Llanquian House, St Athan Road, Cowbridge. For those that don't know it, this is a white house with dormer windows with a Citroen Picasso outside about 150 yards down from the traffic lights and on the left hand side of the road. Telephone is 01446-773874 Look forward to seeing you all there.
If you are interested in being a part of the production but can't come to the reading, please let me know. Subject to casting etc the production is planned for around 3rd week of July. It will go into rehearsal at the beginning of May. As before please extend this invitation to anyone who does not appear on the mailing list whom you think might like to come along. It would be helpful if anyone that hasn't told me already they would like to come, could let me know as soon as possible either by telephone or email pslb@mac.com
Peter SLB
Thursday, 14 February 2008
How many ?
I do remember making an attempt to update the numerical list of CADS productions a few years ago, but we must have updated a few computers since then, because I simply can't find the info anywhere.
What memory I have left is trying to tell me that I sent copies to the relevant committee at the time, and I was wondering if anyone else might just have a PC version available - I though it would be good to bring it right up to date and print it in the next newsletter perhaps - or on this very blog, maybe, or both !
I would also be inspiring to know that "Arms and the Man" is production number xxx.
What memory I have left is trying to tell me that I sent copies to the relevant committee at the time, and I was wondering if anyone else might just have a PC version available - I though it would be good to bring it right up to date and print it in the next newsletter perhaps - or on this very blog, maybe, or both !
I would also be inspiring to know that "Arms and the Man" is production number xxx.
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