Following its rousing success with The Play That Goes Wrong, Mischief Movie Night and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Mischief Theatre are back with their unique take on J.M. Barrie’s Christmassy classic Peter Pan, which descends into utter chaos in what might just be their best show yet.

The poster warns us that this is not a pantomime – indeed, an increasingly irritated Captain Hook (Connor Crawford, in one of three excellent performances) reminds us of that fact, even as we the audience gamely reply ‘OH, YES IT IS!’ – but there’s enough magic, musical numbers and mishaps to be considered one. The comedy starts even before the curtain rises, from the hilarious programme (including an in memoriam section for Nadia the crocodile) to the bored-looking stagehands roping in audience members and fusing the whole theatre trying to light a few tiny lamps. The gang have crafted something of a stage-bound MCU – a Mischief Theatrical Universe, if you will – in which their hapless cast and crew from “Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society” slowly descend into chaos and madness: their inventory of onstage oopsies include malfunctioning tech, sets on the verge of collapse and all manner of bungled staging, line deliveries and prop mishaps – and it’s a deceitfully clever, canny formula that runs like clockwork.

The whole cast is an incredible, fine-tuned machine of mischief and they all work so hard – though perhaps none so toilsomely as thespian troupers Oliver Senton and Phoebe Ellabani. Senton plays the over-enthusiastic AD, Nana the Dog, and a particularly unintelligible pirate who sounds like those blokes from Hot Fuzz – but perhaps his best moments come when he inhabits – nay embodies – the role of Peter’s Shadow, which is worth seeing the show for alone. Ellabani has maybe the most divergent set of roles, impressively swapping between the genteel Mrs Darling and family maid Lisa in seconds – not to mention pulling double (quadruple?) duty as Tiger Lily and a fabulously chaotic Tinkerbell. Senton and Ellabani also share perhaps my favourite scene: the one where Senton-as-Nana gets stuck in a door, and Ellabani-as-Mrs-Darling attempts to sing a moving lullaby as the technical team bring out a workshop-worth of noisy power tools to drill him out. You have got to see it for yourselves.

This is the kind of show which wouldn’t work if there was even a single weak link, and everyone in the cast is simply brilliant. One of the standouts is Tom Babbage as Max, a lovelorn actor who was only cast because his rich uncle funded the hapless production (revealed by the malfunctioning sound system). Babbage brings an Andrew Garfield adorkableness to the role, sweet and so sympathetic that he had the entire audience on-side and cheering for him to succeed (his triumphant crocodile dance is perhaps the cutest thing these eyes have ever seen). His unrequited (or is it?) love for Sandra is one of the loveliest aspects of the show, and, as the dance-loving Wendy Darling, Katy Daghorn brings the kind of delightful exuberance only generally found in the end of term school production.

Ciaran Kellgren as Jonathan aka a deliciously smarmy Peter Pan in whose flying sequences gets swung about more ferociously than Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball. Even Ethan Moorhouse’s stolid stagehand Trevor gets roped in (and strung up – literally and figuratively) when the chaos starts taking out cast members, including the timorous Lucy aka Tootles (Georgia Bradley), one of the many victims of the structurally-unsound set. Romayne Andrews as John Darling gives a gloriously stilted performance as an actor so apathetic his lines – not to mention Classic FM and the shipping forecast – are being fed to him through anachronistic headphones. His line deliveries are an utter joy – matched only by the delectably dramatic narration of Patrick Warner as Francis, the ill-fated master of ceremonies who punctuates his tale by throwing glitter and growing increasingly afraid of his seemingly-possessed chair. Connor Crawford is particularly great as Captain Hook (and he’s clearly enjoying his stylish pirate costume – the way that coat moves!) but as Mr Darling he delivers a perfect homage to Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein (you’ll know it when you see it).

The revolving set is spectacular – split into three segments that artfully represent numerous locations including the Darling nursery, Hook’s pirate ship, Pan’s woodland hideout, a moonlit London skyline and more, it’s a gorgeous feat of ingenuity that even a tide of technical issues can’t hide. Although it’s not a musical it still boasts some brilliant musical numbers like a rousing sea shanty on the Jolly Roger and a poppy group number about imaginary feasts. There’s also a truly visually striking scene in which Peter and Wendy go for a swim in the Neverland lagoon, and the set transforms into a spectacular evocation of the ocean depths in which neon sea-creatures frolic and glide. They still manage to wring out its comic potential (not least a lights-up reveal as to how they achieved said effect), but it doesn’t dull the polish of the scene’s creative beauty.

Mischief Theatre’s marvellous modus operandi is fast becoming as beloved as theatre tropes and traditions on which it gleefully riffs. Peter Pan is a story so familiar to us that we know the plot beats, the characters and the lines even as the production falls apart at the seams – and there is joy to be had in watching people desperately striving to remain sane while the world collapses around them. It takes pinpoint precision to look this imprecise, and Mischief Theatre have got it down to a fine art. It’s a show for people who adore theatre and even those who aren’t so keen – because every tradition, trope and trapping is lovingly ribbed in that creative, entertaining and endearing way that Mischief does so well. I was lucky enough to see this production with my grandpa, who dubbed the show ‘the best theatre experience I’ve ever had’. It’s a show you shouldn’t miss and won’t forget.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is playing at the New Theatre, Cardiff through Sunday 10^th November.

The story behind Frankenstein’s creation is nearly as mythic as the tale itself: eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley, dared by Lord Byron and her husband Percy Bysse Shelley during that fateful summer in Geneva, dreamt of a young scientist staring in horror at the fearful creature he brought into being, and subsequently penned one of the most timelessly influential works of literature.

With countless adaptations of the classic tale over the years, and even more just inspired by it, it’s difficult to envision how a modern interpretation could evoke the same subversive quality as it did in its inception – or even warrant its existence in a sea of Frankenstein reimaginings. To my surprise and delight, this new version, penned by the acclaimed Scottish writer Rona Munro and directed by Patricia Benecke, is a bold and radical reworking that earns its place in the pantheon through ingeniously inserting Mary Shelley into her own story. Although in reality she plotted out her book in great detail, here we get to see Mary think up the book in real time – perhaps not historically accurate, but an innovatively metatextual way of watching the creative process unfold.

As Mary Shelley, Eilidh Loan is a crackling lightning strike of charisma; brash, snarky and devilishly charming, she wields her pen like a magic wand and has the audience in the palm of her hand. I just love the way she takes up space: her Gentleman Jack swagger-and-style (that long black leather coat!) is captivating, her frantic real-time thought-process compelling, and it’s refreshing to see a woman so joyously aware of her own genius. She’s a Regency Fleabag, dragging us through the fourth wall into her world, making snide comments about her own characters and gleefully twirling the strings of their fate like a Romantic-era Deadpool – in many ways, her brazen delight at the gory demise of her cast makes her as bloodthirsty as her own monster.

It’s a quirk that might seem trite in lesser hands, but it makes sense: the women of both Frankenstein and Shelley’s world were pawns, prisoners and victims of patriarchal control and/or male-perpetrated violence, but Mary Shelley was a woman who smashed through the binaries in which society had boxed her – breaking centuries-old societal conventions was just a regular Tuesday for her. So, to set her in the midst of her own story, to give her the reins completely in the telling of her tale, feels like a natural extension of her work and a compelling tribute to such a revolutionary woman – plus, it injects female agency into a story which is (in)famously bereft of it. Sometimes, Mary’s asides slightly dull the dramatic edge of the proceedings – but the characters and plot beats are so familiar that it was refreshing to see them reinvented in a new light. Maybe Mary wouldn’t quite express herself in the way this version of her does, but her fierce rebellious spirit is made of the same stuff.

Loan is so commanding that the other characters in the play often feel just like that: characters, archetypes, shadows of Shelley’s genius mind. This is Mary’s show, and she won’t let you forget it – which, for my money, works, but perhaps that’s because I know and love the novel so much that simply to portray its plot from point A to point B would seem almost too basic at this point. The central conceit, of Mary inviting us into her writing process as she shapes the characters, is experimental enough to risk the cohesion of the tale (which it just about avoids breaking) whilst also speculating as to Mary’s thoughts and motivations in writing it. It’s a meta deconstruction of Frankenstein as much as an adaptation of it, and the original framing device reanimates a well-worn story into something fresh and unpredictable.

Despite Mary’s dominance, the ensemble is brimming with talent and carry the story with ease. In a shocking turn of events, I found Victor more sympathetic here and the creature less; Ben Castle Gibb’s interpretation of Dr F is rather heart-breaking, even if the love story between he and Natali McCleary’s Elizabeth never quite convinces (it doesn’t work for me in the novel either, to be fair). Michael Moreland’s ‘Monster’ (as he is credited here) is effectively animalistic in his performance, although doesn’t appear as overtly monstrous as the characters’ reactions might suggest. His monster is less elegantly eloquent as his on-page counterpart, but he excellently delivers the play’s best line (which, to my recollection, isn’t in the original): ‘despair was the first gift you ever gave me’.

The rest of the cast is energetic and gamely inhabit Frankenstein’s sprawling character list. Thierry Mabonga is tasked with the most variable cross-section of roles, playing Victor’s hyper younger brother William, his genial bestie Henry Clerval, and (a particularly imposing incarnation of) Captain Walton. As Victor’s long-suffering fiancée Elizabeth, Natali McCleary is saddled with one of the novel’s least meaty roles yet still infuses the character with kindness and charm; however, she shines particularly as Safie, a Muslim woman who leaves home in pursuit of true love, and whose newfound family is spied on by the creature from afar. Greg Powrie and Sarah MacGillivray convince as the domestic parade of paternal/maternal figures who influence Victor and the creature, even if their multiple roles are rather thankless.

In a play that so unabashedly celebrates a woman’s accomplishments, it’s wonderful to see so many women in key roles in the creative team. Munro’s script is sharp, witty and inventive – she also wrote the compelling Rebus: Long Shadows which I reviewed for Get the Chance earlier this year – and Benecke’s dynamic direction ensures the story whips by at breakneck pace. But it’s the production design that makes the show truly unmissable: Becky Minto (who also designed the costumes!) has crafted a, spectacular, visually stunning and gorgeously symbolic set which doubles as an abandoned stately home, an Arctic-bound ship, and the internal tapestry of Mary’s mind all in one. The set is skeletal, adorned with spindly trees that variously evoke spines, vines, and veins – and which, in a delightfully inventive novelty, the actors climb as the action moves between the two tiers. The gorgeously Gothic atmosphere is augmented by Grant Anderson’s effectively-Frankenstinian lighting and Simon Slater’s eerie music/sound design.

Some reviewers suggest that the play emphasises the ‘morality tale about unfettered science’ angle of the text at the expense of its contemplation on moral responsibility, but I beg to differ. From where I was sitting, the play focuses almost entirely on the latter whilst throwing the scientific cautionary tale out the window – and is all the better for it. After all, we never learn the exact workings of Victor’s reanimation process, and the condemnation of him playing God or mistreating his ‘patient’ relates to the larger themes of humanity’s shared responsibility in the creation of monsters. Munro herself interprets Frankenstein not as a cautionary tale about unchecked science, but rather about inequality – an interpretation I really feel gets to the heart of the story.

Of the monster’s two creators, Mary is the more attentive and empathetic to the being for whose existence she is responsible; she listens to his story, touches him with kindness, and talks to him like a human being. Mary’s rage at the ‘great men’ who abuse their authority is powerfully tinged in shades of #MeToo – but the script leaves enough room for nuance and ambiguity that lends itself to multiple readings, not least Mary’s implied anger at her distant father William Godwin, who easily meets the requirements of the ‘great men’ she condemns. The real monstrous act is failing to take responsibility for the things you create – indeed; to renege on that responsibility is particularly heinous when one has the privilege, means and status that others lack. Victor does not only fail as a father and as a scientist, but as a human being.

This new version of Frankenstein is a refreshingly creative take on a familiar tale. It’s meta approach to the Gothic makes it feel like a mashup of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Young Frankenstein (I can give no higher praise). As Mary Shelley surmises near the play’s close, ‘vengeance is a monster’; perhaps here, the very novel Mary crafts is her last (or first?) act of vengeance against the myriad foes who have wronged her. This may be just the latest in a litany of adaptations of Shelley’s genre-defining masterpiece, but it’s also an invigorating take on the source material that demands to be seen – and it’s just the thing to get you in the spooky mood this Halloween week. Frankenstein is playing at the New Theatre through Saturday 2^nd November.

Hedda Gabler will not be coerced. It’s the mantra of a general’s daughter, the battle cry of a woman so enmeshed in the art of war that she keeps loaded pistols in her living room. Henrik Ibsen’s convention-demolishing heroine raised eyebrows (and tensions) when she first stormed onstage in 1891, and the Sherman Theatre’s bold new version proves that Hedda is still as fresh, furious and fascinating a character in 2019 as she ever was.

Adapted from the original by Brian Friel, we follow Hedda Tesman (née Gabler) as she as her husband George return home from their honeymoon. Having recently received his doctorate, George is hopeful of gaining a much-telegraphed professorship – until the resurfacing of his academic rival, and Hedda’s former lover, Eilert Løvborg, threatens to upend the fragile new life they have built together. Chelsea Walker’s electrifying direction keeps mystery and character motivations simmering just below the surface; under her careful, artful eye, the stage is always thrumming with movement, which not only propels the drama along at a nimble pace but makes the world (though encased in a gorgeously hyper-real theatrical set) feel lived-in and authentic.

As Hedda Gabler, Heledd Gwynn is astonishing. Brutal, blunt and unbending, she demands space and attention, majestically spreading her arms like a King holding court – because although Hedda is a wife (and possibly an expectant mother), she defies and often transcends the strict binaries of gender and the behaviour dictated therein. Hedda wears her hair short and her feet bare; the most feminine she allows herself to be in appearance is the glamorous silk dress she sports throughout – a militaristic green gown she wears defiantly like armour (she is the only character who does not change her clothes – or anything else, for that matter – in the second act). And yet Gwynn meticulously threads a vein of vulnerability into Hedda’s precipitous façade, deposits of entombed emotion that Hedda battles to suppress and, if need be, destroy.

After Gwynn’s stellar turn, the other most overtly impressive performance is from Richard Mylan as Judge Brack, a sinewy nerve of malevolent machismo who is perhaps the closest Hedda has to an intellectual equal. As both a man and a judge, Brack is a repulsively-drawn sleaze of the highest order who delights in wordplay and innuendo as a means of making himself look powerful and sophisticated. As the sole representative of the law, Brack is a petty, pernicious piece of work; a man who, despite his profession’s aim to locate the truth, deals in gossip, hearsay and lies. Mylan deliciously articulates his every word with a sort of Wildean lasciviousness, and his every moment onstage feels unsettlingly dangerous.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is George Tesman, Hedda’s blissfully clueless beau, endearingly played by Marc Antolin. George is just so lovable that his oblivious adoration of Hedda even as she ridicules him behind his back is one of the most heart-breaking elements in an already-tragic story. Antolin treads a fine line in making George’s naïveté sweet without slipping into bumbling foolishness; his interpretation is a far more sympathetic take on the character than most – even if did manage to turn their honeymoon into a six-month long research trip. His doting aunt Juliana, tenderly played by Nia Roberts, seems to understand more of Hedda’s foibles than she would ever passive aggressively hint to her nephew, but Roberts brilliantly plays the role on several different levels at once, hinting at a more intricate inner life that other versions might gloss over – meanwhile Caroline Berry as stalwart servant Bertha watches proceedings with soundless intensity.

The ever-excellent Alexandria Riley once again shines in a complex role. As Thea Elvstead, Riley represents a more conventional femininity than Gwynn’s Hedda, escaping one troubled romance to start another, and finding herself caught in the dead space in between men who continue to fail her. She has devoted herself to the cause of Løvborg’s redemption and is willing to put in the invisible emotional labour to help co-author his revolutionary new book uncredited. Although Thea is eager to raise Løvborg up at her own expense, she is presented as a far more bold, brave person than Hedda, who despite her brash callousness admits herself a coward in catering to her phobia of scandal above all else – and the thorny rapport between Thea and Hedda is one of the drama’s most engaging and multifaceted relationships.

As a heroine in 1891, Hedda was unlike any woman in fiction at the time – her existence was a triumph in itself, every cruel act a defiant reclamation of agency that other women (fictional or otherwise) were then denied at a systematic level. Even though Hedda remains frustratingly oblique about her intentions (for the most part), that she has the freedom and privacy of her own thoughts and motivations was a privilege afforded to few women in the literature of her era. It is even more poignant when considering how Hedda is treated as property and possession to everyone in her life – especially to Brack, who views her as uncharted (and as-yet unconquered) territory, and even to dear, darling George (who takes on more of the emotional, empathetic woman-coded duties of the domestic household), who starts mapping out her entire life the second he learns that he has a progeny on the way, exuberantly uncaring of what she has to say in the matter.

Tragically, perhaps the only one to see her as a person is one she dehumanises the most: Eilert Løvborg, wonderfully portrayed by Jay Saighal. He is the one to call Hedda by her maiden name, by the name we know her, by the name that reflects her true self. Saighal is captivating in the role, projecting the image of a genuinely kind but self-destructive person brimming with love and beauty but unable to channel it into healthy, rewarding pursuits – his infatuation with Hedda a prime example. The moment where Løvborg secretly touches Hedda’s hand as an unknowing George flips through the honeymoon photo album is the most sensually-charged moment in a play that also features the judge crawling towards Hedda on all fours. That brief, almost-hidden moment of contact is a subtle, gorgeously romantic moment that represents all that was, is and could be between two people who just keep missing the chance to be together.

The superb acting is bolstered by a truly spectacular set, gloriously designed by Rosanna Vize in a way that is both edgily creative and deeply symbolic. The stage is decadently austere – all sharp lines and stark colours, nothing homely in sight save for the battered old piano which maybe represents Hedda’s deceased mother; a cage hangs ominously over the domestic square like a sword of Damocles, ready to ensnare her. The set is both specific and universal enough to enable a multitude of readings: perhaps it represents the reductive domestic sphere, or a psychoanalytic manifestation of Hedda’s internal mind; perhaps a domesticated purgatory or a metaphysical courtroom – or all at once? Ash falls from the ceiling at times; a real fire burns in a hidden compartment under the floor; in parts the stage is littered with flowers, symbols of pure, pretty, uncomplicated femininity – and Hedda takes a blowtorch to them. It’s utterly mesmerising.

Giles Thomas and Robert Sword’s anxious heartbeat of a score throbs ominously as tensions rise, and the cast wait their turn while sitting in chairs at the back of the stage, watching. As a purgatorial judiciary of peers, they sit in judgment, but also don’t seem to exist unless as pawns in the machinations of Hedda, who is the only actor onstage at all times – even when she is not participating in a scene, she remains the focus of it, standing imposingly at the centre of the stage as others talk about her. At one point George waxes lyrical about how there is only one Hedda, but she is already two – Hedda Gabler and Hedda Tesman. The true Hedda lies behind a door to which we are never given access; though the drama’s vibrant brush strokes paint only a partial portrait, we learn that Hedda is a deeply complicated, contradictory and confounding person. We may not agree with her, like her, or even sympathise with her – but we are her, in all our wondrous complexity.

It was a privilege to be a part of the post-show panel, along with Hannah Morgan (Head Above the Waves), David Mellor (Lecturer of Sociology, University of South Wales), led by Tim Howe (Communities & Engagement Coordinator, Sherman Theatre). It was such a joyful panel to be a part of and honestly my favourite so far – not least because Hannah
memorably dubbed Løvborg ‘hot bleedy guy’ and made my night! It was particularly special because Cardiff’s Law and Literature module was out in force, including our brilliant students and fearless leader Professor Ambreena Manji. We have been studying the play in our classes and it has been wonderfully rewarding to hear each of the students develop and express their own individual interpretation of the story, characters and themes. Although Hedda Gabler is not obviously legal on the surface, a deeper reading reveals legal issues at play such as gendered criminal behaviour, theft, co-authorship, property law, blackmail, and encouraging suicide (and that’s just the non-spoiler list!) Reading the play with these issues in mind can help to historicise law and explore its real-world effects and implications. The panel culminated in the question of whether Hedda ultimately has a choice in the end – I can only urge you to see this stunning production and answer that question for yourselves. Hedda Gabler is playing at the Sherman Theatre until 2^nd November.

‘The Story’ by Tess Berry-Hart, directed by David Mercatali, presents as rather old-fashioned agit-prop theatre, here deployed as a perfectly legitimate form for holding our feet to the fire over the very unpleasant realities we so often choose to ignore around migration, detention centres, and the horrors of suspicion and injustice acted upon the dispossessed from wherever part of our poor and war-torn planet they make come.

As a theatre-going audience we are self-selectedly approaching the piece with a kind of generic left-wing sympathism, and this makes us a player in this drama. We need our eyes opened as one of the two character’s does.  We need to see what Berry-Hart has come to see.

In a
formula with which I was initially dissatisfied, the two actors present
socio-political ideas through figures who are representative cyphers rather
characters in any real, three-dimensional sense.  One represents ‘our’ values as caring,
middle-class, educated and informed liberals; 
the other represents all aspects of the oppressive state.

This is
not promising.  This seems like nineteen
seventies’ student theatre.  But it is
not. It does become much more.

The piece
is well presented and nimbly directed. 
Mercatali is determined that nothing here will lag.  We are tumbled into darkness and action and,
once in, we are fully immersed until the final line, the final beat.  He manages the time lapses very skilfully, as
he does the suggested violence and threat. 
This is almost always sure-footed and lapses are rare.

There are one or two clunky moments that obtrude stylistically, but generally the pace and intensity is right and skilfully delivered.

It is in
the playing that we are most impressed though, particularly by the excellent
Siwan Morris Hughes: there is an intensity and commitment which, in this tiny
performance space, makes us feel voyeurs and brings awkwardness and discomfort – precisely what Berry-Hart most wants.  Hannah McPake avoids all the major traps set
for an actor with multiple playing:  she
ensures that changes from figure to figure are slight modulations of manner and
little vocal nuances.  She is always convincing
– despite the writing at times, which provides her with half-drawn and
unconvincing figures, quite intentionally – none of these people is real and we
are never given the option of believing that they are.  McPake’s playing then is technical, of
necessity, whilst Morris-Hughes’ is fully immersive, deeply committed and very,
very skilled.

The digital element to the piece is well-conceived and realised and enhances the work. The score is appropriate, though I felt that perhaps an opportunity was missed – I would have loved this to have been further developed and a more significant feature.

Although
I initially felt detachment and disappointment in the piece, as the patterns of
language developed, a poetry of oppression emerged, overlapping and building in
intensity and rhythm and drew me in. Ideas became more complex and more satisfying.  Some of the writing at the heart and height
of the play is of a very high quality and Berry-Hart finds a poetry which does
some justice to the huge issues with which she attempts to deal.

The ‘turn’ and ‘reveal’ doesn’t surprise us, but is built towards effectively and is
dramatically pretty convincing – Morris-Hughes’ performance helps bring this
off with its intensity and unflinching commitment.

The piece
is leavened occasionally by moments of irony and humour, but it needed
more.  The horror and misery needed
lifting at points and it is an extremely difficult thing to do – nonetheless,
it needed doing.  For me the play would have benefitted with the greater layering of perspective
that this could have brought to what was too often a sledgehammer intensity in
the writing.

So, I’m glad I finally got to see this work. Its retro’ agit-prop form contains and perhaps belies a complex, poetic work that is troubling and nuanced.

The Story plays at The Other Room 08/10 – 27/10