I’ve been a massive fan of
James Acaster for a long time, my first encounter was on Mock The Week where
his comedy and personality hooked me immediately. I then got into other shows
with him in Taskmaster and Hypothetical (both shows I highly recommend to
anyone). This developed into looking into his Netflix show “James Acaster:
Repertoire” and loving his stand-up comedy outside of panel shows. So, when it
was announced that he was doing a new tour and close to me I had to go see it.
Buying my tickets immediately.
It tool place in the William Aston Hall, in Wrexham Glyndwr University. Which confused me as not many comedy shows or performances are performed in a university lecture theatre near me. It was a good venue, it had many rows of seats that allowed everyone to have a good view of James. The comedy show does say that you need to be 14 years old or above and that is expected from James Acaster comedy and should be applied for any parents who want to take younger members to this comedy show. The tickets were £20.35 and the seats were very good for the price and the performance was well worth the price.
I was nervous, this wasn’t my
first comedy show but I didn’t know what to really expect. I was both nervous and excited. It did not
disappoint. James Acaster made me laugh so hard that on the way home my jaw
hurt! All stories he tells are real, funny, and unbelievable. While telling
stories he had a quick wit that allowed for the crowd to really be involved
with the stories. The stories allowed for the audience to laugh along with
James and capture the humour that he uniquely portrays. I don’t want to go into
detail about the show as that would ruin it, but the stories captivate and drag
the audience into a comedy show full of laughter, fun and surprises.
If you have ever seen James
on talk shows this is nothing like that. It is way better. This is pure James
Acaster. and it is 100% genius. If you’ve ever laughed from James’ comedy you
will love this show. If you have quick wit, you will love this show. This show
is amazing, and I encourage anyone to go watch it.
In the end, I give “Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999” 5 stars, it portrays amazing comedy that is animated and hilarious.
What you get it you cross a film from 2003, one of musical
theatreland’s legends plus add in a little piece of youthful magic – School of
Rock!
Based on the 2003 film that starred Jack Black, overly enthusiastic guitarist Dewey Finn gets thrown out of his band and finds himself in desperate need of work. Posing as a substitute music teacher at an elite private elementary school, he exposes his students to the hard rock gods he idolizes and emulates — much to the consternation of the uptight principal. As he gets his privileged and precocious charges in touch with their inner rock ‘n’ roll animals, he imagines redemption at a local Battle of the Bands.
Set at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, the theatre has more a studio feel than an auditorium, but this brings everyone closer to the sound. I was fortunate enough to get the ticket lottery for the evening performance, meaning I paid £30 for a pair of tickets valued at £160 – and good seats too!
Craig Gallivan stars as Dewey (he was Stella’s son Luke in the Sky 1 show), and for those who weren’t aware, the boy can sing, plus has the Jack Black act to a tee. As for the kids, what can be said? Very talented musicians in their own right – plus having proud parents – one of which was sat in front of me!
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes would not be the first two people I’d associate with a production like this, but underneath, every part of the production is polished. From the stage direction, the sound, and the performances.
Generally speaking, musicals based on films can be a little fractious with songs crowbarred in, but School Of Rock bucks this idea with having a plot and musical cues to suit.
It’s the perfect way to introduce children into the theatre, it’s entertaining with an all rounded quality cast and production. You’d be put into detention if you didn’t consider School of Rock as your next London musical adventure!
A little bit of Disney magic, one of musical theatres most loved lyricists & composers, and some of the most iconic musical sequences in animation history all add up to Aladdin the musical in London.
Nearing the end of it’s time at the Prince Edward Theatre, you still have a matter of weeks to catch this before 24th August 2019.
In the town of Agrabah, Princess Jasmine is feeling hemmed in by her father’s desire to find her a royal groom. Meanwhile, the Sultan’s right-hand man, Jafar, is plotting to take over the throne. When Jasmine sneaks out one evening, she forms an instant connection with Aladdin, a charming street urchin and reformed thief. After being discovered together, Aladdin is sentenced to death, but Jafar saves him by ordering him to fetch a lamp from the Cave of Wonders. There’s a lamp, and where there’s a Genie, and once Aladdin unwittingly lets this one out, anything can happen!
It’s everything you could expect from a Disney musical, although it took a few songs for the sound to flow through the theatre. There was a tendency for it to be a little bit panto at times, but generally speaking I was entertained all the way through.
Aladdin played by Matthew Croke might be a reformed thief, but Trevor Dion Nicholas as Genie, stole the show. The set pieces of Whole new world, Friend Like Me, and Prince Ali all make this one incredible production. The staging and the ensemble sounded brilliant, but only thing that stops me giving these five stars is some parts of the singing felt a little “screechy”. Maybe that’s just my opinion but it didn’t spoil what was a magical flight on a magic carpet ride.
It closes at the end of August to make way for the other Disney masterpiece that is Mary Poppins, so you’ve got limited time to enjoy some Arabian Nights.
Back in 2018 visiting New York for a few days I happened to chance upon
Waitress. The main reason for this being the theatre was 50 metres away from
our hotel (honesty being the best policy I believe). That aside, it also had an
extra bonus in that Sara Bareilles – the composer & lyricist was appearing
as Jenna.
If you don’t know much about Waitress, it was a quirky little film from 2007, written by the late Adrienne Shelly and starred Keri Russell in the lead role. It was bought by Fox Searchlight pictures for about $6 million, and went on to make $16 million, winning plaudits along the way.
It tells the story of a young woman trapped in a little town, a loveless marriage and a dead-end job as a waitress, who falls into the next trap of an unwanted pregnancy. Escape beckons when she falls in love with her gynaecologist, but he hesitates to leave his practice and his wife.
It began in London earlier
this year with Katharine McPhee (American Idol runner up) in the starring role.
Staging wise it’s like nothing you’ll have seen before. There’re not the effects like Wicked, or Frozen, but in its own way, the Adelphi Theatre is a small venue and that adds to the cosiness of the musical. It’s a little piece of small town USA in the heart of London town (plus the smells of pie resonate throughout the foyer and bar areas).
Musically, it feels right – with lyrics written and performed by Sara Bareilles. It has a country contemporary feel that oozes emotion with each note. Before seeing it in NY, I’d not heard any of the score, but once was enough and it left me wanting more – so much so, upon arriving back in the UK I bought the original cast album and Sara’s album of songs from the musical. And since it’s been a regular playlist in my car.
It did start a little rusty, but within a few numbers, you could feel the production spring to life.
As the lead, Katherine McPhee brings to the role something special. I’d go as far and say that her “She used to be mine” is the best I’ve heard in any musical production.
Marisha Wallace as Becky (a role once taken by Keala Settle
– her that now is part of The Greatest Showman), together with Laura Baldwin as
Dawn provide the perfect harmony and backing to the main story, and both excel
with their own story arcs.
David Hunter as Dr Pomatter plays Jenna’s love interest with brilliant comic
timing and voice, as does Jack McBrayer as Ogie for Dawn. His “Never ever
getting rid of me” performance ranks as one of my favourite musical theatre
moments, plus he’s the voice of Fx It Felix from WreckIt Ralph!
After seeing the NY production I did question whether would this work
with UK audiences? The musical style is intrinsically American country – so
would audiences in the UK buy into it? Simple answer, yes!
If you’re a fan of Sara Bareilles, the film Waitress, or a beautifully written
musical that will send you away with a song in your heart, and the taste of pie
in your belly, this is for you.
Most will be aware of Educating Rita thanks to the multi award winning 1983 film starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine. I know this was my first introduction to the play and one which I was in awe of; the portrayal of these wonderfully different characters, the comedy, the literary irony and Rita’s yearning to change, to grow and to the be valued. Don’t we all feel like this at some point in our lives? Hence, Willy Russell’s Educating Rita will continue to be a success. At first, I wondered, why this play again? How can it be different now? And on the surface there weren’t any huge differences; no big scenic aplomb or special lighting effects but the issues and themes addressed are universal and perhaps particularly relevant in our current political climate; Frank despises the changes he sees in Rita once she’s been given an education; does he realise life can be much more enjoyable if you’re ignorant to it all?
Although the play is not strictly an autobiographical piece, it does draw on Russell’s own struggle to get into education having left school destined to work in a factory for the rest of his life. Like Rita, Russell worked in a hairdressing salon whilst achieving an O Level in English Literature at night school. Rita’s tutor Frank turns out to be a frustrated poet and dedicated drinker who, although initially unenthusiastic about taking on an Open University student, comes to grow extremely fond of Rita and realises how much they can teach each other.
I cannot praise Stephen Tompkinson and Jessica Johnson highly enough. I often feel for actors who take on such well-known, beloved characters who have already been portrayed by some of the nation’s most loved performers (in this case Julie Walters and Michael Caine). However, Tompkinson and Johnson slip effortlessly into the roles; it’s as if they’ve been doing it for years. Johnson is reprising her role from 2017 at Gala Durham and it’s as if she was born to play it. Her comic timing is spot on, her accent never falters, and she perfectly transforms slowly throughout; reminiscent of Pygmalion, her body language and tone of voice very subtly developing as Rita makes her transformation into an educated woman. Tompkinson’s portrayal of Frank is to be commended also. He plays out the character’s constantly changing emotions perfectly and, in conjunction, doesn’t overplay the ‘drunk’; as an audience we warm to him rather than taking a dislike to him for his love of liquor.
The set design is
simple yet effective; the whole play set in Frank’s office at the university,
filled with books, artwork and enough bottles of hidden alcohol to open a pub!
The setting doesn’t change but Johnson does, and each costume change is dealt
with, with ease (Rita has a lot of wonderful, of-the-era sweaters and
dungarees!) Something else worth noting is the time between scene changes.
There is an obvious effort to keep the action flowing and so we only ever see
two full blackouts, one at the end of the first act and another at the end of
the second act. This keeps us, as an audience, in the moment; time shifting
implied by a drop in lighting, a costume change or delicate movement from
window to desk.
Willy Russell really
did write a hilarious, timeless piece of theatre in creating Educating Rita and Tompkinson and
Johnson really have kept it alive, and with gusto! Educating Rita plays at Theatr Clwyd, Mold until Saturday June 1st,
2019 and goes on to play at several venues across the UK, finishing at the
Darlington Hippodrome on Saturday August 17th, 2019.
Hi Rachel great to meet you, can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?
I’m a novelist and playwright, probably most well known for the Dylan Thomas Prize-winning short story collection ‘Fresh Apples.’ My plays include ‘Tonypandemonium’, ‘We’re Still Here’ and ‘Cotton Fingers’ which will be touring parts of Ireland and the UK this year.
In 2007 my nonfiction book about the Welsh music scene ‘Dial M for Merthyr’ was published. Somewhat bizarrely, Guns ‘n’ Roses bassist, Duff McKagan listed it in his autobiography as one of his all time favourite music books.
This chat
is specifically about music and the role it has played in your personal and
professional life. Firstly to start off what are you currently listening to?
‘The Girl from Chickasaw County’ box set was released in September last year, commemorating the legacy of country music singer Bobbie Gentry. There are eight CDs in all so I’m still digesting it. My mother was a huge country and western fan. She played Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Bobbie Gentry, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty and Tammy Wynette throughout my childhood. Gentry was always my favourite. I was about nine when I really started listening to the lyrics and realised the songs were all short stories. I’ve had a lifelong obsession with ‘Fancy’, a song about a girl called Fancy who’s mother sells her into prostitution: ‘I might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name.’
https://youtu.be/PnuSc5ysmhw
We are
interviewing a range of people about their own musical inspiration, can you
list 5 records/albums which have a personal resonance to you and why?
1 Appetite for Destruction – Guns ‘n’ Roses – Guns ‘n’ Roses have been my favourite band since the age of around thirteen. They are my coming-of-age soundtrack. People have often asked me how I can be a feminist and love songs famed for so much misogyny.
I’ve tried to answer this question in an essay titled ‘Nothing for Nothing’ published in ‘Under My Thumb: Songs That Hate Women And The Women Who Love Them’ edited by Rhian E Jones and Eli Davies.
2 Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes – I listened relentlessly to this album while I wrote and rewrote my first novel ‘In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl’. I quoted a lyric from one of the songs on the flyleaf. The themes in it are guilt, alienation, childhood trauma and adult inadequacy. They are also the themes in my novel. At the time I was listening mostly to Metallica, Pantera and Megadeth. A female singer-songwriter, and piano music in particular was quite a departure for me.
3 The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers – The Manic Street Preachers were the first Welsh thing I was proud of. Growing up in the 80s, Welsh culture was all about Max Boyce and Aled Jones, then here was this intelligent working class band telling the real story of the boredom and alienation I knew growing up in a south Wales destroyed by Thatcherism. By extension, the Manic Street Preachers made reading literature something to be proud of rather than slightly embarrassed by. I still listen to this album every few months.
4 The Clash – Combat Rock – Whereas country was my mother’s thing, my brother who’s ten years older than me was always listening to UK punk: The Sex Pistols, The Damned, Generation X et al. Via him I discovered one of my favourite bands, The Clash. Combat Rock is a controversial choice but it includes my favourite song ‘Straight to Hell’ which talks of the immigrant experience and the death of industry in Northern England, but was mostly considered their ‘American album’ because it dealt with the aftermath of the Vietnam war, the hypocrisy of the American dream and referenced Taxi Driver. The Clash have always been relevant and seem everyday to grow more so.
5 The Future – Leonard Cohen – It’s difficult to choose one Leonard Cohen album but I’ve gone for ‘The Future’ which includes the song ‘The Future’ which is how I discovered Cohen via the movie soundtrack for ‘Natural Born Killers’ produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor.
https://youtu.be/6n9Q8bsONw4
Cohen said once that the demographic of people who like his songs could be called ‘the broken-hearted.’ I do go to him when I’m sore and looking to be mended. I listened to his early albums a lot after my mother died for example. I have the much-celebrated ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’ lyric from ‘Anthem’ tattooed on my arm to remind me that however imperfect I am, I am enough. It works sometimes.
Just to put
you on the spot could you choose one track from the five listed above and tell
us why you have chosen this?
IfwhiteAmericatoldthethruthforonedaytheworldwouldfallapart by Manic Street Preachers. I haven’t stopped thinking about this song since Trump got into power.
The latest play by Welsh Playwright Katherine Chandler has three separate intertwining monologues, from three characters, that is far more than the sum of its parts.
Nate is an aging footballer who knows his career is ending but can’t, or won’t, mature. Even with a wife and child at home, he’s still got an eye for the good life, the champagne and the girls.
Josh is a teenage footballer with an injury that could end his career before it starts, denying him an exit from a life he’s desperate to leave. All he wants is a way out, and Meg, the girl he loves.
Yaz doesn’t want a career, just a job at the cosmetics counter, but the competition includes girls with degrees, and she’s only got an NVQ and some street smarts.
The three come together on a Saturday, all have one thing in common, a desire, a need, to forget all their troubles and lose themselves in the night out to end all nights out. But this one might not end well for everyone.
There is so much to enjoy in this play, such a feast of words that it’s almost a poem. A Labour slogan here, a Jean Paul Sartre quote there, all the while pulsating with rhythm and rhymes: “Her and she and me. We.”, “Giggling and wiggling, and I’m grinding and winding…grounding and pounding”, “Tequila! No more. One more. No more now”.
It’s earthy, bawdy, visceral, and vital, all of these and more. Chandler brings the characters to life and lets their words flow into each other, as they try to escape the fate that, deep down, they suspect they’re doomed to.
The recent conviction of cricketer Alex Hepburn gives the piece a timeliness, especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement and the Weinstein scandal. An accounting of such behaviour is long overdue, and here she explores why men feel so entitled.
The cast take the script and, realising what a gift it is, run with it. Aaron Anthony as Nate gives us an elder that is more immature than the others, a balancing act that he carries off with a swaggering aplomb.
Tim Preston makes us hope for a Josh who is strangely insightful for his youth, even as he betrays himself with an uncharacteristic act of madness.
Gabrielle Creevy, in her first professional stage role, creates a Yaz that is both street-smart and innocent. A girl who goes into a situation with her eyes open, yet never at any point is guilty of being an accomplice. There are three great performances here, but I would say she just edges ahead with a sensitive portrayal.
Director Patricia Logue keeps the play pacy and rhythmic, using Carla Goodman’s set to great effect. It’s a simple but atmospheric one that brings the play to life, especially with the aid of Andy Pike’s lighting and Sam Jones sound.
This is not an easy play, but it takes an ugly situation and imbues it with such beauty that even the expletives are poetic. Chandler has a reputation for going to dark places, but light needs to be shined on these most of all.
When we ask why so many feel this is the only way to be, Josh explains how the choices for most are ‘dole, drugs or die young’.
There needs to be another option.
Lose Yourself plays at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff until the 25th May.
Robinson. The Other Island, the latest production by director Mathilde Lopez, fuses Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe with Michel Tournier’s version of the story in Friday.
Robinson is stranded on an island for 28 years, Bianca, played by Luciana Chapman, is alone in her flat reading about Robinson. Defoe’s and Tournier’s stories of Robinson come together in Bianca’s reading. In turn, Bianca, as a reader, identifies with Robinson, gets angry at Robinson, and feels sympathy for him. The multiple layers of theatre reminded me of Pirandello’s layers of reality. We watch a story that has a story within itself and discover that we are part of it. This is made possible by the ingenuity of John Norton’s binaural in-ear mics that takes the audience into the heads of the actors
We are Robinson experiencing the loneliness of the island, but also Bianca who reads about Robinson in her own loneliness, and spectators who discover their own loneliness by being isolated through headphones.
Robinson is a reflection on loneliness. It cuts deep
into human experience and fragility. It is universal; yet it is conveyed
through the particularity of the characters and the actors. Robinson Crusoe is
a 17th century man with a colonial mindset, Bianca is a 21st
century woman in Cardiff. Luciana Chapman, who plays Bianca, is a 25-year-old
Dutch-American black woman living in Cardiff. As a black woman, she feels anger
at Robinson’s misogyny and racism. She feels disgust at Robinson having sex
with the island. As a human being, she sympathises with his isolation. She
tells me,
“He speaks so lightly about slavery, about the ‘negros’ … it closes up my throat, makes me feel very angry, I have tears behind my eyes. You have to tell yourself that it was a different time. I find it very difficult. … Yet, when he speaks about thrusting his penis into a mossy crevice, the woman in me cringes and finds it disgusting, but as a human being thinking of that as a need for contact, something everyone craves, all of a sudden it becomes a beautiful moment. He’s really making love to that piece of earth. It sounds weird, but it’s pure emotion.”
Luciana
says that today she cannot be made into a slave as in the past, but there are
still people who see her as an object, sometimes as a woman she’s seen as a
sexual object, sometimes as a black person she’s seen as not human. Luciana, as
a black woman, experiences Robinson from her own particular identity;
yet, as an actress, she needs to go beyond that and connect with her own
character. Luciana tells me that she’s ‘an involuntary method actor,’ her
character often slips into her own life. She says,
‘I was in Tesco and I found an orchid and I absolutely fell in love with her. I never bought a plant in my life and all of a sudden now I’m in a play that is all about plants and my character has her own plant, I, as Luciana, find this plant and take it.’
Acting
allows one to go beyond the characters we create for ourselves in our daily
lives. It lets free all those parts of us that are out of place, silenced, or
simply not required. That, I believe, is why Luciana finds theatre ‘real’ for
her and freeing. It is not deceit or mere representation, but the acting out of
personas who are passive inside of us. She says,
‘In a weird way, theatre is real for me. Yes, I’m acting but when I’m doing it right there it is all real. It’s a play but it’s real. I’m really going through the emotions, I’m really feeling them. … The character comes alive in me. … Certain characters and plays bring out other aspects in me and I blow out those types of aspects, but it’s always a part of me with a different name.’
Acting
allows experiences and the expression of feelings to be lived within a
structured framework. The actor might be vulnerable as they tap into their own
emotions, yet the set lines, movements, and space provide safety. Luciana tells
me,
‘(Acting) is when I feel most free because I find real life really confusing, because things always happen and no one tells you how to deal with it, there isn’t really a booklet on how to deal with things. But in theatre you study things for so long you know what’s coming and you can wholly have that emotion safely in that moment and people seeing it. That’s beautiful.’
Acting is
never a lonely experience. It presumes an audience. In theatre, the physical
presence of the audience makes the feelings the actor feels and seeks to convey
a shared and intimate experience.
‘I love that I can feel something and have people feel it with me. I’m removed from people … but it’s so extremely intimate because they’re all watching you. I feel like I’m around people in a safe way. I love the attention … I love making people feel things.’
Luciana
becomes Bianca on stage, who becomes Robinson by reading the book. At one point
in the play, she stands tall on the stage and commands the ‘Governor’s coat’ be
fetched and brought to her. She wears the coat, as Robinson did in asserting
his colonial power over the island. While Robinson does so in broken sentences,
giving his back to the audience, Bianca exudes strength; yet when she confronts
Robinson and tries to hit him, she sees him in all his vulnerability and gives
up. Luciana says,
‘There’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable. Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re a victim. Everyone needs much more vulnerability. Then we can console each other.’
Bianca
experiences anger and pride, loneliness and compassion. It is in the portrayal
of contradictory feelings that we glimpse our shared experience of being human.
The immersive sounds of Robinson. The Other the Other Island capture the struggle with loneliness of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and the sensual writing of Michel Tournier’s Friday with softly spoken pages from the book, water dripping, waves, and a mosquito buzzing in your ear. What makes this rendering of Robinson original and innovative is the sound system used that mimics human hearing through binaural recording and the sense of urban isolation as the audience listens to the play through headphones. The architect of the sound world of Robinson is John Norton, artistic director of Give It A Name
(l-r Matt Wright, John Norton, Give It A Name) Photo by Jorge Lizaldo @ Studio Cano
John says ‘hello’ to the recorder on my phone. He’s disappointed that there are no sound waves. He is an actor, director, sound designer, and has spent many years as DJ. He writes audio drama and experiments with sound. Married to theatre director Mathilde Lopez, he often designs the sound world for her plays, as he did, in collaboration with Branwen Munn, for the recent Les Misérables.
This time, John has created a three-dimensional sound experience with binaural mics for the play Robinson. The Other Island, bringing voices, sounds, and music directly into the ears of each audience member
Binaural recording aims to reproduce human hearing. Each of
our ears perceives sound differently. We hear a sound coming from one direction
first with the ear closer to the source of the sound. Binaural recording is fed
into headphones making possible to hear different sounds in each ear and the
location of their source. A sound can come not only from the left or the right,
but also top, bottom, front, or behind the listener. This technique allows a
three-dimensional experience of sound. Usually, binaural recording utilises two
mics inside a ‘dummy head’ that replicates an average human head. For Robinson,
John has used in-ear mics to get the experience of the actor into the ears of
the audience.
John researched immersive sound for theatre after being granted an Arts Council Wales, Creative Wales Award in 2012-2013. He tried different techniques, but was taken in particular by the possibilities of binaural. He tells me, ‘What I really loved about binaural is that it really is how we hear. I got very excited.’ After the research period, he ‘played around’ with in-ear binaural mics for various projects. The choice of in-ear mics, instead of dummy head recording, offers the advantage of hearing what actors hear in their ears. He explains, ‘What I like about having an in-ear mic is having the internal perspective of the actor live. What you will never have with the dummy head is when Luciana (Luciana Chapman plays Bianca in Robinson) swallows the water, you hear it as if it’s inside your own head. For me that’s just another level of crazy intimacy that I was intrigued by. That’s one of the reasons why we went for that for this show.’
Enthusiastic of the technique is also Jack Drewry, composer, sound designer and theatre maker, who is sound designer and tech on Robinson. Jack tells me that the use of movable in-ear binaural mics is what is most innovative and exciting of Robinson’s sound experience. He says, ‘The use of wireless transmission through the ears is the immersion into the actor, the Reader’s (Bianca) world. That’s the thing that is new and exciting. What happens if you choreograph the sound around the actor as the microphone? The actor becomes the microphone. Whatever happens around the actor you hear from the actor’s perspective, you hear what they’re hearing.’
Jack Drewry image credit Kitty Wheeler Shaw
This technique
captures the solitude of urban life amidst contrasting noises. John says, ‘We felt that putting the audience in headphones is a really good image
of contemporary solitude. If you look at the bank of audience you can easily
mistake them for commuters on a train, in their own headphones. There’s
something interesting in isolating each audience member while they have shared
experience.’ Robinson immerses you in the solitude of a man stranded on
an island for 28 years and of a young woman living alone in a city. The
loneliness of Robinson Crusoe leads him to have auditory hallucinations,
something John experienced as a child. I realise that the chaotic music of the
book club moments in the play may suggest that sense of auditory
disorientation.
The soundscape in Robinson not
only serves to immerse the audience in the actor’s perspective, but it also
creates a sound world, the environment where the actor is placed. The sounds
are suggestive of Bianca’s flat and of Robinson’s island. For the latter,
mostly Caribbean music has been used to evoke the image we often have of an
island. In addition, John tells me, environmental sounds, such as the traffic
outside the flat and the waves of the sea, help listeners tune their ears to
sounds. Gentle sounds, such as rustling or crinkling sounds, are also used in Robinson
to elicit in some listeners a tingling sensation through ASMR, or autonomous sensory
meridian response. Robinson is an all-round sound experience.
Jack tells me that ‘normally sound
supports the action; it’s not front and centre. In this project the sound world
is a big part of the show and the actors are always feeding into it. It’s much
more of a magnifying glass of my design that it has ever been. In this project
the sound from the mixing deck doesn’t go to speakers but to everyone’s ears,
directly streamed into the audience.’ As I watched and listened to the show, I
noticed sounds made by Robinson came from the back to my right although he was
in front of me on the left. The experience of the eyes doesn’t necessarily
match that of the ears. For some, this might be a little too confusing, however Robinson is not a traditional play but a meditative experience that at
times is best felt with one’s eyes closed.
For more on spatial audio, please check BBC Academyh
Review: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour® Dreamcoat – Wales Millennium Centre 14 May 2019
You’ll surely know the story of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour® Dreamcoat. If not…. where’ve you been? It’s a retelling of the Biblical story of Joseph, his eleven brothers and the coat of many colours.
From its origins in the late 60s to its revival in 1991 with Jason Donovan (then Phillip Schofield), this new touring production of Joseph certainly stands the test of time. It’s been one of my favourite musicals and that was only through listening to the 1991 cast recording, over and over. So, that aside. How does this fair?
Jaymi Hensley as Joseph is certainly a little powerhouse of a vocalist which belies his pop background of XFactor and Union J.
Trina Hill as the Narrator guides the audience through with a voice of great stature for someone so diminutive, and Andrew Geater as Elvis, err, Pharaoh manages to steal the second act.
Special mention though to the other cast/ensemble as I can’t remember the previous tour in 2016 being so rounded like this, as for the children – on stage throughout both acts, just brilliant! There’s more to what you may know of Joseph and it’s certainly worth a few hours of your time seeing it on this current tour. A perfect entry into the world of musical theatre for anyone of ages 8 – 98
I think you should not “Close every door” and just “Go go go” see Joseph!
® Technicolor is a registered trademark of the Technicolor Group of Companies
Creating opportunities for a diverse range of people to experience and respond to sport, arts, culture and live events. / Lleisiau amrywiol o Gymru yn ymateb i'r celfyddydau a digwyddiadau byw
(5 / 5)
