Image Credit Richard Hubert Smith

(5 / 5)

Taking two children (11 and 12) to see a production of the Dickens classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ and knowing nothing about the production was a risk.  I’d heard it was quite long, I was worried it might be very dour and maybe the language would be inaccessible for youngsters.  I’ve also experienced other Christmas productions which were quite ‘arty’ interpretations of classic tales (e.g. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – when during the interval I heard a child ask their parent ‘Mummy what’s an Aslan’?) and clearly went way above their heads.  So, I was fairly surprised to see a variety of instruments on and before the stage as we came into the comfortable auditorium.  I was also reassured to see a detailed set of a traditional snowy, Victorian street scene, as I’d feared a minimalist, abstract set that might not convey the oppressive Dickensian atmosphere.  The opening seconds of the performance also did not disappoint – a dramatic musical flourish and a burst of coloured light revealed the silhouette of our ‘protagonist’ complete with tilted top hat and heavy winter coat.  And that readers, was the end of all the traditionalism……

‘He’ was not a he at all – this Cardiff dwelling, Ebenezer Scrooge (or Ebbie) is a cello-playing, powerhouse of a woman with the stature and stage presence to intimidate all but the bravest of souls.  Hannah McPake strides around the stage, glaring and hollering at anyone who tries to drag her into the spirit of Christmas and merely laughs at the impending threat of her three night-time visitors. 

It’s difficult to know where to start reviewing the rest of the cast – each of them taking on at least two but most often four or five other characters through-out the show – but undoubtedly what they all have in common is an abundance of talent!  It is honestly breathtaking the quality of the acting, singing and musical skills we were treated to by this accomplished cast.  We had a harp, an accordion, a saxophone, we had puppets, we had slapstick comedy, tears and anguish, romance and West-End quality voices from a cast of only 8 and there wasn’t one amongst them that didn’t add to the richness of the experience we had in the Sherman Theatre that evening.

The subtle beauty of the ghost of Christmas past (Catrin Mai Edwards) – beautiful Welsh vocals and evocative storytelling had me transported to Victorian Cardiff and entranced.  Then, listed only as ‘Apprentice Actor’ in the programme, our hearts were all broken by the perfect tones of Madalena Juma as Ebbie’s Mum forced to give him up as she was sent to the Workhouse.  ‘Apprentice’ she may be, but she is definitely mastering her craft most ably as she held her own amongst this accomplished company.

After the emotion and the drama of the past, and still laughing in the face of her past crimes and misdemeanours, Ebbie and the audience are confronted with (or maybe ‘assaulted by’) the Ghost of Christmas Present…..what can I say about Owen Alun as the Ghost of Christmas Present?  There are no words – suffice to say that EVERYONE needs a ‘Ginger North Walian’ in their lives at Christmas (and frankly all year around!).  No spoilers here – you have to experience it!

In a very modern backstory, we got insight into the reasons behind Ebbie’s notorious miserliness and the drama was built as we thought the Ghost of Christmas Present had finally cracked through her hard shell and Ebbie would be saved from the torment and chains endured by her former business partner Marley, but alas she soon slipped back into her old ways.  Bring on the mighty Ghost of Christmas Future! 

The creativity of this production is wonderful – the four ghosts (including Marley of course) could not be more different – they are humorous, enchanting, ridiculous and terrifying and take the audience on a rollercoaster of emotion through-out the nearly two-hour production.  There is so much attention to detail in the set, the costumes, the vulnerable delicacy of the puppet children, the music and the songs – it combines to make a perfect evening.  Last Christmas I had the pleasure of seeing Disney’s Aladdin at another venue in Cardiff – the big budget spectacular was incredible and left me feeling joyous and uplifted, but I can honestly say that the exuberant feeling as I jumped to my feet to explode into applause with the rest of the audience after this production, was absolutely no less life-affirming and the first thing I did when I got home was have a look to see if there are still tickets available to go again!  This is pretty much a first for me – I don’t think I’ve seen any production twice in my life!  It was heartening to hear that my 11-year-old son and his friend loved it to, and he’d also be willing to spend another evening in the company of this incredible cast!  Oh, and if you’re wondering who his favourite character was?…….That well-known Dickens character – the business bauble!  You’ll just have to go and find out for yourself!

This is a play – by JM Barrie, the author of ‘Peter Pan’ – that shouldn’t work today. First produced in 1920, it puts stereotypical characters into conventional settings and develops conversations between them in dated, middle class English. There is no direct conflict and the use of clichéd idiom and vocabulary is stifling. On top of this, the plot splits between two very different places and then takes fifty years to completely unravel.

Yet it does work. Barrie prompts you into reconsidering some time-honoured and appropriate literary themes. This may be because in ‘Mary Rose’ he deploys a crude form of surrealism, using it to open up another dimension behind the mind-numbing realism.

A little girl goes missing on a small island during a family holiday. After a month she reappears, unharmed and unconscious any time has passed. Since her parents are overjoyed to have her back, this mystery is accepted. Because it is never explained, though, sitting in the audience you try to rationalise it. Is it a reference to the number of children who died in childhood before the advent of modern medicine and hospital treatment – and of how a century ago parents simply had to cope?

Because of their daughter’s brush with death, the parents in the play are overly protective of her. They worry about her getting married. She does, however, and at first everything goes well – she has a baby boy – but when she persuades her husband to take her back to the island where she once disappeared – she disappears again, this time apparently for good.

You puzzle over Barrie’s intention. You think perhaps now he is referring to how often women died in childbirth before antibiotics were discovered. But huge numbers of young people had died in the flu epidemic that followed the First World War. A lot of households had to deal with losing their daughters as well as losing their sons. The mystery in the play echoes a social environment where a generation grew up with its members not having known one or both of their parents.

‘Mary Rose’ doesn’t wallow in sorrow. Mary’s parents and husband get on with their lives. The family maid becomes a surrogate daughter and is promoted to being a paid companion for Mary’s mother. But, in yet another twist irreconcilable with everyday reality, Mary returns after a quarter of a century. She is unchanged and, again, doesn’t know what has happened. Of course, everyone close to her has aged to the point at which she cannot recognise them – even though they all recognise her. Trying to grasp the situation, you consider the issue of mental stability. Mary is like someone who has gone mad, still believing herself to be young when she is middle-aged. The unhappy atmosphere in the family re-union thus becomes realistic and credible, even though the route the story has taken to set it up has been fantastic.

To round the play off, the story fast forwards in a movement reminiscent of ‘The Winter’s Tale’ –
‘Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage that I slide
O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom.’

Only Barrie’s story skips another twenty-five years, to the return of Mary’s son, Harry, to the house of his grandparents. There he encounters his mother, now a ghost.

A play which reminds you of the quote you learned for your A level English exam can’t be all bad. ‘Mary Rose’ is not on the scale of a Shakespearean play, but it gets away with what might just be a device – the use of unreal passages of time – to force consideration of family life – at this point, a kind of climax – reconciliation. The long-lost son is allowed a (brief) meeting with the mother he never knew, while she discovers her son has led a full life, a discovery that allows her to disappear forever – happy at last. Barrie succeeds in infusing his story with some poetry – as he had earlier with ‘Peter Pan’.

You could leave the theatre thinking about how surrealism never really got going in England, perhaps because of our insular attitude towards Europe, perhaps because our intelligentsia didn’t speak any foreign languages. You might also want to wonder why Barrie, who was very well connected with the other literary figures of his day, is no rival for Chekov, who was born in the same year. He’s hardly an English Ibsen, either. But whether you’re interested in its background or not, the York Actors Collective deserves congratulations for reviving a play that is so little known. (They won’t have earned much for their work, either, as it only resulted in a short run in a studio space.)

The Collective managed to wring the few laughs there are from the script. They made the stuffed shirt characters more or less sympathetic. The scenes didn’t drag as they might have done and the conversations, although clunky and predictable, rattled along without the need for overacting. The addition of a slight Australian accent for Harry, and a Hebridan brogue for Cameron, the gillie who accompanies Mary and her family to the little island, added colour. I didn’t find the portrayal of Mary’s husband, Simon, convincing but it is nightmare role to play, as he – a naval officer – is completely devoid of personality. The set was minimal but adequate for a studio production. The period atmosphere was caught by a few items of furniture and the appropriate clothing.

Theatres shouldn’t run too many revivals at the expense of new work, but there are a number of plays out there which are unfamiliar to the general public. Given the right kind of treatment, venues will benefit from putting them on. We saw this with the National’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ a few years ago and also with Theatr Clwyd’s production of ‘Rope’ in July this year. More, please.

Written & performed by Paula Varjack, devised and performed by featured casts members; Julienne Doko, Endy Mckay & Pauline Meyers.

NINE SIXTEENTHS retells the most searched incident over the internet. On the 1st February 2004, where we witness during the play the extent of ongoing warranted investigations, meetings, interviews, congressional hearings and biased coverage distorting the narrative of the feminine, an unprotected Black woman within patriarchal society, simultaneously tackling unethical white supremacy within show business causing infliction at every angle, complexing narratives through choice of language, encouraging further scrutiny, working against the woman.

NINE SIXTEENTHS well depicts from start to finish the challenges & turmoil Janet truly experienced. In the opening scenes we evidently see how the finale of the SuperBowl during Half time released the wildfire, with two of the most Iconic artists Janet Jackson & Justin Timberlake’s duet on Justin’s popular song ‘Rock your body with the final line’… “Have you naked by the end of this song” taking the world by surprise as he unapologetically revealed Janet Jackson’s breast in slow motion.

Each talented cast member perfectly highlighted the necessity for the world to have & share their opinion in their great multi-character takes, displaying the deepness of Janet’s never-ending humiliation, rage & hate speech for Janet Jackson daily shameful accusations, one being it was all a publicity stunt!

The obsession for more air time on this topic brought the attraction to the founding of YouTube! With the Founder of YouTube keen on erasing & destroying Janet’s career as profit & gains.

The influx of searches per day after the Super Bowl, helped stir debates around Janet’s sexually explicit content, where we see how even the White House launched an investigation on whether the CBS was in on it. With noone believing Janet’s verbal statement! FCC fined CBS, allowing the CEO of CBS to hate on Janet for eternity, fixating on getting her blacklisted on major music stations; MTV & CBS radio stations where music was majorly promoted! Janet was cut off & shadow banned, triggering scrutiny, pain and vulnerability! Paula has done an incredible job on touching on the depths of this forgotten but never truly forgotten infliction.

In this play we are left critically thinking & reflecting on the ‘why’, why was Justin not mentioned once, acknowledged nor considered in the articles/headline news, with the frame solely on Janets indecency, deliberate tendencies, turning Justin Timberlake into the victim, the innocent bystander whilst Janet remained the perpetuator, blocked for 8years, undermined on live TV shows & criticised for the entire world to continue watching legally even till this day.

Overall, NINE SIXTEENTHS highlighted how our attention is our main currency so be careful how we choose to use it. The importance of acknowledging the why & what threatens Black woman’s safety net expressed universal vulnerability. However, unlike Janet, can we trust the personal spectrum is being heard, respected and considered this time around, moving forward.

Playing until 16th November 3pm & 7.30pm. November 14th performance will be BSL signed by Jacqui Beckford.