Tag Archives: Helen Joy

Review Romeo a Juliet, Ballet Cymru by Helen Joy

November 10, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

Bonfire Night. Newport’s riverside is looking crystal sharp in the cold air and the backdrop of fireworks reflect in the still water of the Usk…a poetic start to the poetry of the Bard in motion.

Good ol’ Will. It’s a well-known tale and we have all seen many interpretations over the years. Ballet Cymru will mime and dance its way through the verse in this very smart and suitable location.

And it is quirky and funny and sad in all the right places. It is strangely lovely with pearl curtains and warehouse projections; costumes peculiarly appropriate to the setting and the story.

With clog dancing.

How could you not love the clog dancing? The thump of the wood on the floor as the orchestra roars into Prokofiev’s finest. The masks, the confidence, the arrogance of the piece. Startling, angry, manly, perfectly placed. I am not alone in loving this, this visceral interlude.

A hard line drawn against the softness of Romeo and Juliet, the continuum of life against the void.

And I have to say, I love the fight scenes. I can see that the love scenes are beautifully played out, the emotions expressed exquisitely in dance; but the fight scenes capture the sense of boyish adventure. Protagonists from families expectantly discordant run rings around each other, play-fighting until blood is shed. The boys are men. Tybalt commands the stage. Mercutio burns brightly and then, revelling in his wordy end, burns out. The swords are sheathed. The music, the movements are oddly exciting to this complex choreography and I can see eyes shining with some primal lust around me.

How does ballet do this? How can this carefully designed dance portray the random acts of a few hapless young folk so well? I ask a dancer, the Friar, what a certain move means – this apparent lifting of the arms of another: ah, it’s about domination, about instruction, about control.

It is all about control. It’s about putting words to movement; movement to music. It’s taking this extraordinarily gifted troupe of dancers and giving them a different language to speak. It is every inch of the body telling a love story, a tragedy, as beautifully and as elegantly as it can.

The dancers play their roles with finesse and candour. It is not an easy story to tell and they do tell it beautifully.

We leave to see the last of the fireworks explode over the town and kick the Autumn leaves a little before we go. And I ask my friend, what do you think? “Well, more memorable than conventional productions I’ve seen.’ Yeah. I’d go with that.

Huge thanks to Patricia Vallis and cast for making us all so welcome at The Riverfront, Newport.

Enjoyed:                                                                      5^th November, 2016, at The Riverfront, Newport
Touring:                                                                       November to December, see website for details
http://welshballet.co.uk/
Dancers
Lydia Arnoux                                                            Anna Pujol
Andreamaria Battaggia                                      Allegra Vianello
Gwenllian Davies                                                   Dylan Waddell
Miguel Fernandes                                                 Daniel Morrison
Mark Griffiths                                                           Robbie Moorcroft
Artistic Director                                                                       Darius James
Assistant Artistic Director                              Amy Doughty
Associate Artistic Director                             Marc Brew
Composer                                                                  Prokofiev
Original Play                                                             William Shakespeare

Art

Review Quentin Blake: Inside Stories National Museum of Wales by Helen Joy

October 20, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

Charming.
Somehow these odd, quirky, scratchy drawings become pretty and delicate in this high, light gallery.
It’s wallpaper, says the guide, as we check out the canopy of characters clambering down the walls.
It was especially made for us. People want to buy it. They can’t.
He smoothes it along the wall, loves it.
The text, that’s vinyl lettering.
It’s honest, candid, an extension of the drawings, tucked under the pictures, telling us something about the artist as much as his work and in his hand.
I hear children: ooh, it’s Matilda… Mummy, look, it’s Matilda.
I see Michael Rosen’s heart on the walls at the far end. Blake chooses his pens and brushes as carefully as Rosen chose his words to describe his grief. Beautiful.
The guide loves this exhibition. He loves this Museum. We talk about the need to attract children to keep the funding. Museum having to morph from repository and display to school and play.
There is a low table with low stools. All bright colours and soft plastics. Books and pencils, bits of paper.
Here, which one to do you want to do?
This one, Mummy. Mrs Twit. I’m not very good. I can’t draw.
How sick am I of hearing this cri de couer. Who tells a child they can’t draw? Who?
So, we all sit down and pick up the colour pencils and the paper and we draw. The adults copy Blake. The children copy the adults. I just draw chickens.
How do we hang them on the wall?
Just clip them in front of the other pictures.
But I don’t want to hide any?
They’ll all be cleared away weekly.
Oh. Some of these are wonderful.
The guide lights up: yes, look at these – talented.
They all are.
Blake would want them all on display. He is happy to share his warts n all, so should we be happy to show off all our talents. Art is feeling, is communication – no right or wrong.
I get that the Museum needs income, I get that it should attract children for many good reasons but let the adults in too.
This exhibition is a truly refreshing expression of human frailties and our spirit, our humour, our ability to find laughter and hope everywhere. Blake shows us through caricature and exaggeration what it is to be a child, an adult, a human being, a creature of this world. It is humanity in ink. Deceptively simple.
As my Father always said, it takes genius to simplify, to explain. Blake does this perfectly.
I go home and I spend an evening replacing the nib in my great-grandfather’s pen and I start to draw.
16th July – 20th November, 2016
Free, suitable for all ages
https://museum.wales/cardiff/whatson/8916/Quentin-Blake-Inside-Stories/

Theatre

Review The Ghost of Morfa Colliery, Theatr na nÓg by Helen Joy

September 25, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5) Highly commended for welcome and interaction

Here we go. Firstly, what a welcome – the foyer is buzzing with invited guests, there are miners lamps and dolly pegs on lace cloths on the tables, the bar is open and Theatr na nÓg is meeting and greeting all of us, personally. Delightful.

All photographs by Simon Gough Photography

We are ushered into the black womb of the theatre and the magic begins. And there is magic all right! A young man sits on a swing on a green sward, reciting; a lady walks towards him echoing his words. This is a story of mining, community, family, chapel and ghosts. The ghosts tell their tale – all these folk are long gone but alive to us this night. They tell their story of hopes and fears, of aspirations and loss, through clear direction, straightforward acting and an effective stage set. And with magic.

It makes me sorry that I have not heard of this disaster down a spooky mine part under the sea of the Bristol Channel. It makes me think about the boys and men who worked there and the women who kept the home fires burning. A burning mine too in fact.

The tale is told through 5 characters – some true – a mother, her son, his friend, her brother, his wife and a chapel going gossip. It juggles through truth, fiction and fantasy – diaries, books, monsters and mining reports. It makes us think about the relative powers of the spoken and the written word. What is history other than aversion of events from a point of view?

The classic comedy scene dropped in – the quick change, the drag, the chapel go-ers squashed into a pew and watching us watching them. Joyous!

Magic! Oh the magic makes us jump! Too scary for children? Too scary for grown-ups! We were out of our seats, oohing and aahing as lamps moved, spectres appeared and disappeared, our young hero too.

I love it! And I am surrounded by people who love it too.

Afterwards, there the cast and crew come to the stage and we are invited to ask questions. Typically, the best ones come from the youngsters in the audience. The best replies come from the magician…what ghost?

We pile back into the foyer where there is a miner’s lunch buffet of local cheeses, bread, pickles, bara brith and Welsh cakes; not sure miners would have had the wine options tho. Theatr na nÓg again does what it does so well, talks to us and listens.

A memorable evening for many reasons.

Today, I met a friend for coffee and said this: if you have to choose between a ticket for the opera or a seat at The Ghost of Morfa Colliery, choose the latter.

Coal by critic Helen Joy

http://www.theatr-nanog.co.uk/ghost-morfa-colliery

Enjoyed: 21^st September, 2016, at The Dylan Thomas Theatre, Swansea

Running: September to October for schools, see website for details

Cast

Richard Nichols

Aled Herbert

Tonya Smith

Jack Quick

Production Manager

Geraint Chinnock

Designer

Kitty Callister

Lighting Designer

Elanor Higgins

Stage Illusionist Consultant

James Went

Sound Designer

Gareth Brierley

Stage Manager

Sasha Tee

Stage Manager

Brynach Higginson

Assistant Director

Daniel Lloyd

Composer

Jak Poore

Writer

Geinor Styles & Mali Tudno Jones

Director

Geinor Styles

Opera & classical

Review Macbeth/Merchant of Venice WNO by Helen Joy

September 21, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(3 / 5)

Macbeth – an operatic trip

I saw, no, I experienced, no, I what? I tripped. A singing trip through Shakespeare’s tragedy.

I have no idea where to start. What words can do justice to this bizarre and jarring production. This crippling tale of the power of suggestion, the excuses of politics.

The women. Boy. What women.

Lady Macbeth: opulent, passionate, the voice of an angel with the presence of a god. ‘I wouldn’t mess with her’ I overhear. I wouldn’t. Magnificent. An audience is besotted.

The witches: awful, writhing, peculiar, calling like sirens; sexy, funny, raunchy. Wonderful choral singing. Quite wonderful.

The men don’t come close. With Macbeth simpering at his wife’s side and Duncan striding around in turquoise, they were a motley crew. Hard roles to sing, emotionally challenging to act and in unusual surroundings; but then there is a duet between Macduff and Malcolm to die for.

Visually, this is a difficult work to like. Colours clash. The period is unclear. The costumes ugly. Elements are comic – are they supposed to be? Those around me in the audience aren’t sure so the odd titter at an odd moment feels inappropriate. This is Macbeth after all.

The lady next to me closes her eyes. This is a beautiful opera to hear. To see? I’m not so sure. It is very, um, challenging.

I chat with others afterwards: we agree that whilst it has been a most peculiar evening, we expect we will remember it for a long, long time; it has been an entertainment. What are we here for, if not to provide entertainment? So, a huge thank you to all involved for something quite exceptional.

Running time: Approximately 2 hour 55 minutes with one interval

10, 15, 17 & 24 September 2016

Conductor Andriy Yurkevych
Director Oliver Mears
Set & Costume Designer Annemarie Woods
Lighting Designer Kevin Treacy
Choreographer Anna Morrissey
Video Designer Duncan McLean

Macbeth Luis Cansino
Lady Macbeth Mary Elizabeth Williams / Miriam Murphy
Macduff Bruce Sledge
Banquo Miklós Sebestyén
Lady-in-Waiting Miriam Murphy

Sung in Italian with surtitles in English and Welsh.
Co-production with Northern Ireland Opera.
Supported by WNO Partners.

Merchant of Venice – an operatic orgy

(4 / 5)

This Edwardian extravaganza of a strong story is sung with passion, grace and wit.

Shakespeare would have loved this epic play revived with such clarity and lust for life.

He would’ve loved the stylish eroticism, the flirtations, the overt sexuality of characters hard-pressed against the rugged back of trade. The wimpish Antonio, the love-lorn Bassanio, the women running rings around their men again and again.

Shakespeare’s reputation for relaying the crudeness of man losing to the manipulation of women intact. Portia and Nerissa transforming from girls in town to legal hotshots, the real heroes of the piece. Swapping their dresses and hairpieces for robes and wigs, they must resemble men to use the intelligence of women!

Portia is clear, her voice rings out and we hang on her words. Antonio sings like a bird, beautiful, girlish, self-denying. He lends his money selflessly, he offers his flesh willingly. The scales glisten invitingly.

Shylock is a world apart. He is arresting. He is pathetic. He is the Shylock I see in my head when I read the play. He carries his faith on his shoulders like a giant and he falls under its weight.

This is a difficult tale to tell. Shakespeare forces us to see the trouble caused by bigotry and racial hatred; Tchaikowsky makes us hear it.

This is a sumptuous performance. It is a romp, an orgy and a lesson. ‘My first opera’ says a friend, ‘I love it, it makes me think, it makes me gasp’.

So, what do these productions have in common?

Opera often convolutes and exaggerates a storyline but here, it finds a way through the morass of Shakespeare which is clear and refreshing. It brings characters to life with a pathos I had not expected and with a love for the complexities of the human spirit. Italian for Macbeth, English for Merchant of Venice: the language of the sung word gives depth and feeling where the spoken word cannot.

There is humour, colour and vivacity throughout. The men sink into the shadows of the women as perhaps Shakespeare intended. His leads are visceral, deadly, massive: Lady Macbeth and Shylock are the meat on the bones of these tales.

They contrast and whilst Macbeth often feels disjointed, ugly, unhappily humorous in parts; Merchant of Venice is a comely blend of the bawdy, the raw and the difficult.

See them both, see what you think.

Donald Gordon Theatre

Welsh National Opera:
The Merchant of Venice

André Tchaikowsky | UK Première

16 Sep – 30 Sep 2016

Tickets: £7 – £43 (£8.50 – £44.50*)

Running time: Approximately 3 hours 10 minutes (including 1 interval)

16 & 30 September 2016

Conductor Lionel Friend
Director Keith Warner
Designer Ashley Martin-Davis
Lighting Designer Davy Cunningham
Movement Director Michael Barry
Associate Director Amy Lane

Shylock Lester Lynch / Quentin Hayes
Antonio Martin Wölfel
Lorenzo Bruce Sledge
The Duke of Venice Miklós Sebestyén
Bassanio Mark Le Brocq
Solanio Gary Griffiths
Salerio Simon Thorpe
Gratiano David Stout
Jessica Lauren Michelle
Portia Sarah Castle
Nerissa Verena Gunz

Sung in English with surtitles in English and Welsh.

Supported by the Getty Family as part of British Firsts.

Co-production with the Bregenzer Festspiele, Austria, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music programme & Teatr Wielki, Warsaw.

Theatre

Review On the Brink Dirty Protest by Helen Joy

August 22, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

5 plays held in the basement of a coffee bar in central Cardiff & I am reminded of how much my old town has changed as I wander streets now unfamiliar & ask a dozing homeless person how he is.

This has always been an area where the homeless gathered – public loos & the food-bins of the market & Marksies. One man told me 128 people sleep here sometimes. Change falls out of his hands as he falls asleep. I watch him for a while, concerned, as the night revellers wander by.

Another man, bare-chested & carrying his life on his back, sweeps into the bar as we enjoy our pre-theatre drinks. I am not sure what he says but the crowd is silenced momentarily & once he has gone, someone claims his actions & words as part of the production. I’m not sure I find that funny.

Merlot & speciality beers drunk, we trot downstairs into the basement of the bar & find ourselves in a bright white small room with school chairs & bunting. Very nice neat clever photos of Cardiff streets around us & a feeling of Bohemian comfort pervades.

A bouncy introduction & we’re off.

A rapid monologue performed with the jerky nervousness required of the part. Quick & Dirty, ‘shocking proper shocking, mind’ – it is excellent: a well-written bit of life which leaves us wondering, what are they planning with those nylons?

Then, a couple splitting up. Hard to be different but some good lines here, ‘I don’t like the sound of a world without you in it’ & as the pace picks up & their story unfolds, we feel for them in their, ‘small, lonely & broken’ states.

Ok, so 3 people are sitting together discussing something to do with a college award & it is sometimes satirical, sometimes topical, sometimes political: ‘I do not fuck pigs’ & for some reason, Charterhouse cops it repeatedly. It gets its laughs from an audience who gets it – but I don’t – until the last lines, ‘so, how do you think the interview went?’ ‘I’m going to fucking crucify you’. Difficult to act & a job well done.

So, we have Brian. He apparently takes 19 minutes to produce a stool. This is a seriously clever play. The narrator perambulates around Brian, his date & his life & his life’s end, engaging easily with us, the audience, the inactive voyeurs of a man’s death by fork. I would like to see this again; no, I would love to see this again.

Another play about a couple failing to see eye to eye. Pokemon & pregnancy. There is a really nice use of silence here, a really nice use of few words, gentle body language, excitement, knowledge & heartbreak. Nothing new perhaps but it was moving, it touched me.

Lastly, the builder with the pint glass & the mobile phone. ‘Ah fookin’ needed tha’ & he tells us his story with grace, humour & tremendous pathos. We expect one thing, we get another. I suspect that I am not alone in being upset by this work. It manages to touch on the many angles of life: the dangers in loving someone, the need to keep up appearances, the roles we are all expected to play & the risk of exposure, ‘I knew ah’d look like wha’ ah am’. Brilliant. Truly brilliant.

This is a theatre company well-worth following & perhaps, joining in…

I wander back to my car past the late-night Tesco shoppers & the party-goers, bump into folk I haven’t seen for 17 years & am glad to get home. I wonder how the homeless are faring this muggy night.

Event: On the Brink

Dirty Protest Theatre Company

Seen: 9pm, 18^th August, 2016

Cast:
Non Haf
Hannah Thomas-Davies
Rhys Downing
Richard Elfyn
Directed by Dan Jones
Produced by Angela Harris, Matthew, Catherine and yourself.
The plays in order of appearance:
1) CHIP SHOP DINNER by Remy Beasley
With Non Haf playing Kayleigh-Jade.
2) THE SPLIT by Sian Owen
With Hannah Thomas-Davies playing Ruth & Rhys Downing playing Michael.
3) THE AT SYMBOL by Gary Raymond
With Rhys Downing as A, Non Haf as B & Hannah Thomas-Davies as C.
4) THE SUICIDE OF BRIAN by Justin Cliffe
With Richard Elfyn as Narrator, Rhys Downing as Brian, Hannah Thomas-Davies as Flora & Non Haf as Waitress.
5) WHAT NOW by Connor Allen
With Non Haf as Kate & Rhys Downing as Tommy.
6) ‘THE BOSS’ by Matthew David Scott
With Richard Elfyn as Tony.

Reviewer: Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics

Running: 17^th August, 2016, at The Pen & Wig, Newport

18^TH August, 2016, at Little Man Coffee Company

Cost : £6 / ticket in advance, £7 on the door

Links: http://www.dirtyprotesttheatre.co.uk/comingup/

Dance, Uncategorized

Lucky Trimmer: Made in Wales! by Helen Joy

July 20, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

#luckytrimmer Does Wales!
As always, a warm welcome to all of us from the National Dance Company Wales as we pile into their building.
A welcome compounded by a delightful duet of introduction from the Lucky Trimmer co-ordinators & we all settle into our seats to watch & wait, excited & curious.
So, piece by piece here we go:
How Should I Explain
Dark stage, thick music, a bright light character in green & white confronts us & we are off to a great start. Dachauer’s punchy performance to the familiar & comforting Viennese Waltz is athletic, energetic & when she smiles broadly at us, as welcoming as our hosts. I do not know the story she is telling perhaps as well as I should but enough to follow, enjoy & find amusement here & there. The relishing of the power of her body controlled through dance is palpable.
Grandmother
Foscarini is incredible to watch. I don’t notice the music. I don’t notice the audience around me or my friend beside me. She is mesmeric. Hard, blunt physicality spot-lit; flashes of memory in dance. When the lights go out, I hear her patter across the stage & we hold our communal breath waiting for illumination. It is beautiful & crippling.
Moments – Performatives Spazieren
Well. Clever clever stuff, Taguchi. A floor unpicks itself in an empty room. Its wooden planking parades around Berlin to music, making music & cutting its own path as is dances through streets & parks & people. It is very funny but we do not laugh much as the inanimate lives & breathes & becomes a floor once more. I am reminded of the first time I saw a pianola. It feels strangely out of place yet perfectly placed.
El Pie (The Foot)
And more on the theme of morphe & matter, resurrection, the bringing of life.
Her body falls in front of us & Marote lies dead to us. One foot revives quickly & playfully, angrily, sadly, cleverly cajoles & bullies its owner back to life. Macabre, hilarious, kind & tear-jerking, this dance plays with us. I think on horror stories of hands having lives of their own, of puppetry, of people painting with their feet & toes holding brushes as well as any fingers. Of electricity forcing body hearts to beat, of the lust in the living to will the dead to live. And the utter joy when breath is taken & the lights come on. I love it.
Floating Flowers
Tsai & Chen – one flower, two dancers; two dancers, two flowers; two flowers, one dancer… pretty, quirky, surreal & complicated, this homage to beliefs & traditions I can easily believe will send away bad luck & bring happiness – how could something so delightful, not?
monoLOG
Lefeuvre is less stripped than the others, faintly lumberjacky, plaid & chappy, clutching his lump of wood. This doesn’t feel like a dance. It feels like a séance, a spirit creeping out of the log & into his arm & into his senses. It is hard stuff. Difficult to watch. A take-over, a trick, a phantasmagoric illusion. I like this least but am sure I will remember it the longest.
Bernadette
I’ve seen this before, recently obviously. I loved it then & I loved it still. Expectation made it a little quicker, less comical & more tragic. She was longer lying on that table this time I thought, a little sadder. Does that say more of me than Bernadette?
Finn is a confident performer, a cool dancer as much at home with her apple pie as with her cold chicken, a story-teller & a mimic, a giver of life.
4 Stars

Event:              Lucky Trimmer Does Wales!
National Dance Company Wales

Seen:               7.30pm, 16^th July, 2016
Reviewer:        Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running:          16^th July, 2016
Cost :                 £10 / ticket

Links:               www.luckytrimmer.com
www.ndcwales.co.uk

Music, Theatre

Review Cabaret (Richard Burton Company) RWCMD by Helen Joy

June 30, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

I go into the theatre weighed down by the recent slating on social media: in response to a comment in favour of collaborative working, I was compared to those who did nothing as Hitler rose to power. Troubling from all sides.

I hadn’t seen Cabaret for a very long time, if ever, and couldn’t say that I knew the story. Apposite as it turns out. We all know the songs but few of us know the context.

Partly it’s the space, partly it’s the artistic direction, but this is in your face from the start. And everything is in your face – teeth and tits and hips and all the grotesque of the carnival, smiling, enticing and taking you in. I watch the audience press back in their seats, personal space invaded and we are thrilled.

The story begins and like the train, rattles along happily. Two love stories unfold through song and speech – the older grocer and the landlady, the young American writer and the English show girl – against the light and dark and desperate of mid war Berlin.

The completely brilliant and mesmeric Master of Ceremonies holds each of us in his stare, winking and steely, welcoming and chilling. Better than Wayne Sleep, says my neighbour, he was evil too but ooh, this one makes me shudder. We all want him to notice us, take us into his lascivious dangerous, oh so colourful world.

Sally is sumptuous. Her voice purrs lines of love and confusion and roars and rises as the cabaret of her life is told. As it all unravels around her and the snippets of intrigue evolve into the political cabaret of Nazi Germany, we want her to leave, go to Paris with her man – but she hates Paris.

We witness the sadly comic and beautifully performed love affair of the Fraulein and the Frau over fruit and schnapps come together and fall apart and he leaves, his Jewish faith unwelcome now.

It ends. Our MC rides out with our battered journalist on his train home. He strips. His pink triangle stitched to his shirt. He folds into stage black.

I wish they sold CDs, says the lady in front of me. Oh, so do I. How much would I have relished hearing it all again on the way home. Brilliant, says another. Shocking, says someone else, hadn’t expected it to be so, well, sexual, not sure some of it was necessary. Wonderful, says a young man, reeling slightly.

I am reeling too. How do you know when it is time to act and when it is time to wait and see what happens? Cabaret.

Type of show: Theatre
Title: Cabaret
Venue: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
Dates: 22-30 June
Director: Paul Kerryson
Music: John Kander
Lyrics: Fred Ebb
Musical Director: Nathan Jones
Choreographer: Tom Jackson Greaves
Set Designer: Tina Torbay
Lighting Designer: Becky Heslop
Costume Designer: Jessica Campbell Plover

Theatre

Review Romeo and Juliet Taking Flight Theatre Company by Helen Joy

June 20, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

Anna and I are in Thompson’s Park. The last time we were together here we were in school, in single figures and holding hands, plump little girls telling each other fairy stories under the trees.

I can’t get the memories out of my head.

But we cannot reminisce for long as the Verona College classmates of ’63 sport their straw boaters and burgundy blazers and bound across the turf towards us. Rowing, fighting, slipping in the mud, the cast takes Shakespeare’s teenage drama and hurls it into our faces. Narrated , compered, signed, sung and spoken – every aspect is communicated with a robust concern for comprehension.

Tybalt played Toby Vaughan and Ania Davies as Nell your friendly Access Prefect taken by Jorge Lizalde Cano.

And the compere is masterly. Her hold over events is complete. Perambulatory it may be, drifting it is not. A neat conflation of original text and twentieth century conversation makes for an irrepressible production.

The acting is good. Romeo is ardent; the lads lusty and exuberant; the lasses witty and charming. Juliet is perfect. She is the most expressive and believable Juliet I have seen, maturing easily from silly schoolgirl to tragic heroine.

Lord and Lady Capulet are, in turn, pompous, funny, angry and very married – both to each other and to their roles in life. Lady Capulet, as pretty in pink as the girls in their ballgowns, is a clown – comic and tragic, Mercutio in a frock.

Nurse. Ah. The school nurse of school books and boy, she is splendid in her cape and boots. The buffoon, the go-between and the butt of jokes. Well-played, indeed. We wish her well in her romance with the Friar! We feel for her at the end.

Truly Shakespearean, this multi-talented and multi-tasking troupe of players understand that the more we laugh, the more we will cry; that life is a glorious, terrible muddle, however well-flowered is your pump.

Choose a sunny day and join in! And do buy a programme – and a college sweater!
Event:             Romeo and Juliet, a promenade performance
At:                   Thompson’s Park, Cardiff
Playwright:          Shakespeare, originally
Producer:             Beth House
Director:               Elise Davison
Theatre:                Taking Flight Theatre
Seen:              6.30pm, 17^th June, 2016
Reviewer:      Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running:        Romeo & Juliet will tour all over Wales, in beautiful outdoor spaces
Links:              http://www.takingflighttheatre.co.uk/romeo-juliet/

Opera & classical

Review La Voix Humaine by Helen Joy

June 5, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

Location: Her apartment, in Penarth

The party, the At Home invitation, the Do I know You routine

The glass of fizz, the canapé

The uncomfortable seating of the unknown faces

The nervous conversations, the couples chatting together apart

The admiring of the view from the windows

Lovely Weather. Yes.

Are we participants? Voyeurs? Witnesses to a woman collapsing in front of us.

Seeing her destroy herself. Hearing her pain.

Afterwards, What friends were we? We let her do it. We watched.

The clinical beauty of a voice heartbroken had sung out of the windows and over the water.

We left

Event:             La Voix Humane
At:                   A flat in Penarth
Production:         Wales Millennium Centre and Welsh National Opera for Festival of the Voice
Director:               David Pountney
Voix:                        Claire Booth
Music:                     Ricordi
Translation:        Richard Stokes
Seen:              7.45pm, 3^rd June, 2016
Reviewer:      Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running:        03 Jun – 11 Jun 2016
Links:              https://www.wmc.org.uk/Productions/2016-2017/Other/LaVoixHumaine5/

Opera & classical

Review Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci WNO by Helen Joy

May 29, 2016 Helen Joy Leave a comment

(4 / 5)

Before I say anything about the production, let me say a few deservedly kind words about the staff at the Wales Millennium Centre. Always prompt to reply to calls and emails, always delightful at the counter; and on this occasion, exceptionally welcoming, generous and professional. A special thanks for the glass of water at the bar and the seat at the back on my return after a sharp exit in the first half. Note to self: keep cough sweets in handbag.

All production photographs credit Bill Cooper

Now, it is an interesting thing to change seats during a production. One minute I am gazing directly at centre stage and the next, I am at the back, looking side on. We forget how staging has accommodated us over the years and a 1970s repro set is a thing of beauty from the front; a thing of inconvenience from the side.

However, it is always a lovely thing. An old Victorian Christmas card has come to life in all its grandeur and its pathos. All bonnets and bayonets, Cavalleria rusticana is a comforting production. Camilla Roberts is cripplingly and sweetly intense, David Kempster is healthily robust and Gwyn Hughes Jones sturdily in control throughout.

It is dense and fat and fulsome – a wealthy work, confidently wrought.

Pagliacci is cloaked in the familiar faded colours but we are now in the 1940s, just a touring car for clowns and a troupe of singers keep us watching, listening.

A very funny cavalier play within a play becomes a tragedy within a tragedy; and we love it all. Meeta Raval is hot opera – sexy, winsome and hopeful, a tricky character well-played and so beautifully sung. Kempster and Hughes Jones give us opera on a plate – they sing a rich dish of verse and music designed to entertain and please as only the Italians can. It is superb.

It is a production reminiscent of a period of flares and strikes but contemporary in its slick direction; popular pieces deserving of the magic touch of the Welsh National Opera.

Opera, Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci

Wales Millennium Centre

Mascagni & Leoncavallo

Welsh National Opera

Conductor Carlo Rizzi

Director Elijah Moshinsky

Designer Michael Yeargan

Lighting Designer Howard Harrison

Seen: 7.15pm, 26^th May, 2016

Reviewer: Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics

Running: Birmingham Hippodrome 9 Jun – 11 Jun

Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 26 May – 4 Jun
Links: https://www.wno.org.uk/event/cavalleria-rusticana-pagliacci
Cavalleria rusticana cast
Turiddu Gwyn Hughes Jones
Alfio David Kempster
Santuzza Camilla Roberts
Mamma Lucia Anne-Marie Owens
Lola Rebecca Afonwy-Jones
Pagliacci cast Canio Gwyn Hughes Jones
Tonio David Kempster
Nedda Meeta Raval
Silvio Gyula Nagy
Beppe Trystan Llŷr Griffiths

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