UK Theatre Network

Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, nor ought to be.

Shared Experience have been instrumental in pioneering a distinctive performance style celebrating the union of physical and text-based theatre. Sadly, this innovative theatre company that has been responsible for such brilliant productions as War and Peace and The Caucasian Chalk Circle has recently lost all of its Arts Council funding.

Brontë was originally written and directed by Polly Teale in 2005. This new production, directed by Nancy Meckler, is a collaboration with the Watermill Theatre. Polly Teale explores in her intriguing play how it was possible that the Brontës, three celibate Victorian sisters, living in isolation on the Yorkshire Moors, could have written some of the most passionate fiction of all time creating such potent psychological portraits that they would become a part of our collective consciousness.

Three female actors in modern dress are already on stage as the audience are taking their seats. As the show begins they discuss the Brontë sisters and imagine themselves living their reality when women were kept like “overgrown infants in the nursery of life.” As they put on their costumes they slowly change into their characters. Their brother Branwell is coming home – a failure once again. All their hopes to escape from poverty and obscurity are squashed.  Nobody expects anything of women, they live in obscurity, while Branwell is crushed under the burden of their expectations and becomes an alcoholic - the only legacy of this once imaginative boy who lacked the talent of his sisters remains his famous portrait displaying the three novelists.

This is not a biographical play. Shared Experience take us through an emotional journey of discovery. Polly Teale mixes fictional and real characters onstage to show the inner lives of Emily and Charlotte. There is no character displaying Anne’s inner life because she considered her writing a tool to provoke reform and expose injustice. The fictional character Cathy of Wuthering Heights is alive in Emily’s imagination as she conjures her up to write. Cathy is an embodiment of Emily’s longing to return to the free state of childhood, to be a girl again. The madwoman, Rochester’s Creole wife of Jane Eyre, is an expression of Charlotte’s passions, she embodies everything Charlotte wishes to disown and conceal from others. In the second half, Jane Eyre emerges as an idealised version of Charlotte whereas the madwoman remains everything that she, the Victorian woman, is not allowed to be.

The ensemble is excellent. Elizabeth Crarer convincingly shows Emily's shy but rebellious nature and her desire to be outside, not to be known; Kristin Atherton's Charlotte, the only sibling to marry although she was considered plain – “she learnt her market value at the age of twelve” - manages to retain our sympathy even at her most domineering when she edits her dead sisters' works; and Flora Nicholson gives a touching performance as Anne, who despite seeming a gentle and conventional woman wrote an account of domestic violence that shocked Victorian critics. Mark Edel-Hunt is very good as Branwell. Stephen Finegold is an authoritative Patrick Brontë and touching as the bumbling, good hearted Arthur Bell Nichols. France McNamee vividly conveys the wild, passionate nature of both Cathy and the madwoman.

Until 14 May 2011, 7.45 pm.
Richmond Theatre
The Green, Richmond, Surrey
TW9 1QJ
http://www.ambassadortickets.com/2244/659/Richmond/Richmond-Theatre/Bronte-Tickets

Then touring:

Theatre Royal Bath
17 - 21 May
Box Office 01225 448 844
 

West Yorkshire Playhouse
24 - 28 May
Box Office 01132 137 700
 

Glasgow Citizens Theatre
1 - 4 Jun
Box Office 0141 429 0022

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s “trivial comedy for serious people”, gets a seriously good revival in the final production to grace the Library Theatre stage.

In just over a century this pearl among plays has taken its place alongside the classics of the canon.  Wilde’s sparkling wit and idiosyncratic style reach their acme in a text which is now so universally familiar that, like Hamlet, every line seems to be a quotation.

Director Chris Honer has assembled a cast of familiar faces (including old favourite Leigh Symonds as a brace of butlers) alongside a new generation of acting talent.  Among his discoveries is floppy-haired fop Alex Felton, a long-limbed, lissom youth who seems to have been born to play the role of the incorrigible Algie.  Florence Hall’s Cecily is perfect as the Victorian type of unspoiled innocence, although Natalie Grady as the more worldly Gwendolen has the edge on them both when it comes to comic timing.

Simon Harrison brings humour and sweetness to the otherwise stolid Jack Worthing, and Olwen May’s very funny turn as dotty governess Miss Prism gives the character more than her usual share of charm.  However Malcolm James’s cameo as the inveterate celibate Rev Chasuble nearly steals the whole show, wringing a laugh from every line without ever overplaying.  In fact the whole production is an example of what can be achieved from truth and taste, something Wilde would have appreciated.

It may seem strange, but the best example of this self-imposed restraint is the director’s decision to have Lady Bracknell played in drag.  Russell Dixon’s solid bulldog build and uncompromising masculinity mean that even though he speaks in low and moderate tones his Lady Bracknell has an underlying authority.  Ironically this enables him to play her as a living, breathing woman, rather than as the shrill caricature which is often the character’s fate. 

Designer Judith Croft’s opulent sets consist of a wall of slats with a beautiful cut-out design and a well-matched assemblage of antique furniture,  And her mouth-watering costumes almost deserve their own billing: the Lady Bracknell tout ensemble plays a huge part in Russell Dixon’s transformation, while Alex Felton seems to have become Ms Croft’s fashion muse.  How else could she have dreamed up those divine crimson shot-silk breeches?  And who else could possible have carried them off with such aplomb?

There can’t be a theatre-goer in the region who doesn’t have a soft spot for Manchester’s lovely Library Theatre and who doesn’t regret the closure of the little auditorium buried in the Central Library’s basement.  However the Library Theatre Company itself lives on and will be performing at The Lowry for the next few seasons.  And at least The Importance if Being Earnest is a high-point for the company to take leave of its home of more than half a century.

The Importance of Being Earnest is on until Saturday 3 July 2010

Prices: £8.00-£18.00 (concessions available)

Eves: Mon-Thurs @ 7.30pm; Fri & Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Thurs & Sat @ 3pm

Box Office: 0161 236 7110

www.librarytheatre.com

If you think you’ve seen the definitive musical version of Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, think again.  Like Lionel Bart's classic version, the production at Bolton this festive season is laced throughout with catchy songs and dances.  However the Octagon’s new adaptation, with a cast playing multiple roles as well as all the instruments, is very much in the Northern Broadsides tradition - hardly surprising, as writer Deborah McAndrew and composer Conrad Nelson are both veterans of that company.

The narrative is stripped down to about two hours, so out go various sub-plots, but the old favourites are all present and correct.  Robert Pickavance is an oleaginous and sycophantic Fagin; Tim Frances is excellent comic value as Mr Bumble, the cruel and cowardly beadle; Esther Ruth Elliott is Nancy, the tart with a heart; and a rotating cast of talented and enthusiastic children play Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger and all the assorted urchins.

Dawn Allsopp’s impressive set, an imposing urban sprawl of brick walls, rackety bridges and dirty cobbles, spans the whole width of the auditorium and soars to the ceiling.  Director Josette Bushell-Mingo’s production makes the most of the huge playing area, with great choreography and energetic ensembles.

This version of Oliver Twist is sweet without being saccharine, and addresses the iniquities of Victorian England without being too scary for a younger audience.  Judging by the reaction from the stalls on Friday night, this is a really excellent Christmas show for the whole family.

Oliver Twist is on at Bolton Octagon until Saturday 23 January 2010

Tickets: £8.50 - £15.95

Shows: Mon-Sat at 10.15am, 2.15pm & 7.15pm (performance schedule varies - see website)

Box Office: 01204 520661

www.octagonbolton.co.uk