Tag Archives: Anna Marshall

0 Days Without Crying – 3.5 Stars

Crying

0 Days Without Crying

Landor Space

Reviewed – 9th April 2018

★★★½

“Emotionally jarring, often heart-wrenching, liberatingly funny and overall too real”

 

Arriving at Landor Space, one is greeted with the light pinks and lilacs of magnolias in full bloom, the familiar browns, reds and umbers of a local pub, and the excited chat between groups of theatre-loving friends arrived in twos and threes to enjoy a new play. The spring showers didn’t put anyone off and the show enjoyed a full house on its opening night, with an atmosphere of undiluted attention, support and enthusiasm, all of which made for a very welcoming and inclusive experience for all who were there.

Caterina Incisa’s 0 Days Without Crying is a solo piece, a tragicomedy following the ups and downs in a young woman’s life as she works out (through trial and error!) how to function as a twenty-something year old juggling everyday life and daily arguments with anxiety and depression. Dubious judgment and ill-advised decisions are in abundance, and hilarity ensues on a regular basis. Emotionally jarring, often heart-wrenching, liberatingly funny and overall too real, the piece is intended as an emotional roller-coaster exploring the terrifying and hilarious aspects of coming of age, the pressures suddenly thrust upon young women (and young adults in general), the responsibilities, emotions and situations for which one never really feels prepared, and all the wonderful times when things go sideways that you can’t help but laugh at yourself for.

As a production it is strong on many levels: the writing is powerful, Wilfred Petherbridge’s music choices and sound snippets are clever and entertaining, and the set design (Jo Wright) is colourful and elaborate without becoming laboured.

Insica’s performance was generally engaging and communicated the text well. She held the audience’s attention throughout and could have you howling with laughter one minute and guilt-ridden and apologetic three sentences down, an effect that left the audience feeling unsure of their reactions and even more sympathetic than before. Her character portrayals were particularly entertaining, and as she seamlessly switched between the sketchy narcissistic therapist, to that friend left over from Uni who you can’t quite bring yourself to tell you don’t really like, it was obvious that she was absolutely in her element. The only unfortunate aspect was her apparent self-consciousness – punchlines which could have been uproarious were often brushed over, some were even indiscernible, and the mood shifts happened so suddenly that neither text nor audience were given the chance to breathe. Whilst this was likely down to opening night jitters, it meant the performance came across as work in progress – though a few extra seconds between lines would have more than made up for this.

Lasting just under an hour, very in touch with its time and exceptionally promising, 0 Days Without Crying is a challenging piece sure to strike a chord with anyone who appreciates that being twenty-five is not an easy business.

 

Reviewed by Laura Midgley

 

LANDOR_SPACE

0 Days Without Crying

Landor Space until 11th April

 

 

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Review of America’s No 1 Detective Agency – 3 Stars

 

America’s No 1 Detective Agency

Drayton Arms Theatre

Reviewed – 7th August 2017

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

 

“With time, and with more conviction, I think we have a little gem”

 

 

We’re in downtown LA, in the run down offices of private investigator Vivian O’Connell (Fleur de Wit). A single overhead light bulb casts its sad glow as Vivian sits at her desk, feet propped up next to a half empty whisky bottle. A detached air belies her anxiety as she draws on a cigarette. A jazz trio plays in the corner as other shadowy figures whisp through the haze. One almost expects to hear Sam Spade’s dreamlike drawl over the rhythms and arpeggios of the ‘film noir’ music.

The aptly named “Fatale Femme” Theatre Company have transformed the upstairs space of the Drayton Arms into an evocative replica of a film noir setting and, right on cue, a femme fatale bursts through the door. She is Betty Channing (Alex Hinson), a Hollywood wannabe who has (supposedly) come to enlist the services of the private investigator and her sidekick Joey (Siobhan Cha Cha). The scene is set, but then all too quickly dismantled as the various strands of the convoluted plot twist and knot together in a whirlwind of hidden motives and double crossing.

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It is all great fun, and part of the fun is trying to keep up with the action. But it can leave you breathless and wanting the cast to just slow down a little and let you come up for air. Liv Hunterson’s writing is as sharp as a knife but, in the hands of this ensemble cast, didn’t always cut the mustard.

The script needs more careful handling and a calibre of acting that this more than able troupe didn’t quite reach. Anna Marshall’s direction was assured (the use of a live band to underscore and punctuate the action was an inspired choice), and the mix of ideas worked well to achieve a balance of humour and menace, ingredients essential to the classic film noir genre. And the stock characters were all there in the ensemble; the anti-hero Bobby Munroe (Hamish Adams-Cairns), the villainous mob boss Larry Siegeli (Oliver-David Harrison) and squealer “Teddy” Worthington who has some of the best lines, incisively delivered in a cut glass English accent by Iain Gibbons.

However, all the ingredients came out of the pot slightly half-baked, with too many ideas vying for centre stage and too little time to concentrate. This could certainly benefit from both a longer running time and a longer run. With time, and with more conviction, I think we have a little gem, and a format that could really work in the theatre.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

 

 

AMERICA’S No 1 DETECTIVE AGENCY

was at the Drayton Arms

 

 

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