“performances ranging from peculiar to haunting, with some humour thrown in for good measure”
Nothing says Monday night quite like sitting in an upstairs pub theatre complete with a temperamental smoke machine, listening to some good old spooky stories and being slightly creeped out by a selection of small dolls. Blackshaw Theatre’s ‘Scare Slam’ featured six performances ranging from peculiar to haunting, with some humour thrown in for good measure.
One of my favourite performances was ‘The Fatberg of Whitechapel’, written and performed by fellow northeasterner, Reece Connolly. A piece of advice – don’t listen to this one if you’re feeling at all queasy, as it is about a growing mass of filth, sewage and general horribleness growing underneath the London streets. Even worse, this fatberg is given a voice, a personality – it threatens to take over the city and then … the world!
Connolly’s clever rhyme and eye for detail (he doesn’t miss out a single thing that could be flushed away, and we’re talking everything from discarded wet wipes to used condoms), ensures that the audience will remember this story next time they dispose of well, anything.
A stark contrast to this was a tale written and told by Ed Hartland titled ‘Murder of Crows’ which was quite literally about him murdering a crow and then being a victim of their revenge. Listening to Ed perform this piece was captivating as during his gory confession of stamping a crow to death, you felt as though you had caught him in the act. He didn’t mean to do it. Promise.
