★★★★

“a wholesome and welcoming atmosphere which continues into the bar after curtain-down”

Theatre has long benefitted from pop stardom. Whether by using featured artists to draw in the crowds, or more directly providing the soundtrack to the drama. Hits & Pieces from Matchstick Theatre Company draws on this happy relationship by asking four writers to create a 15 minute piece related to a pop song.

Previous selections have included Sisqo’s Thong Song, Don McLean’s American Pie, and Meat Loaf’s I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That). This time, the song of choice is the Spice Girls iconic hit Wannabe – scientifically proven to be the most recognisable and catchy pop song of the last 60 years (look it up!).

Each writer can interpret the cue in whatever way their heart desires – leading to some quite surprising results. Matchstick Theatre Company member, writer and director Mark Daniels also acts as MC for the evening, creating a delightfully homespun atmosphere.

‘Gotta Get with my Friends’ written by Sophie Underwood kicks off the proceedings with a totally whacky, conceptual take on the theme. We meet a couple in crisis, played by Emma Read and Aaron Phinehas Peters, who need a shock to get the blood pumping in their relationship again. But her suggestion of an orgy with her best friends is not the most outlandish idea she has to get them to open up to each other. Kooky in theme and performance, including the bizarre use of vegetable props that are very visibly not what the actors are saying they are, it’s a bold start to the night with a very left-field interpretation of the piece’s title.

‘Ginger’, written by Annette Brook and performed by Roli Okorodudu, is a gear change towards a dose of realism. Okorodudu plays a woman who stumbles upon a queue of other women waiting for their chance to audition for a Spice Girls tribute act. After being assumed to be there for the part of Scary Spice, she muses on why she can’t be Ginger who aligns more with her own conception of herself, rather than just how she is perceived as a black woman in the world. It’s a confidently relaxed and laid-back performance with Okorodudu’s dry delivery enhancing Brook’s wittily written script.

After a short break Emma Read is back, this time as writer of ‘Tomorrow Land Tomorrow Land Tomorrow Land (It Never Ends)’. It’s a brilliant piece of comic misdirection, skilfully performed by Niall Hemmingway and Aisling Groves-McKeown. Groves-McKeown is a highly strung TV producer trying to capture Hemmingway’s experience of being part of a cult, but things aren’t quite as they seem. You’d be hard-pressed to see the link to the song choice of the evening with this one – but that does at least mean the night benefits from variety.

The final piece of the programme is the only one that really deals in the 90’s nostalgia one might have expected. However, writer Mark Daniels takes a unique perspective in the piece ‘Friendship Never Ends’ – that of a pencil case. Ails Duff and Zahra Jennings-Grant are Pencil and Rubber, two items in a woman’s Spice Girls themed pencil case that has been left in a cupboard for twenty years finally being taken off the shelf. Their personification and memories of a well-spent youth will delight any Toy Story fans – as well as the pencil case themed puns.

Matchstick Theatre Company does well to create a sense of community in this short evening of works. The involvement of various Company and cast members as writers, directors and actors, creates a spirit of collaboration for this cabaret-style entertainment. Coupled with audience engagement through polls and suggestions for future song-themes, it’s a wholesome and welcoming atmosphere which continues into the bar after curtain-down with a 90’s themed playlist. You’re gonna ‘Wannabe’ at the next event to check it out.

ASSEMBLY HALL at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★★

“Assembly Hall is nothing short of spectacular”

Crystal Pite is a visionary theatre-maker. A once in a generation choreographer. Able to convey emotion through movement in a way unlike anyone else I have had the pleasure to see.

My first introduction to Pite was as part of a mixed bill for the Royal Ballet in 2017. Her short work, Flight Pattern, created in response to Europe’s refugee crisis, blew me away with its ambitious use of the whole company moving in synchronicity.

Her latest work in collaboration with Jonathon Young and her Vancouver based company, Kidd Pivot, takes an utterly bizarre concept that, on the surface, has nothing in common with that politically charged piece – an Annual General Meeting of amateur medieval re-enactors.

It is as perplexing as it seems. Pite and Young’s signature style, developed over the course of a number of productions together, has dancers moving and lip syncing to recorded speech. They animate conversations with exaggerated hand gestures and head tilts, with each dancer imbuing their movements with oodles of personality as we are introduced to the reasons the group has gathered. Slowly through the narrative, after comic arguments about where refreshments feature on the agenda, it is revealed that the group are facing dissolution, with their fate hinging on a final vote put off since last year.

From relatively inauspicious beginnings, over the course of 90 minutes this show turns into something totally unexpected and will leave you gripped throughout. Pite and Young use this group of amateur re-enactors to explore themes ever present in theatre such as: Why do we tell stories? And what do the stories that persist say about us today? Are we doomed to repeat the failings of our forebears or can we learn to save ourselves and set us free?

As the piece moves into a dream-like sequence where the dance takes over, the conversation gives way to a soundscape of experimental electronic sounds using the recorded speech (Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe). The group moves like a living organism, not in stops and starts but in ripples and waves. How much are these individuals in control, executing free will vs. playing a role they are destined to play, over and over? This is explored right from the get go, with one of the dancers seemingly being pushed and pulled around by another, moving like a marionette. Movements flail and flutter as if under strobe lighting and repeat in mysterious ways. When later the same movements recur by a dancer in a full suit of armour they gain an audible element which inexplicably changes the feeling of the movement.

The set (Jay Gower Taylor) is exquisitely simple – a backdrop that is without doubt a run down community hall, with grubby walls and moody lighting (Tom Visser) that adds to the feeling this is a place in disrepair. The raised stage-upon-a-stage is a clever trick to instantaneously move the action from real to surreal.

The costume (Nancy Bryant) is again simple yet characterful. Dancers wear plain clothes whilst in their AGM but these get increasingly elaborate as the re-enactments play out.

Each element, movement, sound, costume, and lighting is top notch but together it is more than the sum of its parts. Pite uses dance to convey a message in concert with other elements and in many ways her approach to theatre-making is similar to her approach to the choreography – each element performing the role it’s best placed to play.

Out of many, we are left with one. A final image of a knight constructed from the torso of one dancer, the arm of another, with the whole figure moving as if being controlled by a master puppeteer.

I am not exaggerating when I say Assembly Hall is nothing short of spectacular. I came out feeling enthused at what a perfectly executed production it was – the best and most sought after sensation after leaving the theatre. Pite proves her talent once again, and to think something so ambitious can be achieved out of a group of medieval reenactors makes it all the more joyous. I can’t wait to see what pops out of Pite’s enviable creative mind next.

HITS AND PIECES #5 (SPICE GIRLS) at the Cockpit

★★★★

“a wholesome and welcoming atmosphere which continues into the bar after curtain-down”

HITS AND PIECES #5 (SPICE GIRLS) at the Cockpit

Reviewed on 14th April 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Natasha Vasandani

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HITS AND PIECES

HITS AND PIECES

ASSEMBLY HALL at Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★★

“Assembly Hall is nothing short of spectacular”