Anna Kelsey Archives - Page 3 of 3 - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“explores themes such as austerity, immigration, suicide and depression in a sensitive, thought-provoking way”

Set in South Wales on the eve of the demolition of the last factory in town, Exodus follows four friends as they build a plane in order to escape their town in search of a better life. Although, for the most part, a humorous play, Exodus explores themes such as austerity, immigration, suicide and depression in a sensitive, thought-provoking way.

Characters include Mary (Gwenllian Higginson), Ray (Liam Tobin), Gareth (Berwyn Pearce) and Timmy (Karim Bedda). Tobin and Pearce provide the majority of the comedy in the show, as Ray and Gareth, bouncing off each other well. They can have a tendency to be slightly overpowering and loud in the small theatre space, but it can’t be denied that both actors bring high levels of enthusiasm to their roles. Bedda portrays Timmy, a refugee who never speaks, but is a talented violinist, showing this by frequently performing live throughout the play. Whilst the other three characters are able to express themselves through speech, Bedda effectively performs through the playing of his instrument, which acts as his character’s voice and story.

Running alongside the plot of the building of the plane and preparations for the flight is Mary’s individual story, depicting town life and the struggles faced. Higginson does a fantastic job of engaging the audience throughout and is able to display a range of emotions extremely well. The transitions between the scenes with all four actors to Higginson’s monologues are seamless, with the remaining actors sitting down in sync and staring ahead, motionless. This adds to our engagement with what the character of Mary goes on to say and allows our focus to be solely on her.

Movement, directed by Emma Vickery, is brilliantly executed. A particular highlight is a sequence in which the group undertake “training” to deal with the possibility of thunderstorms during their flight, where lighting design by Katy Morison, as well as the violin music, enhances the scene further.

Exodus is, on the surface, a comedy. However, in reality, it’s much more than that. Universal themes are explored and, although set in Wales, this is a play that could be set pretty much anywhere in the UK. The cast and creative team, well led by writer and director Rachael Boulton, must be congratulated for the effort that has clearly gone into a production that’s both entertaining and moving.

Reviewed by Emily K Neal

Photography by Tom Flannery

Under Milk Wood

The Watermill Theatre

Reviewed – 26th October 2017

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The Watermill provides a perfect backdrop to Thomas’s bucolic celebration”

‘To begin, at the beginning’. Dylan Thomas wrote his ‘play for voices’, Under Milk Wood, for the radio. After a US premiere as a stage play, its first UK performance was on the BBC in 1954 with a starry cast that included Richard Burton, Sybil Thorndike and Emlyn Williams.

The piece is more like an extended poem than a play and it unfolds as a series of funny and touching vignettes all on one Spring day in an entirely fictional Welsh seaside town called Llareggub (‘bugger all’ backwards).

Dylan Thomas was a poet, intoxicated with the power of words. Who can forget a phrase like ‘the sloeback, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat bobbing sea’? His writing is rich with wonderfully descriptive language that paints a vivid picture of the interlinked lives of his many characters.
After its radio debut, this joyful celebration of a kind of picturesque Welshness soon won a loyal following. A stage version in which the cast sat on stools for most of the performance was a big success, and in 1972 Burton reprised his role as narrator in a film. An animated version and several TV productions all followed.

The delightful Watermill Theatre at Newbury is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Its rustic setting provides a perfect backdrop to Thomas’s bucolic celebration. Director Brendan O’Hea’s staging, with design by Anna Kelsey is fittingly simple for a voice-driven play, with some atmospheric lighting (Wayne Dowdeswell), much (but not too much) mist and hardly any props. The talented cast of six give passionate and physical performances, sharing over 30 male and female roles. Some sympathetic new music (Olly Fox) has been added and they make good use of the auditorium as well as the stage.

First on is Welsh-born Lynn Hunter as old Captain Cat. She gives a wonderfully warm performance in this role and later also as Mrs Organ Morgan. As the Voice, Alistair McGowan (‘The Big Impression’, ‘Have I Got News for You’) rightly does not attempt to imitate the lyrical intensity of Richard Burton’s performances. His accent is light. He moves around the action, providing an adept commentary to it.

Charlotte O’Leary gives a particularly memorable performance as ever-nagging house-perfect Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard who calls her two long-suffering ex-husbands back from the grave to recite their daily tasks, in order. Steffan Cennydd won the Richard Burton Award before graduating this year. His acting is passionate and compelling. Without leaving the stage, he switches easily between male and female roles, with some wonderful comic moments as Mae Rose Cottage (‘Call me Dolores, like they do in stories’).

Polly Garter is one of the play’s most memorable characters, forever mourning her lost lover, little Willy Wee. Caroline Sheen sang and acted to great effect both as Polly and as Lord Cut-Glass who ‘scampers from clock to clock, a bunch of clock-keys in one hand, a fish-head in the other’. Ross Ford is 6’5” tall, an unusual height for an actor. He is well-cast as the sinister poisoner Mr Pugh, as Nogood Boyo, who never catches anything but a whalebone corset, and the boozy Cherry Owen.

Finborough Theatre

Reviewed – 5th November 2018

★★★★

“explores themes such as austerity, immigration, suicide and depression in a sensitive, thought-provoking way”

Reviewed by Emily K Neal

Photography by Tom Flannery

Exodus

Finborough Theatre until 20th November

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Under Milk Wood

The Watermill Theatre

Reviewed – 26th October 2017

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“The Watermill provides a perfect backdrop to Thomas’s bucolic celebration”

‘To begin, at the beginning’. Dylan Thomas wrote his ‘play for voices’, Under Milk Wood, for the radio. After a US premiere as a stage play, its first UK performance was on the BBC in 1954 with a starry cast that included Richard Burton, Sybil Thorndike and Emlyn Williams.

The piece is more like an extended poem than a play and it unfolds as a series of funny and touching vignettes all on one Spring day in an entirely fictional Welsh seaside town called Llareggub (‘bugger all’ backwards).

The play closes as ‘dusk is drowned’ and ‘the windy town is a hill of windows’. A delightful and memorable evening in a perfect setting.

Reviewed by David Woodward

Photography by Philip Tull

UNDER MILK WOOD

is at The Watermill Theatre until 4th November