Anthony Shrubsall Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★½

“a deliciously gothic tale with a wonderfully entertaining main character”

Both the set design and the venue for Edred, the Vampyre could not be more fitting to its subject matter – from the church-like red-draped seating to the stark black and white tiles of the stage and its crimson curtains that are gleefully ripped aside by our protagonist during the opening scene. This is a production that certainly doesn’t shy away from spectacle. It skilfully melds humour and drama, drawing the audience in with a few wry jokes about Google and Wikipedia and then drip-feeding them more and more horror as the show goes on.

Entering the church serving as our eponymous vampire’s dusty abode are gap-year travellers Elizabeth (Zari Lewis) and Jacques (James Hoyles). Filled with a panicked mixture of fear and scepticism, they are surprised to find a vampire that debunks a life of coffins and avoiding the sunlight and instead adopts the debonair paternalism of a camp 18th century uncle as he attempts to explain his life and history. Lewis’ Elizabeth is most drawn to Edred, and she plays the role with a deft mix of adoration, terror, and uncertainty. Comparatively, Hoyles’ character is underused and given less emotional range, but successfully carries off many of the jokes of the first half, furiously swearing at Edred in several entertaining sequences.

The play itself is aptly named, for although it is the other characters that have their lives and emotions rent asunder during the hour-long running time, Edred (Martin Prest) still remains the star – glittering with inimitable flamboyance. His movements and musings are joyful and enchanting to watch, as he sets about helping the duo uncover their own mysterious troubles and night terrors through exploring his thousand-year past.

The stage is set and from there the action unfolds, drawing on every available trope in the gothic arsenal, whether it is the darkness within us all, the dangerous power of sexuality, or familial and historical legacies. Writer David Pinner has filled Edred’s chronicle of historical happenstances with many familiar cultural references, and a large nod to perhaps the original godfather of gothic: William Shakespeare and his blood-filled Macbeth. The directing (Anthony Shrubsall), along with Prest’s excellent lively performance, ensures that there is never a quiet moment and that each historical vignette is delivered with gusto.

The play’s descent into a purer horror and its sudden end may not chime well with all viewers – there is no neat tying up of loose ends, or gentle sweeping character arcs – but for a genre founded on the bedrock of surprise and, above all, drama, it serves the play fittingly. Much like the character of Edred, the play is more about the journey than the end result. Retrospectively, it is perhaps too easy to question why certain storylines were teased at, but the overall ominous atmosphere – carried off with ease by a marriage of set design (Alys Whitehead) and lighting and sound (Chuma Emembolu) – makes for a deliciously gothic tale with a wonderfully entertaining main character.

Reviewed by Vicky Richards

The Project

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed – 7th March 2019

★★★

“the six-strong cast work hard to lift this piece, and they all give extremely watchable performances”

Lying in the sleepy heart of the Netherlands is the unassuming village of Westerbork. Off the tourist trail in the Province of Drenthe, it is not easy to find. Almost no one visits, yet it is an area of outstanding beauty, and home of vast stone burial chambers. Over five thousand years old they rival Stonehenge in scale and mystery. But among these megalithic graves are other, more recent ghosts that recall something more sinister and sad: the Westerbork transition camp. From these gates, more than one hundred thousand Jews – including a Dutch girl called Anne Frank – were deported and executed on their arrival at Auschwitz.

Ironically, Westerbork camp was set up by the Dutch at the outbreak of the war as a haven for German Jews fleeing the rising tide of antisemitism in Germany. The Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 gave it a more grisly use and Westerbork became the way-station to death. Labelled ‘the ante-rooms to the gates of Hell’, Westerbork was a holding camp where, amid its tough and unpleasant landscape, the inmates were sometimes allowed to go about normal, daily pursuits. Bizarrely juxtaposed against this bleak backdrop devoid of morality, some of the best cabaret performers of Europe were still able to perform – albeit for the benefit of the SS commandants. There was even an orchestra, restaurants, a school and hairdresser: all a malicious trick calculated to foster a false sense of hope for survival.

Unfortunately “The Project”, Ian Buckley’s play inspired by these events, gives us very little sense of the world it is creating. Focusing on the story of dancer Anna Hilmann and her perplexing relationship with the Nazi officer, Conrad Schaffer, Buckley skirts the complexities of the issues with a superficial narrative. There is no perception of the real dangers the characters are in; as Anna dances, quite literally, for her life. And for the lives of her loved ones.

The text comes with a built-in assumption that the audience already know all the historical facts; and with insufficient reference points we struggle to decipher fully where we are; geographically and within the hearts of the protagonists. Rather than add mystery, this merely strips the drama of tension. In other hands this would make for a dreary evening, but the six-strong cast work hard to lift this piece, and they all give extremely watchable performances. Faye Maughan convincingly conveys Anna’s conflicts and compromises that contaminate her hopes for survival. She has the most difficult choices to make, in contrast to her sister Millie’s (played with a wonderful wide-eyed eccentricity by Eloise Jones) dreamy but jerky idealism. Lloyd Morris plays cabaret impresario Victor Gerrin with a real passion, and Mike Duran’s Nazi commandant is a fine study in guarded menace that lies beneath a softer casing.

But, as with all the cast, the weightlessness of the words they are given fail to anchor them in any realism. Tension drifts away as, for example, an escape plan is discussed as though arranging a furtive midnight feast. Their ultimate destinies: the “promise of future horrors”, is forecast like the drudging prospect of too much homework. While the actors attempt to bring these undercurrents to the surface, the scenes themselves just meander into platitudes that fail to explore the full potential of the material.

We are supposed to be concerned with the fate of these people as they ultimately embark on their fatal journey, but instead we merely wonder where this project is going.

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 29th October 2019

★★★½

“a deliciously gothic tale with a wonderfully entertaining main character”

Reviewed by Vicky Richards

Edred, the Vampyre

Old Red Lion Theatre until 2nd November as part of London Horror Festival 2019

Previously reviewed at this venue:

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed – 7th March 2019

★★★

“the six-strong cast work hard to lift this piece, and they all give extremely watchable performances”

We are supposed to be concerned with the fate of these people as they ultimately embark on their fatal journey, but instead we merely wonder where this project is going.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Leo Bacica

The Project

White Bear Theatre until 23rd March

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: