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A Great Big Sigh

Hen & Chickens Theatre

Reviewed – 5th September 2019

★★★

“a lot of the audience roared with laughter at his antics and I would be foolish to ignore this feedback”

Formed just last year, ‘Moose & Noodle Soup’ theatre company follow up an earlier run at The Hope Theatre with this two handed show.

As we enter the theatre, we are presented by a man and a woman, both gagged and tied to a chair and sitting facing each other in a basement. It soon becomes apparent that this pair have been kidnapped and they discover that they have a set amount of time to solve some clues, each of which has a number as its answer, these numbers being the code to a safe from which they can retrieve a key and escape. Failure to do this in the time limit and we are led to believe that the room will explode.

A fairly bare stage with just the two pieces of furniture, a small suspended window, a hotel like small safe and a few books. The action takes place in real time and occasionally a voiceover informs the characters how long they have left to complete their task. A little like watching an episode of The Crystal Maze, although the cryptic clues are not exactly Times crossword level.

A Great Big Sigh is not a drama though, it is very definitely a comedy. Walter (Riley Marinelli) has the majority of the humorous moments. Dressed a little like Rupert Bear in green checks and red trousers and bizarrely sporting roller blades, he is a wacky, hyperactive, hugely frustrating character who will not focus on the task in hand for more than a few seconds. On the other hand, Tina (Maryhee Yoon) is a calm, focussed, delightfully normal young lady who you would be quite happy to spend an hour of your time in a basement with. This is a very physical show. Walter expertly manoeuvres himself around the stage whilst tied to a fallen chair and one moment where he lifts Tina, almost drops her which then ends in a perfect handstand, is so expertly and casually done that I wanted to leap out of my chair with a scorecard of ten.

But for all the noise, irritation and over the top acting from Walter, occasionally the tempo slows and we discover the characters’ back stories. Tina’s, so worryingly commonplace in this day and age, you wondered how such a strong character emerged. Walter’s so tragic, so poignant, that you suddenly wanted to buy him a beer and give him a big hug.

“You make stronger friendships when you go through adversity together” was a line from Walter that tied the whole plot together for me. Walter’s character is not my type of humour, but a lot of the audience roared with laughter at his antics and I would be foolish to ignore this feedback.

Moose & Noodle Soup’s mission statement is to transport audiences into ridiculous scenarios and they certainly achieved that in A Great Big Sigh. I left the theatre thinking of loneliness, friendship and how poor my long division is. I couldn’t help thinking that however extrovert a person may be, however outrageous their behaviour is, there is often a little cry for help beneath the surface which is extremely dangerous to ignore.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

A Great Big Sigh

Hen and Chickens Theatre until 8th September

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Abducting Diana | ★★★½ | March 2018

Isaac Saddlesore & the Witches of Drenn | ★★★★ | April 2018

I Will Miss you When You’re Gone | ★★½ | September 2018

Not Quite | ★★★ | February 2019

The First Modern Man | ★★★ | February 2019

The Dysfunckshonalz! | ★★★★★ | May 2019

No One Likes Us | ★★★ | August 2019

Scenic Reality | ★ | August 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★★★

“brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best”

The Camden Fringe has delivered a smorgasbord of delights this year and as it enters its final week, plenty more shows are still on offer.

Rendered Retina bring us the award winning Form, a comedy based around the mundane goings of three workers in a typical office. Not necessarily a plot line to set the pulse racing, but this is all delivered through the medium of mime, clowning and ingeniously clever object manipulation.

The set consists of an office desk dressed with the usual accessories and fourteen boxes filled with scrunched up balls of paper.

Some plays have a thousand lines of dialogue and yet nothing of substance is said. Here, not a single word is spoken and yet we are made to laugh and question how our working routine dominates our lives. The three performers (Tom Mangan, Alex Mangan and Jordan Choi) are all equally skilled. The ongoing choreography is lightning fast and yet synchronised to the split second. Movement is exaggerated, sharp and accompanied by terrific facial expression. The original music score complemented each of the scenes cleverly and heightened the story telling that the actors were so wittily putting across.

Scene changes can often be so clunky and yet no black outs and scraping of furniture here, instead locations changed before our eyes. Often they were so subtle and slickly carried out, that you almost didn’t notice it happening right in front of you. There we were, transformed to an operating theatre, a prison cell or an underwater setting. Props used in these scenes were genius, again they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, were imaginative and yet fitted the setting perfectly. We were promised twenty thousand balls of screwed up paper and that’s what we got. Inventively used in a variety of scenes, the one single ball of red paper caught the eye like a laser and again moved around the stage with a deft slightness of hand. At the end of the show, the stage was littered with these paper balls and yet this company is so accomplished, you feel that each and every one probably ended up no more than inch from where it should have been.

This is brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best. An original concept and put together in a humorous, thought provoking, imaginative way by an immensely talented team. As the dust settles and I return to my mundane desk job tomorrow, whenever I have cause to use my desk stapler, I think a fond smile will creep across my face.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lindsay Oliver

Hen & Chickens Theatre

Reviewed – 5th September 2019

★★★

“a lot of the audience roared with laughter at his antics and I would be foolish to ignore this feedback”

Formed just last year, ‘Moose & Noodle Soup’ theatre company follow up an earlier run at The Hope Theatre with this two handed show.

“You make stronger friendships when you go through adversity together” was a line from Walter that tied the whole plot together for me. Walter’s character is not my type of humour, but a lot of the audience roared with laughter at his antics and I would be foolish to ignore this feedback.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

A Great Big Sigh

Hen and Chickens Theatre until 8th September

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Camden People’s Theatre

Reviewed – 19th August 2019

★★★★★

“brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best”

The Camden Fringe has delivered a smorgasbord of delights this year and as it enters its final week, plenty more shows are still on offer.

Rendered Retina bring us the award winning Form, a comedy based around the mundane goings of three workers in a typical office. Not necessarily a plot line to set the pulse racing, but this is all delivered through the medium of mime, clowning and ingeniously clever object manipulation.

The set consists of an office desk dressed with the usual accessories and fourteen boxes filled with scrunched up balls of paper.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lindsay Oliver

Form

Camden People’s Theatre until 21st August as part of Camden Fringe 2019

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: