Flora Doble Archives - Page 37 of 41

Have I Told You I’m Writing a Play About my Vagina?

The Bunker

Reviewed – 28th July 2019

★★★★

“Vag is boisterous, loud and makes her opinion on penetration clear: She doesn’t like it!”

Have I Told You I’m Writing A Play About My Vagina?, written by Ella Langley and directed by Georgia Figgis, explores the difficult and often uncomfortable relationship between those who are female-identifying and their bodies.

Bea (Christelle Elwin) is a fun-loving university student coming to terms with living with vaginismus, an involuntary muscle contraction of the vagina that makes penetration painful or even impossible. This means that Bea not only struggles with penetrative sex but even putting in a tampon. Throughout the play, Bea chats with Vag (Lottie Amor), a personification of her vagina, as they work together to negotiate a life in which they can both be happy.

Vag is boisterous, loud and makes her opinion on penetration clear: She doesn’t like it! Vag’s pink, puffy skirt nods to pubic hair but it was notable that nothing else about her costume was anatomically inspired. Amor navigates between several roles from Vag to doctor to a motley crew of male suitors all wearing a beanie with ‘MAN’ printed on the front.

The script was highly amusing and there were many laugh out loud moments such as Bea’s awkward sexual encounter with a particularly eager Australian man. The play treats a sensitive and little talked about issue with playfulness and Langley’s decision to write about her personal experience with vaginismus makes the topic altogether more approachable. Amor is gifted most of the humorous lines, but Bea’s oddness and insecurity makes her a highly relatable character.

The chemistry between Bea and Vag grows as the play goes on. Dancing was used well to mirror the pair’s growing relationship. Vag first enters the stage running and moving around the stage with no direction or rhythm flipping off a pained Bea. Slowly, over time, the pair become warmer with each other and begin to touch. By the performance’s end, they slow dance while Elwin sings gently.

The set (Léo Monteiro) was simple: a bed on wheels, a pair of chairs and a toilet on a wheeled platform used only for the play’s opening scene. There was little interaction with these objects outside of their functional purpose which though rather uninspired did allow for focus to remain on the action on stage. A set of turntables and a microphone behind a wooden podium at the centre-back of the stage contributed to some fabulous scenes such as Bea dancing in a club while Vag narrates her efforts to ‘get with’ someone but its use was concentrated in the first half of the play and then seemingly forgotten thereafter. The lighting (Johnny King) flicked between reds and harsh white depending on the tone of the scene.

Langley’s play shines a light on a condition that effects roughly one in five hundred women but is little known. It was wonderful to see Bea grow in confidence throughout the play and proudly talk about her condition with both men and women alike. A particularly good scene saw Bea at a party talk openly about her condition and the women around her instantly open up about their own sexual health issues. This scenario is all too common with Bea explaining that she said nothing previously because she ‘just assumed’ that everyone was ‘having great sex’ and ‘didn’t want to seem unsexy’.

Have I Told You I’m Writing A Play About My Vagina? makes an important statement about having trust in yourself and your body and emphasises the importance of open discussion about female sexuality.

Reviewed by Flora Doble

Have I Told You I’m Writing a Play About my Vagina?

The Bunker

This show is an Edinburgh Festival Fringe preview – click on the logo below for more details

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Interpretation of Dreams | ★★★ | November 2018

Sam, The Good Person | ★★★ | January 2019

Welcome To The UK | ★★ | January 2019

Boots | ★★★★ | February 2019

Box Clever | ★★★★★ | March 2019

Killymuck | ★★★★ | March 2019

My White Best Friend | ★★★★★ | March 2019

Funeral Flowers | ★★★½ | April 2019

Fuck You Pay Me | ★★★★ | May 2019

The Flies | ★★★ | June 2019

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

The Falcon’s Malteser

The Vaults

Reviewed – 19th July 2019

★★★★★

“wonderful fun for both young and old”

The Falcon’s Malteser is the first book in The Diamond Brothers comic detective series by Anthony Horowitz. Directed by Lee Lyford, Feargus Woods Dunlop’s stage adaption of The Falcon’s Malteser revitalises the 1986 novel and brings Horowitz’s quick wit and clever storytelling to a new generation of fans.

Timothy Simple (Matt Jopling) is an ex-policeman who has rebranded himself as Tim Diamond, the world’s greatest private detective. Unfortunately, Tim is not the brightest sleuth meaning much of the detective work is done by his kid-brother Nick (Sian Eleanor Green). Together, they form the Diamond Brothers Detective Agency though business hasn’t been doing too great.

That is until the three-foot Mexican Johnny Naples drops off a mysterious package at Tim’s office and the Diamond Brothers find themselves at the centre of the international criminal world. When the package’s contents are revealed to be a box of Maltesers owned by evil mastermind Henry von Falkenberg, Tim and Nick must decipher the tasty treat’s significance before London’s crime boss The Fat Man (Samantha Sutherland) and German hitman Himmell (Fergus Leathem) close in.

The acting was strong from all with Leathem and Sutherland doing incredible performances as multiple characters. Hiccups such as Sutherland missing a porthole when throwing a wig were handled with humour and played into the parodic and self-referential nature of Horowitz’s series.

The set (Carl Davies) was cleverly designed and allowed for smooth transitions between the different settings. The backdrop consisted of four doors and a window that also doubled as multiple shop fronts. Three of the doors could be flipped as to either form part of the grey wall or act as doorways. The door furthest to the left had a circular panel that could be removed through which characters could pop up and in one scene used to hang a disco ball.

The play’s chase sequences involved particularly impressive staging. In the first, Leathem as Himmell enacted an entire car chase with headlamps strapped to his knees while holding a steering wheel and riding a swivel chair. In the second, Sutherland as the dancer Lauren Bacardi and Green made great use of the set’s numerous doors and chase sequence tropes.

The lighting (Jack Weir) transformed the stage in an instance. A green hue gave the impression of a dingy basement while disco lights instantly conjured a lively club atmosphere. During Nick’s monologues, the stage would go black and Green put under a spotlight. This was an excellent way of keeping the audience engaged with the play’s necessary exposition despite the action on stage.

The music (James Nicholson) was wonderfully atmospheric. Soft jazz reminiscent of film noir detective movies played throughout the performance including as a flank for Nick’s narration. An upbeat remix of a self-checkout machine’s stock phrases such as ‘there is an unexpected item in the bagging area’ was also a particularly creative backing track to a high street chase sequence.

There were also several musical numbers for which Jopling provided guitar accompaniment. Leathem and Sutherland were standout here, first performing a duet as the Diamond brothers’ parents and then Leathem, as Tim’s old boss Inspector Snape, rapping about all the villains in his life to the beat of Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang. The final song was a solo by Jopling who played the guitar in handcuffs which meant he had to comically climb into his guitar strap rather than put it over his head.

This adaption of The Falcon’s Malteser is wonderful fun for both young and old and its quick-paced and witty script is sure to have the audience both laughing and gripped.

The Bunker

Reviewed – 28th July 2019

★★★★

“Vag is boisterous, loud and makes her opinion on penetration clear: She doesn’t like it!”

Have I Told You I’m Writing A Play About My Vagina?, written by Ella Langley and directed by Georgia Figgis, explores the difficult and often uncomfortable relationship between those who are female-identifying and their bodies.

Have I Told You I’m Writing A Play About My Vagina? makes an important statement about having trust in yourself and your body and emphasises the importance of open discussion about female sexuality.

Reviewed by Flora Doble

Have I Told You I’m Writing a Play About my Vagina?

The Bunker

This show is an Edinburgh Festival Fringe preview – click on the logo below for more details

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Vaults

Reviewed – 19th July 2019

★★★★★

“wonderful fun for both young and old”

The acting was strong from all with Leathem and Sutherland doing incredible performances as multiple characters. Hiccups such as Sutherland missing a porthole when throwing a wig were handled with humour and played into the parodic and self-referential nature of Horowitz’s series.

This adaption of The Falcon’s Malteser is wonderful fun for both young and old and its quick-paced and witty script is sure to have the audience both laughing and gripped.

Reviewed by Flora Doble

Photography by Geraint Lewis

The Falcon’s Malteser

The Vaults until 25th August

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: