Tag Archives: The Other Richard

Joan of Leeds

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New Diorama Theatre

Joan of Leeds

Joan of Leeds

New Diorama Theatre

Reviewed – 9th December 2019

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β€œA couple of the numbers were so camp, it was like watching a medieval Village People”

 

Joan Of Leeds was an English nun, who bored of her monastic life, feigned mortal illness, constructed a dummy of herself which was buried in holy ground and hot-footed it off to Beverley to shack up with a man. This account only came to light this year, when a research project into the Registry of the Archbishops Of York for 1305-1405, uncovered historical notes documenting this story.

Breach Theatre Company have done what any self-respecting group would do and turned it into a bawdy, medieval musical. Presenting themselves as The Yorkshire Medieval Players, the opening scene cleverly sets the tone for the fun and frolics ahead.

The set with a starry back cloth and cardboard clouds and an apple tree, looks a little β€˜primary school’ and yet works perfectly with the style of the piece.

Joan, in this production, during a severe famine, is tempted by the devil and ends up in a convent where she falls in love with fellow nun Agnes. Refusing to admit her true feelings, she runs away to Beverley to live with the man who is in love with her. Interesting to see the β€˜queer’ angle explored, although the world has changed beyond recognition in five hundred years, maybe human desires and feelings have not.
This is brilliantly directed by Billy Barrett who co-wrote the play with Ellice Stevens. Cast appeared on gantries, up trap doors, through curtains, each time delivering real attack and comic timing to the character they were portraying. 
With all the outrageous costumes and Python like silliness, it was easy to overlook some of the brilliantly constructed rhyming text, much of it as ingenious and lyrical as the musical numbers themselves.

The five strong cast were all terrific, Bryony Davies showing us angst, anger, vulnerability and bewilderment as the tormented Joan, Rachel Barnes, Olivia Hirst, Laurie Jamieson and Alex Roberts all matched her with their highly skilled performances.

One particularly clever scene change took the whole audience by surprise, only when we stepped into this domestic set, did the pace drop a little. Although I understood the purpose of the scene, this show is at its strongest when the five actors are bouncing off each other. They are all so musically talented and versatile, we were treated to musical styles from Broadway to madrigal to a jaw dropping, thrash metal finale. A couple of the numbers were so camp, it was like watching a medieval Village People.

Not your most traditional of seasonal shows and all the more enjoyable for this very reason. This is an extraordinary story, maybe one of the earliest demonstrations of β€˜Girl Power’ from a most unexpected source.

Although Breach Theatre Company have adapted this story with their own unique style, if history lessons had been like this at school, I would never have missed a class.

 

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by The Other Richard

 


Joan of Leeds

New Diorama Theatre until 21st December

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
It Made me Consider | β˜…β˜…β˜… | February 2018
Trap Street | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | March 2018
Left my Desk | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2018
Bitter | β˜…β˜…β˜… | June 2018
Taking Flight | β˜…β˜…β˜… | June 2018
4.48 Psychosis | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | September 2018
Boys | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2018
The War Of The Worlds | β˜…β˜…β˜…Β½ | January 2019
Operation Mincemeat | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2019
Art Heist | β˜…β˜…β˜…Β½ | October 2019

 

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I Wanna Be Yours

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Bush Theatre

I Wanna Be Yours

I Wanna Be Yours

Bush Theatre

Reviewed – 6th December 2019

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β€œa script filled with warmth and humour that’s not afraid to tackle complex issues with nuance and maturity”

 

Spend more than a few minutes on Twitter and you’ll no doubt be confronted by a bevy of hot takes on attitudes to race in current society. And while they raise a number of crucial questions and issues, they can often feel intangible. Thankfully, Zia Ahmed’s I Wanna Be Yours is here to cut through the social media academia and let the ideas play themselves out in a fundamentally human and earnest way.

I Wanna Be Yours follows a blossoming romance between struggling actor Ella (Emily Stott) and struggling poet Haseeb (Ragevan Vasan), and the wider societal and cultural hurdles that they have to overcome in trying to make it work as an inter-racial couple. Events such as meeting your partner’s family for the first time that are already nerve-wracking take on a whole other level as Ella faces rejection from Haseeb’s aunt on account of being white and Haseeb has to stomach the entrenched racism in Ella’s family that has gone previously unchecked. However, these instances are largely not treated with the heaviness that is frequently seen when this subject matter is depicted – Ahmed is smartly selective in when to intensify the gravity and when to revel in the absurdity of other moments, such as Ella’s frantic Google search as to whether the black face paint used in Mummers’ Plays had racist origins or not. The result is a script filled with warmth and humour that’s not afraid to tackle complex issues with nuance and maturity.

Ahmed’s script also introduces a few surreal elements into the story, particularly one featuring a very literal elephant in the room, but they unfortunately feel half-baked and not fully committed to, culminating in an ending that tries to tie these elements together but consequently doesn’t feel as meaningful as it could have. The pacing also suffers from the themes and ideas not feeling like they’re being especially expanded upon in the second half of the play, and certain conflicts feel a little forced. However, one element which almost consistently endears is the relationship between Ella and Haseeb.

Both Stott and Vasan display a masterful characterisation of the text, fleshing out texture and colour in every line. Under the kinetic direction of Anna Himali Howard, their dynamism fully inhabited the space, which was bare save for an inexplicable carpet that looked like it had been stolen from the home of someone’s gran. Out-of-place carpets aside, the chemistry between the two was able to strike the difficult balance between them clearly exuding their love for each other without excluding the audience.

This is in part due to that Stott and Vasan were not so much a couple as a throuple, being joined throughout the play by Rachael Merry as an integrated BSL interpreter, who frequently enhanced the language and characterisation in the way her interpretation also served to physicalise the subtext and bring further layers to the experience. I Wanna Be Yours has many beautiful, cheeky, and hard-hitting moments, and it is undeniably exemplary in its accessibility, but the sum of its parts struggles to fully engage.

 

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by The Other Richard

 


I Wanna Be Yours

Bush Theatre until 18th January

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Class | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2019
Strange Fruit | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | June 2019
Rust | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | July 2019
The Arrival | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2019

 

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