THEATRE CRITIC

STARTED: 28th February 2023

FINISHED: 29th December 2023

Over a period of at least three months, watch a minimum of five different plays. Explore different genres and styles.

Write reviews of three of the plays, including aspects of the staging, casting and book (the script) which you might have changed if you had been directing.

The Commitments @ Ipswich Regent Theatre, 28th February 2023

Having seen The Commitments a few times at different theatres, and enjoyed the show, I thought I would take my other half to see this one. Sadly, it did not live up to expectations this time around. The music was enjoyable, as was expected - who could hate 'Try A Little Tenderness' and 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction'? And the story was everything it needed to be; a beautiful mix of funny and sad, which you would expect from a Roddy Doyle script. The set was cleverly constructed, where one structure in the middle of the stage turned into a house, a pub, a factory, all with the movement of a panel here and there. However, this set did not look as sturdy as other productions of the same show I've seen. With characters running up stairs, jumping on beds, and dancing on tables, I was a bit concerned that someone was going to hurt themselves. So I may have tightened up the set, with a couple of sturdier structures rather than one main one which kept looking like it was going to fall apart!

The songs were brilliantly performed, and because they were so well known, it was difficult not to sing and dance along. I did come away feeling like this performance hadn't been as polished as some of the others I'd seen.

Overlooked @ The Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft, 12th May 2023

Heathers @ Norwich Theatre, 14th June 2023

Idiots Assemble - Spitting Image The Musical @ Phoenix Theatre, London, 21st July 2023

I went into this show with absolutely no expectations, and it delivered pure chaos. Tom Cruise has been tasked by King Charles to put together a team of people (The Magnificent Seven) to restore the fabric of society. As with the Spitting Image TV show, there was a mish-mash of characters - a couple of my favourites being Suella Braverman portrayed as a small exorcist child (who liked to sing her own name in place of 'Thriller') and Therese Coffey as a cigar smoking maggot. The puppet makers outdid themselves, with such a vast array of characters, all in caricature form, from obvious members of the royal family and well-known politicians, to Stormzy, Greta Thunberg, Idris Elba, RuPaul, Ant and Dec, and Elon Musk, who is part human and part transformer robot car. Some of the most memorable parts are those surrounding Vladimir Putin.

As with any show which contains puppets, there must always be puppeteers. And to start with, you do notice them on the stage, operating the puppets. But after a while, they almost disappear because they puppets are so captivating that you don't notice anything else going on.

This was an extremely funny show, which had me proper-laugh-out-loud-cackle laughing from the start. it was fast paced, the script straddled the very fine line between reality and satire (to be honest, most of it wasn't even satire - it was pretty much real!) All the characters behaved exactly how you would expect their human counterparts to behave. The voice actors were outstanding, as to be expected. However, I felt there may have been a few too many characters, especially as a lot of them only had one line or just popped up on the stage for a couple of seconds. And there were a couple of scenes where there were puppets on the stage, who were joined by actors wearing caricature masks. Although the puppets didn't freak me (some probably should have), I do feel slightly unnerved when people are wearing masks, and these masks were grotesque, so I would have preferred it if these people had not been in the performance.

Quiz @Norwich Theatre Royal, 2nd November 2023

This play was inspired by the TV programme by the same name, starring Michael Sheen as Chris Tarrant, based on the actual event of 'did Charles Ingram cheat his way to a million pounds?' In the play, Rory Bremner played Chris Tarrant, and was outstanding, as you would expect him to be. You could close your eyes and think that Chris Tarrant was on the stage. Before going in to the theatre, we were given keypads with ABCD on them, which would enable us to play along during the interactive parts of the show. The play flips between recordings of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and the private lives of the people who supposedly cheated. This kept things interesting, and it felt like you were in the studio of WWTBAM? with the dipping lights and low rumbling music that we've seen on television countless times. However, I do feel that the performance was a tad too long. As we had the keypads for answering questions, it would have been fun to play with them more, perhaps in the interval, having some of WWTBAM? questions to answer.

The actors chosen for the roles were very good, but it's always important to take note of those who aren't the main characters. One woman played a number of characters, and we knew who she was based on the colour of her shirt or jacket. This was a clever way of having many characters with a limited cast.

The most surprising part of the show came at the end, when we, the real audience, got to vote whether or not we thought Charles Ingram, his wife, and her brother were guilty of cheating, based on the evidence that the police had delivered throughout the performance. We concluded that they were guilty.