Our first trip to the Ipswich Film Theatre with a great audience here to see Hugh Hughes make his PULSE return. Thanks to everyone for coming to spend a Sunday with us!
Today's Reviews
In this age of super injunctions, the issue of privacy and what we actually know about celebrities and each other has renewed impetus. How do we really get to know someone? From their public image? From what we read or perhaps nowadays a radical approach - actually talking to them.
The Others by Paper Birds is based on an exchange of email surveys with three different women, an Iranian artist, a prisoner, and celebrity Heather Mills. Their responses form the backbone for an examination of identity and individuality. It is an intriguing concept; verbatim theatre is usually employed to tell a single narrative, but here the three lives form a non-linear narrative that, while featuring individual tales, gives a wider exposure to the subject.
Despite the wildly different circumstances of each woman, certain key traits permeate preconceptions and cultural stereotypes that each woman battles to overcome. It's nothing radical but it is performed with flair. Combining fluid staging with movement and music, the piece seems almost cinematic, perhaps reflecting the multimedia age were we now feel everyone's lives are public property.
Performers Kylie Walsh, Jemma McDonnel and Shani Erez, accompanied by musician Shane Durrant encourage us to reconsider what we really know about various groups of people. It could easily turn into preaching but the mix of movement and comedy makes it a light touch.
Some moments work better than others - the puncturing of a typical western view of Iranian women's lives is powerfully, yet sensitively handled while the difficult task of covering Heather Mills' infamous divorce manages to avoid taking sides.
Other sections though still need to work. An opening scene revolving around unseen and unheard offstage noises and interruptions threaten to send the audience down the wrong path of a mystery thriller and it takes a few minutes to get back on track.
The simple yet inventive staging and engaging subject matter though overcome these initial problems and the end result is a thought provoking examination of identity and preconception.
After the lights dim and the audience leaves what remains? In a deserted auditorium a ghostly singer, a musician and a solitary audience member run through one final cabaret performance, a performance that is likely to replay through eternity. In Empire, François Testory creates a dark, shadow world where the boundaries between reality and make believe, life and death all blur into one.
A performer slow drags himself off the floor and collects a discarded bunch of lilies. A solo spotlight shines on a small stage. An accordionist emerges from the shadows and begins to play.
Over the ensuing 50 minutes Testory delivers a series of plaintive torch songs to an invisible audience. Reminisant of a cross between Iggy Pop and Edith Piaf, his black clad chanteuse is strangely androgynous and other worldly. Much like ‘the little sparrow' there is also a sense of frailty and loneliness about this performer, the spotlight and applause their only friends.
There is a plaintive, almost reverent feel to the musical numbers as well. Piaf's Padam Padam merging into Iggy Pop's I Wanna Be Your Dog and as the spotlight fades a chilling falsetto liturgical madrigal springs from the shadows.
Much of the story is left suitably vague to allow an audience to make their own interpretations but it does provide a subtle emotional punch.
Testory delivers a performance combining a subtle physicality with a surprisingly wide vocal range. Ian Hill's accordion accompaniments add atmosphere while Simon Vincenzi's direction focuses on character and atmosphere.
Empire is a subtle show that for those willing to work with it offers much.