The last performance in this season’s current Centre Stage programme was a musical drama about a Victorian fairground.  FairGame theatre company developed the play based on interviews with a traveller family who told them about incidents from their lives.  Playing multiple parts the small cast managed to create the impression of a whole menagerie of wild animals, facinated and at times intimidating crowds, rival performers and a variety of acts.  They also gave a vivid sense of what it was like to be a child or young person living as part of a performer family.  The play recreated a sense not only of the fairground but also of a life before travel and television when knowlege of animals, different human characteristics and crime was more fragmentary and disturbing.  The play challenged us to think about our changing attitudes to animals, disability and difference.

Last Friday’s Centre Stage performance was a play: Happy Jack by John Godber.  John Godber is a well known playwright, originally from a mining family (this play is said to be based on the life of his grandparents), and with a longstanding involvement with the Hull Truck Theatre Company.  The play told the life story of a Yorkshire couple – Jack, a miner, and Liz his house proud wife.  We were given an overview of their life from courtship to retirement and then given vignettes of its highs and lows.  The epithet ‘happy’ was ironic.  Jack was at times angry, violent and withdrawn – but surprisingly also wrote poetry (including while his wife was giving birth!). 

The tone was bittersweet:  at times movingly painful, at other times making the audience laugh out loud.  The cast from the Ratatat Theatre Company played it brilliantly holding this tension which made the play feel a believable life story.

This new production from the Shifting Sands theatre company was an ironic tribute to film noir. There were lots of references (most of which I am sure I missed but for the record Rebecca, The Maltese Falcon, North by North-West, The Postman always rings twice … and stretching the genre a bit – The Seventh Seal?). There were flash backs and forwards, bits that didn’t make sense at the time, the glamorous flirtatious dame, the evil villains, the interior monologue about unexplained events and pending doom … This was combined with the promised clowning in the form of slapstick moving and collapsing doors and screens and mime in the form of the absence of props and effects for car chases, post office sorting office – and axe murders! The cast played multiple parts with enthusiasm and wit … including rounding up the audience from the cellar when they were ready to start the second half!!

Well our first classical concert and someone commented that Sir John was smiling! The acoustics of the hall – which make speaking hard work – certainly seemed to favour this type of music. Centre Stage are supporting this tour of the London Mozart Players Chamber Ensemble which features principal members of the London Mozart Players, the UK’s first chamber orchestra. They featured Maya Magub on violin, Tom Dunn on viola and Sarah Butcher, wonderfully expressive, on the cello. In the first half they played a Beethoven trio and, probably less familiar to most a trio for strings by Lennox Berkeley. The second half (following refreshments in the cellar!) they performed Mozart’s Divertimento K563. Sarah explained that while this term often signifies background music to be played in a social function this piece was definitely to be listened to.

It was great to see so many new people at this concert. We hope to see you again soon!

An extraordinary piece of theatre operating on many different levels and playing to a packed hall. 

At the level of spectacle there were the costumes, make-up, the trapeze, the smoke (apologies to the fire brigade for a false call out!!), mime, dance and wonderful music – to say nothing of the ability to create a collective hallucination of grey elephants in Denmark (we worked out the algebra in the cellar bar afterwards …).   The feel was of a Weimar republic style cabaret (remember the film?) but with a psychological rather than a political theme.

Behind this were the stories of the cast of the circus who had made a Faustian pact to escape their normal lives and join the circus.  Sirus who escaped his office job as Mr Johnston to become the circus strong man; Lo-Lo who adopted her father’s role as the circus clown; and Svetlana the dancing doll (an extraordinary acting performance where she remaining immobile in whatever position the other characters placed her, including while being picked up, danced with and folded into her trunk, and only occasionally flashing her eyes at the action).  Yet none of them were able to find fulfillment in the circus and Sirus and Lo-Lo escape / are allowed to go back transformed to ‘normal’ life – leaving Madame Lucinda to seek new candidates for her circus from the audience.

If you missed this or just want a reprise try Rogue Theatre’s website or watch an extract on YouTube. 

Well from one extreme to the other!  After the childrens’ excitement over Circus Berzercus a sophisticated adult evening.  The hall was organised in ‘caberet style’ with low tables for groups of friends to sit around.  The sound and lighting was great as was the music. Riccardo played accordion and introduced the material and Maurizio played guitar and sang.  The music was a mixture of Tuscan folk music – introduced with stories about local culture and history – and their own contemporary compositions.  You can hear some examples from their website at www.riccardotesi.com 

The singing was in Italian.  This along with Riccardo’s accented introductions swept away any qualms one might have had about enthusiastic engagement with male-centred tales! 

Centre Stage showed its worth yet again in bringing quality acts to the small venue.  The new programme has classical music for the first time in the form of the London Mozart Players (booking up fast) as well as a range of theatre (next one March 14th) aimed at children and adults. 

This was principally a children’s event – but one it would have taken a very hard hearted adult not to enjoy!  It featured Gerald – abandoned by his partner who had gone on to better things, and left in the lurch by an agency who promised a new person would turn up at any moment … He filled in the time with some ball spinning acts ably assisted by a young volunteer.  When the new man Wallace does appear … very unsteadily on a unicycle … he does not seem to know any of the acts that Gerald wants them to perform.  This story line proved a great foil raising anxiety about whether they would be able to perform the planned acts and making them all the more impressive when, as in the 6 club juggling act, they succeeded against the odds.  The children, already very excited by earlier activities, were desperate to participate.  Gerald and Wallace were brilliant at keeping them completely engaged – but I wondered how their parents were going to get them to bed afterwards.  Adults were not let off the hook – with volunteers being sought to have clubs thrown at (well hopefully past …) them, do cartwheels and be left suspended on a plank!  Very funny, engaging and made us all want to run off and join the circus.

Another fantastic event under the Centre Stage imprint which provides subsidised quality performances in rural locations.

A man’s sleep is disturbed by images of the violent history of his country. Through dance, story and song we learnt about the transformation of a peaceful farming community in West Africa. Introduced to Western trinkets and with their cultural symbols disrespected they were sold into slavery and made the horrific journey to America. There they worked under harsh conditions struggling to keep their community and traditions alive. At times in despair they still managed to preserve their spirits and hopes and emerge to freedom. The performance stressed the unacceptability of one person owning another and then brought the story right up to date by asking that we live our own lives in a way that would not lead to anyone having to apologise for our actions in 200 years times.

For the 2nd half we were promised traditional Nigerian dance. Some cultural purists might wonder at the inclusion of the talking drum encouraging community singing of Jingle Bells – but the children definitely enjoyed it! And it gave a well deserved rest to the fantastically energetic and exuberant dancers. I was particularly taken by the haunting masquerade dance with the performers covered head to toe in white robes. All the dances in this part of the performance involved wonderful costumes and movement supported by drums.

We were told that the division between performers and audience was not part of the African tradition. The school children had been involved in a workshop during the day and were very excited and keen to demonstrate their new found skills – their parents were told that they too had to participate and some were able to overcome their traditional reticence to do so!