Rosie Wyatt sparkled in In Event of Moone Disaster at Theatre503

I had high hopes for In Event of Moone Disaster. I love the programme at Theatre503 and this play was selected by them in an international competition so I was expecting something in the Theatre503 style backed by the assurance of the very competitive selection process. And it starred Rosie Wyatt who qualifies for a tag (Wyatt) in this blog as I have seen her act in several plays in a fairly short period.

All my hopes were met or exceeded.

In Event of Moone Disaster was a cleverly constructed family story about a man who was conceived as man firs landed on the moon (possibly fathered by an astronaut) who then fathered a woman who was going on the first manned (personned?) mission to Mars.

The three generation story was made more complicated, and more interesting, by Rosie Wyatt playing both the woman going to Mars and her grandmother, and by the story flipping between the generations. As always with these structural devices, they either work or look pretentious and in this case it worked beautifully.

In one particularly memorable scene Rosie played the aged grand mother and her younger self switching between the two as the old woman remembered scenes from her earlier life. Again that might sound unnecessarily complicated but it worked both as a scene and within the context of the play.

The cast were all excellent but it was Rosie Wyatt that I had gone to see and she was magnificent giving the sort of performance that first made me take notice of her in Blink and Spine. She had done well enough since then but I never felt that she was stretched or given the opportunity to shine in the other productions so it was lovely to see her in full force again.

The story developed nicely too and I was genuinely interested in what happened to all of the characters. It was a very human story about going to the Moon and to Mars.

Mumburger at Old Red Lion Theatre entertained in an intelligent way

I discovered Old Red Lion in Islington via a Philip Ridley play and had kept an eye on its programme since then. I managed to get back there only once subsequently but that was more because of the my inability to see everything that I want to due to a lack of time (and if I stopped working to make time then the lack f money).

Mumburger appealed because it sounded weird but weird alone is not enough. It took me a while but what clinched it was the realisation that Rosie Wyatt was in it. I had seen her act several times before and was keen to keep up the tradition. To be fair to Red Lion Theatre their publicity material did say she was in it but to be fair to me they wrote everything in capital letters which made it hard to read.

Having discovered my error in time I forked out a miserly £16.50 for a ticket on a Friday night.

It is always interesting to go to theatres like Old Red Lion (White Bear and Union are similar in this regard) in that you do not know how the stage will be arranged until you climb up the steep stairs and enter the room.

This time the stage was arranged as an right-angles triangle with the base about half the length of the height. The seating was along the base and vertical and the back of the stage was a grey curtain draped along the hypotenuse. The stage was sparsely set as living room with a boxed seat (useful for storing props) and a coffee table.

The play started with film projected on the grey curtain. This was a fast collage of events including a TED Talk and a serious car crash. The Mum of the play died in that crash. It was a bold and effective start to the story.

Trying to come to terms with the Mum's sudden unexpected death were her husband and daughter (Rosie). The daughter was more in control of the situation initially and had created a shared Google document for them to track activities like notifying people and finding a funeral director. The father/husband was lost in grief.

The relationship between the two was the focus and purpose of the play. That relationship had its expected ups and downs as they both went through the violent stages of grief, shared their memories of Mum (which did not always coincide) and tried to come to terms with her final wish, an emotional act of sharing.

Mumburger went all over the place, in a good way, with moments of humour, anger, sadness, absurdity and tenderness.It was something like a fast version of, er, The Fast Show, with the same two characters. A few of the scenes did not work for me and at times it felt like the script needed a bit of an edit but in saying that it feels now like I am looking to criticise it when serious criticism is unjustified. The play worked well and being a little rough and ready at times did nothing to hamper my enjoyment of it.

I went to see Rosie and she was good, as expected. Andrew Frame was just as good as her father and the two of them gelled well. I could believe that they were father and daughter and that mattered. I liked the simple staging too.

Mumburger entertained in an intelligent way and any theatre that does that is fine with me.

Spine at Soho Theatre was fast, intense and tender

I loved Spine so much when I saw it in November 2014 that I eagerly took the opportunity to see it when it returned almost two years later. It meant skipping one of my regular meetings to see it but that was an easy price to pay.

The urge to see it came partially from it being a provocative and political play and partially because it was a one-woman tour de force by Rosie Wyatt. I first saw her in Blink which was the spur for me to see Spine the first time around. I also saw her in the The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas so this was my fourth time seeing her on stage in two years. I'm a fan.

Spine was back in the upper space at Soho Theatre, which was good, and because there was another show on later in the evening, it started at 7pm which was less good. I had hoped to escape from work early but an important meeting with champagne kept me there beyond 5:30 and I had to make hasty excuses to catch the 17:43 from TED to WAT. Things worked well after that and I had just got myself a beer when we were called upstairs. It was a long walk and many of the seats on the front row were reserved for guests but I managed to find one for me pretty close to the centre. Job done.

Spine is narrated by Amy, a young woman (still a girl really at the start of the story) who tells us her recent story about how she ended up in a room full of books, which is all that there was on the stage. The other main character in the story was an elderly lady who Amy mimicked when telling her story. We also heard about Amy's family and a recent boyfriend.

The story was told naturally with Amy leaping to different parts of her life to tell us about episodes what she was telling us about at the time. That gave us a heap of small stories within the main one and while I remembered the main story I had forgotten many of the small ones, such as her criminal career and the toilet incident that caused her to be sacked from a job.

The deluge of quickly little stories made Spine an intense experience and Rosie Wyatt's skillful deliver brought out the humour, brutality and tenderness. One summary could be that this was a coming of age play with a happy ending but that summary leaves out all the rich detail that made Spine such an enjoyable play.

I was a little worried about seeing it again so soon after the first time but I should not have been. Spine was excellent (again).

I needed to unwind after that so hit the bar for a second pint. I was on my way out after that when I noticed Rosie in the bar so I went up to do some hero worshipping. She recognised me from my tweeting which made the introduction a little less daunting. I like to give direct feedback when I can, and I try not to intrude too much or to be too fawning. I am always grateful when creatives respond positively.

That would normally have been a good end to a great evening but there was another incident after that which lifted the evening. I was on the train home talking about theatres I love when a young woman interrupted to ask if I was talking about Blink, I was, and when I mentioned Wink! she said that she knew the playwright. A brief but deeply rewarding twitter exchanged followed later that evening. I love theatre and theatre people.
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The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas at the Rose Theatre was a good production of a reasonably crafted tale

I had vaguely heard of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas before but had little idea of what it was about so I needed something of a nudge to go and see it.

That nudge came in the shape of actress Rosie Wyatt who I had seen twice at the Soho Theatre, in Blink and Spine, and she had been brilliant in both.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas was touring and there were a few places that I could have gone to seen it but it made most sense to see it at the Rose in Kingston. It is within walking distance after all.

I had to walk briskly though as I looked at the tickets just as I was leaving the house and saw that it started at 7pm, not 7:30pm! I learned later that this was because there were children in the play and they are not allowed to work late. I got there in time for the play, just, but any hope I had of a relaxing drink first was gone. Not really a problem and I was just glad that I spotted the early start time before it was too late.

My seat was in my preferred area Centre Stalls Row A close to the centre (seat A32) which set me back a modest £26. The theatre was pretty full and there were quite a few children in there which was my first clue that this might not be the play for me.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, as you probably know, was originally a best selling book that tells a story about the holocaust through the eyes of two young boys, aged nine, who become good friends despite being on opposite sides of fence at Auschwitz. Their friendship leads to a sad ending.

I've not read the book, and do not intend too, but by coincidence I say the film adaptation a few days later so I can make some comparisons with that.

The play put more of an emphasis on the child's-eye-view throughout, e.g. the young German boy, Bruno, thinks that the Führer is called the Fury and Auschwitz is Out-With. While it was slightly interesting to work out what he meant originally I found that this idea was overplayed and became irrelevant, if not boring. Once we all knew that it was Auschwitz, why continue with the pretence?

Similarly I found it frustrating that the boy did not know who was in the camp or why, which he never found out but we always knew.

That said, the play jogged along nicely, if a play about the holocaust can ever jog along nicely, and the story kept me entertained despite its limitations. The ending rescued things a lot and was far more dramatic, powerful and poetic than in the film. The play came after the film and may have learned some lessons from that.

In a play about the holocaust the characters were always going to be less important than the events but the cast did a good job, though some deserved allowances had to be made for the boys' ages. The boy's mother was especially strong and was given her own plot-line not in the film (though, possibly in the book).

Rosie Wyatt played the family's maid and, being neutral, provided the narrator's role at times. She was the first person to speak in the play and set the scene for us. Rosie can do far better than this but I am sure as a young actress there are advantages that playing in a touring production of a popular play has over playing short runs in small theatres. I hope to see her in something more challenging for both of us next time.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas felt like a play about children for children at times and it told us nothing about the holocaust that we did not already know but it was a good production of a reasonably crafted tale with a strong ending and I was happy with that.

Rosie Wyatt was magnificent in Spine at the Soho Theatre

I often pick my theatre on the flimsiest of reasons because I have to make quick decisions on which ones to see from the myriad of temptations. The main reason for going to see Spine was that it starred Rossie Wyatt who had impressed me in Blink at the start of the year.

Rosie also impressed the audiences for Spine at the Edinburgh Festival where she picked up some acting awards.

I like the Soho Theatre too so my flimsy reason was starting to look pretty strong.

Not for the first time, the only performance that I could make was the final one and that meant driving back to Kingston from Dorset on a Sunday afternoon and then taking the bus/train/tube to Oxford Circus.

I got to the theatre in time to get a beer before positioning myself strategically by the door where the queue is always more of a huddle than a line. That good positioning and alertness meant that I was the second person up the stairs, the young lady who ran past me was obviously even keener than I was. It was a long way up to as we were in the rehearsal space on the top floor, Soho Upstairs, which is where we had been for Blink. The lady's rush was somewhat unnecessary and I sat next to her in the middle of the front-row in the central block.

Confronting me was a simple set adorned with piles of books. That was my first clue as to what Spine could be about.

Once everybody was settled in to the packed room, it was pleasingly sold out, Rosie walked on stage dressed casually and started to tell us her story. She was Amy a young woman with a difficult past, involving men and crime, and a brain.

Feeding that brain was pensioner Glenda (who we never saw) whose house this was with all the books.

Amy was the only character in the play and she spoke directly to us.

Her story swept swiftly from moments to simple humour (well, I found the idea of Glenda's husband dying while looking at a lingerie catalogue amusing) to darker times arguing with her family and committing burglaries with her boyfriend. Rosie captured these changing moods precisely with her voice and her loud body language.

Amy's story was, obviously, a reflection of the society that she lived in and this gave the play a welcome political edge. Glenda was particularly angry at the closure of libraries and Amy was unable to find a decent job.

The personal and the political stories combined to produce an ending that while quite predictable was also very satisfying.

Clara Brennan's play was clever, human and engrossing and Rosie's magnificent acting made it deeply personal and completely immersive. It was absolutely marvellous and easily worth all the effort it took to get there. My only regret was that Rosie disappeared at the end before I could tell her personally how much I had enjoyed her performance.

Spine was that good that I am tingling writing about it a few weeks later.

Blink at Soho Theatre

Blink was those one in twenty or so theatre performances that I see that was truly exceptional.

It had sold out most of its return run to the Soho and looked sold out on the night that I was there. The Soho Theatre does not do queueing very well and we all jostled for position in the bar before being allowed upstairs, then it was something of a scramble.

I was surprised to find that we were going all the way upstairs, passing the main theatre as we did so. Our destination was Soho Upstairs which is billed as a rehearsal space. It was laid out as a square stage area (not raised) with seating on three sides, most of it to the front. I was able to claim a seat in the front row in one of the corners. A reasonable result for my earlier jostling.

Blink claimed to be an unusual love story about two slightly unusual people, and so it was. It was a great deal more than that too, which is why I found it exceptional.

The young couple are both unemployed but do not need to work (for different reasons) and end up in the same house, him renting the downstairs flat from her while she lives above him.

Their relationship develops without them meeting, it is all conducted via technology, and without him knowing that the woman he is in  relationship with is living upstairs. By chance he discovers who she is and their relationship becomes even stranger with them going to the same places at the same time but without talking to each other, as if the gap that had been breached by technology was still there.

A serious accident brings them together and their love blossoms. What happens after that I'll keep to myself.

The strange story had some lovely strange moments in it. For example, in the early days when they are conducting their relationship remotely one of the things that they do is watch the same TV programmes and we were treated to a detour in to the plots of a soap opera that they are watching.

There are many memorable moments like this in the script but its main strength, and beauty, comes from the richness of the dialogue and narration. There are an awful lot of clever ideas and nice touches crammed in there. The script demands, and gets, your constant attention.

Of course a good love story requires a couple that the audience cares about and I really cared about Jonah (Harry McEntire) and Sophie (Rosie Wyatt). They were both realistic and lovable and both actors were excellent in showing all the details of their characters through their movements and expressions.

The set and few props were used imaginatively too.

Everything about Blink was cleverly constructed and brilliantly presented without ever forgetting that it was an unusual love story about two slightly unusual people.