This is a play about age, fortitude, life, sex and much else, with a nod to the indignities of censorship. If I was at times a little lost as to where the play was taking me it didn’t really matter since, like the revue it documents and dramatises it is a gallimaufry of cameos, not least Graham Hoadly’s, Lord Cromer whose Lord Chamberlain’s song is a clever blend of Gilbert and Sullivan, Monty Python with a dash of Benny Hill.
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Part detective story, part road trip, part family drama and part psychological analysis with comic notes, the play defies easy categorization. . . The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has us consider a life without metaphor and stripped of the petty emotions that lubricate or irritate human interaction. . . The final positive message of the play is that it is not really a question of ‘us and them’, but rather of the varieties of humanity being on a continuum. Could anything be more positive?
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The cast of the New International Encounter company are clearly out to have some fun with characters and plot and go to it with relish and invention. The on-stage piano, for example, doubles as train and elephant and the various stages in the race, from Suez to New York, are drawn with elegant economy. The balloon stage of the race is a little gem. The international cast (they tell us) are an ensemble and not credited with particular roles (fair enough), take a fairly broad brush approach to the characters.
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The 2015 BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF PUPPETRY opens on 26th August. StageTalk Magazine’s Graham Wyles went along to the launch to find out all about it . . .
One of the great strengths of contemporary puppetry is its innovation and fearless willingness to take on any kind of subject with an imaginative attack few theatre companies can rival. This year’s festival is a truly international affair and promises to offer some of the most powerful storytelling to be found in any medium.
In this perennial favourite story of nun meets damaged toff only to charm him and his family of budding folk singers whilst thwarting evil Nazis after the Anschluss, we have some of the most memorable songs to have gone into the collective consciousness as part of a common culture. . . . The Sound of Music is the show that keeps on giving and with such an accomplished cast what’s not to like?
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