There is some impressive puppetry on show as Lion King and Warhorse influences are used to good effect. Aslan, the lion, is a gallant three man puppet, excellently voiced by the rich tones of Nuno Silva who also operates the head. He sounds every bit as grand as you would expect Aslan to be – ten feet high and 14 foot long – and you can almost hear the sound of dropping jaws from the auditorium.
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A languidly sensuous Sumaya (Sara Sadeghi) in traditional costume, is apparently passing time by inspecting piles of documents scattered over the floor. The overall picture, with the set of soft geometrical shapes (a fissure symbolically dividing the large circle of the floor panel) looks like a typical Russell Flint watercolour depicting a North African hot afternoon. An impression of heat pervades. Behind a screen the shape of another woman, Marie, a French girl (Lou Broadbent) is in a state of agitation . . .
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Consider the one-man show. What do you expect? A stand-up comedian, entertaining the audience with something funny that happened to him on the way to the theatre? A furrowed-browed actor delivering an intense emotional monologue? An interpretive-dance adaptation of a 350-year-old epic poem, featuring an almighty battle between all the angels of Heaven and Hell, the Creation of the world, and the Fall of Adam and Eve? . . . Sublime, ridiculous, hilarious, and devastating.
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The Tobacco Factory has set the bar high for new works. This collaboration between director Gethin Evans and writer Anita Vettese is an exciting one – I’m already looking forward to their next production. This is Anita Vettesse’s first play after a 20-year career as an actor, and Gethin’s first production as Associate Director of Sherman Cymru.. . . . Happy Hour is a fast-paced miniature masterpiece. It is skilfully written and perfectly executed. Anita Vettesse is a bright new talent to take note of, with a well-tuned eye and ear for human detail. Strongly recommended.
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One of the notable things about Feydeau was his ability to spin a piece of fluff into a complete suit of clothes. His art is to set up a ridiculously flimsy premise by way of a plot, which then develops its own logic in which the characters are caught up with apparently no means of escape. His is a world of entitlement and ease flavoured, in some quarters, with a certain license occasioned by the Enlightenment and the subsequent loosening of the grip of the Catholic church over the minds and morals of the middle and upper classes.
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J B Priestley’s classic polemic is very much in step with Jeremy Corbyn’s recent social inequality cris de coeur. The production is clearly in danger of being closed down any minute by the Ministry of Information! As Inspector Goole stepped forward to entreat us with his sermon of a caring society, I fully expected George Osborne’s thought police to storm the building, arrest the cast and put the audience on advanced surveillance.
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