reviews for previous productions

Night Mother
by Marsha Norman

Review from The Stage, June 2010

From the outset of Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of the determination to end it all, events can only go one way.
Still the dramatic tension is extreme and our suspension of disbelief all but total as real-life mother and daughter Jayne Harvatt and Emily Connell play a mother and what her happy, smiling baby has grown up to be.
Apart from one major change - the father is now dead - nothing external differs from the days of infant bliss.
Mother and daughter are trapped in small-town lives of spick-and-span domesticity, empty gossip and the comfort-eating of exclusively sweet food.
We’re, above all, aware of time - and this production is so justifiably confident Norman’s pitch-perfect lines will never drag the set includes a clock, measuring out the final, heart-breaking hours.
They are filled with the banalities that constitute entire lives. All daughter Jessie leaves behind are daily chores and that’s the problem: she sees no point in continuing to carry them out.
In that sense, the answer is “yes” to the programme note’s question of whether suicide can be a rational choice.
But though rational, it’s ruthless. This particular suicide stands out for the controlled denial of the filial compassion mother and audience crave as a force that might make her change course.

Review from British Theatre Guide, June 2010

How much choice do we actually have in life? Are we ever really completely in control? Can we ever make a decision that is truly our own? Shakespeare's Hamlet famously pondered 'To be, or not to be?' and Marsha Norman's 1983 play Night, Mother poses that very same question.
Jessie can't see any way out. Her life is boring and unfulfilling. Rather than keep living the empty thing she calls a life, she has decided to commit suicide. The idea has been with her for five years, but one evening she decides it's finally time. However, living with her mother means there are a few things she needs to sort out first, and so Jessie goes about preparing her mother for a life without a daughter as if suicide is the last thing to tick off on her To-Do list.
Jayne Harvatt is moving as Jessie's mother who blames herself for her daughter's actions and must grapple with disbelief, pain, sorrow and despair as Jessie reveals her plan. Harvatt does well to show the progression of emotion not only through body language, but by using her voice and dramatic pauses to great effect. She manages to summon tears in her eyes as her character begins the mourning process, it finally having dawned on her that she will be soon be alone.
Norman's writing raises a number of questions: is it selfish to try to stop a loved one from committing such an act? Is it selfish for a loved one to commit such an act? At the end of the day, who has the authority to make such a decision and is suicide really such a crime?
What makes Night, Mother even more chilling to watch is that Jessie, played by Emily Connell, does not fear death, but sees it as an amiable alternative to her mundane life. No matter how much motivational talk her mother utters, Jessie's mind is made up. She appears cold and empty and although audience members may become frustrated with Jessie's ineptness to see that her life is not as bad as she believes, her reasoning is quite clear.
A clock centre stage ticks down the minutes in real time to the deed. Knowing the length of the play only contributes to a heightened sense of tension as the minute hand edges further towards 9.20pm; not only the end of the play, but the end of Jessie's life. As the second hand makes its way around the clock face in the final minutes of the play, each tick is echoed in a heartbeat of tension, waiting for the shot to ring out.
The only frustrating aspect of the play is that the mother never tries hard enough to physically prevent Jessie from committing suicide. Never does she grab the gun whilst Jessie organises the candy and cutlery, never does she use overt physical force. She does block the corridor only to be pushed out of the way by Jessie, but this comes right at the end of the play, when the mother knows Jessie will not be talked out of it.
With Terry Pratchett in February this year publicly stating 'My life, my death, my choice', Night, Mother adds more thought provoking fuel to the ongoing debate of whether suicide should be supported or remain a sin.

Fat Shirley's - A Trailer Park Opera
by TJ Brown & DB Crawford

Review in Venue, Issue 14-23 March 2008

From the first twang of Sean ‘Hog’ Hogan’s banjo, there’s a sense that everything’s going to go right tonight. As FTP brings us the world of Fat Shirley’s Trailer Park, where community spirit extends to saying “I do” to your first cousin, there’s an emphasis on putting the Yee back into Haw in as soul-shreddin’ a style as possible. The plot is the flimsiest excuse to string together a set of bluegrass and Cajun-tinged sing-a-longs which explore the niceties of trailer park courtship. A dreamy-eyed Rosina Buck sings “He gives me hickies” (love bites), looks at the possibility of a hereafter (“Will there be trailer parks in Gloryland?”) and reveals the appropriate etiquette at a funeral (“If you’ve got a runny nose, don’t wipe it on your clothes”).

Among many gutsy performances, Levi James stands out both as John Earl Templeton, Fat Shirley’s anally retentive brother, come to claim his inheritance and to kick the residents off the park, and as the ne’er-do-well, Lafayette Broyhill Jackson, husband to the extravagantly buxom – and spirited – Marva Daughn Jackson (Alice Francomb). It even seems appropriate to give a non-begrudging namecheck to the sponsor, the splendid-sounding Sassy Goat Milk Soap Company, who’ve clearly played a vital role in helping to bring this great ensemble effort to the stage. (Mike Gartside)

Spoonface Steinberg
by Lee Hall

Review in Venue, Issue 8-17 June 2007

...a moving piece seen from the point of view of a dying 7 year old girl. Its examination of the meaning of life and especially of death was unflinching without being morbid or mawkish, and Alice Francomb's sparky performance did it full justice. (John Christopher Wood)

Review in The Bath Chronicle 29 May 2007

Seven-year-old Spoonface is a little girl with a lot to cope with. She is autistic and facing her death from cancer. The play is a 45-minute monologue as she tries to make sense of these things - as well as the stormy relationship of her parents, her mother's alcoholism and her doctor's tales of his mother's treatment in a concentration camp.

This troubled little girl explains her life in terms of the people she knows. These also include God and Mrs Spud the cleaning lady.

As this play is an adaptation of the radio piece which purportedly had lorry drivers crying I was not expecting a cheerful evening. But that's not to say the play was not inspiring, thought-provoking and interesting.

Brave Alice Francomb gives a touching portrayal of Spoonface. Dressed in pyjamas she gives the audience a simple portrayal of a complicated character - at once childlike and mature beyond her years. (Laura Matless)

Johnny & The Bomb
by Terry Pratchett

Press quotes from the Edinburgh Fringe 2006

'Excellent fun.' Broadway Baby

'Pratchett’s story is well served by a decent adaptation, a dose of nostalgia and the performers’ youthful charm.' The Stage

'An extremely enjoyable show suitable for all' One 4 Review

'A young company who attack their parts with gusto.' The Scotsman.

Charlotte & Emily
by Graham Billing

Adjudication from the Avon One Act Festival 2005

Emily has had a stroke at the age of 23. Charlotte, a speech therapist, has helped her to talk normally, but seems unwilling to admit that Emily is now cured. She invites her out to restaurants and even to her holiday cottage. Emily becomes increasingly disturbed by Charlotte’s increasing emotional dependence…

Energy, pace, attack, sharp cue-bites and all controlled by excellent timing… all in all, an excellent and convincing performance which rang true from start to finish. (Mike Kaiser)