Tag: the bike shed theatre

Review – Doctor Faustus – Tangle Theatre

~ Emily Holyoake

This review by Emily Holyoake was originally published by Exeunt Magazine on 23 February 2018.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS by Christopher Marlowe
Presented by Tangle Theatre at The Bike Shed Theatre, 21 February 2018

Performed by: Munashe Chirisa, Joshua Liburd, Mogali Masuku
Director: Anna Coombs
Designer: Colin Falconer
Lighting Design: Hansjorg Schmidt
Sound Design: Drew Baumohl
Composer and Arranger: John Pfumojena
Producer: Deborah Baddoo MBE

It’s the opening night of Tangle Theatre’s Doctor Faustus, and I’m about to have a really Faustian experience. I go in presuming intelligence, and come out realising my complete ignorance.

Is this a Faustian experience? I’m gonna Google it to check. Because I don’t really know Doctor Faustus, but I just sort of assume that since I’ve always been a Shakespeare brat and that one time I did Schiller, there can be no verse play that would pose a particular challenge to me.

It takes five minutes of discussion with my sister after the show for her to discover that I didn’t even grasp the basics.

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Review – Journey to the Impossible – Little Soldier Productions

~ Emily Holyoake

This review by Emily Holyoake was originally published at Exeunt Magazine on 16 December 2017.

JOURNEY TO THE IMPOSSIBLE by Little Soldier Productions, presented by The Bike Shed Theatre

Performed by: Dan Armstrong, Lucy Bishop, Duncan Cameron
Directed by: Mercè Ribot and Patricia Rodríguez
Producer: Bridget Floyer, Larking Arts
Written by: Mercè Ribot and Patricia Rodríguez in collaboration with Matt Harvey
Design: Sophia Clist
Sound design: Dan Lees
Music composed by Dan Lees, with additional content by Joe Darke and the company
Lighting design: Seth Rook Williams

If you’re tired of fairytales, fables, and Dickens adaptations, Little Soldier Productions’ Journey to the Impossible is a fun and unusual December alternative. It’s 1982, and three young friends looking for adventure find themselves transported to another dimension, to the strange and dangerous city of Vernopolis. They quickly find themselves separated and in trouble, and must fight to find their way home again.

Journey to the Impossible leans heavily on nostalgia to get the audience on side, and it’s chock-full of references to 80’s music, film, and trends – probably more than this 90’s child noticed if I’m honest about it. But what hits me as truly nostalgic about this show is how strongly it reminds me of those imaginary games you made up with your best friends on the playground, with the kind of storyline that’s impossible to explain to an outsider but that your friends just get implicitly. Those games where you’re a hero version of yourself, but sometimes you get to play the baddie too.

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Review – ‘Happiness Ltd’ – New Model Theatre

~ Emily Holyoake

This review by Emily Holyoake was originally published at Exeunt Magazine on 20 October 2017.

HAPPINESS LTD by Tom Nicholas
Produced by New Model Theatre and The Bike Shed Theatre, in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth and Salisbury Playhouse

Performed by: Rebecca Jade Hammond, Lloyd Notice, Liam Salmon, Gabrielle Sheppard
Directed by: Jo Newman

Designer: Tomasin Cuthbert
Sound and Music: Chris Menes
Producer: Emily Souter Johnson

For a play set in the niche world of indie game development, Happiness Ltd feels comfortingly familiar. Game designer Vi (Gabrielle Sheppard) goes through a break-up which rocks her sense of self, so she invents a game to cope, celebrating small achievements like eating a proper meal or getting up on time. Her best friend and coder Tyler (Liam Salmon) turns Vi’s idea into an augmented reality app, which is quickly backed by a large company. Success puts a strain on their friendship. The corporate backers push for an unethical marketing strategy. And Vi, who should be on the rise, finds she’s still falling apart. It’s a small-scale, contemporary rags-to-riches story with big ideas.

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Review – ‘The North! The North!’ – Chris Harrisson

~ Emily Holyoake

This piece by Emily Holyoake was originally published at Exeunt Magazine on 9 May 2017.

THE NORTH! THE NORTH!
Written and performed by Chris Harrisson
Saturday 6 May 2017, The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter

Chris Harrisson describes The North! The North! as ‘Extra-Live’, and in the aftermath I’m still getting to grips with what this means. He writes that extra-live is a continuation of the thought process behind staging relaxed performances, which are designed to be accessible to everyone. But although it’s definitely accessible, ‘relaxed’ isn’t the right word to describe the experience of watching The North! The North! – it feels anything but safe.

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