“A Prayer for Wings”

"A Prayer for Wings"written by Sean Mathias, directed by Tania Higgins - this is the first production to come out of Tania’s fledgeling "The Deck Theatre Company".

This play is part of the Oxfirnge festival and opens at The Moser Theatre, Wadham College on 7th April 2010.

The play deals with one of the ever present subjects of this modern world - that of euthanasia. It tells the story of a mother, played by Hester Lott, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and daughter (Lucy Hoult) who has to deal with it. We witness the decline of the mother and the problems facing the daughter who has to deal with it - the hope that springs from certain happenings, the undoubted feelings of guilt from both characters - the mother who sometimes feels the pain of adversly affecting her daughter’s young life and from the daughter of course the feeling that at times she should be able to do more. Throughout though there is the overwhelming feeling of current and impending tragedy, it really tends to take ones mind off the luxury kitchen accessories they want to buy and other daily dilemmas.

The director will no doubt bring much of her personal experience into the play and undoubtedly evoke heartfelt performances from her actresses (I have seen Lucy Hoult in several plays and she never fails to give a memorable and thoughtful performance). Tania Higgins lives with a similar problem every day of her life with a mother suffering from Muscular Dystrophy. She spends much of her time travelling between her own home in Oxford and her mother’s in Hertfordshire.

It is with great awareness, understanding and generosity that Tania has decided that 10% of the proceeds will be donated to The Princess Royal’s Trust for Young Carers.

I strongly recommend this production and suspect that it will be one of the stas of the Oxfringe festival

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7th – 10th April 2010
The Moser Theatre
Wadham College
Parks Road
Oxford

Tickets £8 / £6 concessions
Also from: http://www.wegottickets.com and on the door

Soap at Riverside Studios

Riverside Studios and Circle of Eleven Present

Soap

Riverside Studios March 12th - April 25th

Directed by Markus Pabst and Maximillian Rambaek

Soap is a heady mixture of cabaret, circus and comedy which really will leave you all in a lather! Please excuse the terrible pun, this genuinly is a brilliant, sexy and funny show which leaves the audience amazed and wanting more.

The set consists of several large bathtubs and other designer bathroom accessories which the perfomers dance in and around in numerous imaginitive and cheeky ways. The central bath is slightly bigger and more stylised than the others and plays host to a glorious opera singer whose voice accompanies the action, sometimes juxtaposing nicely with what the performers are doing and sometimes adding a playful soundtrack with for instance the various classical takes on the ditty "splish splash I was taking a bath". The ensemble are all incredibly skilled and delight the audience with a huge variety of stunts which includes, the trapeze, acrobatics, dance, juggling, and clowning. Indeed the clown character adds a lovely dimension to the evening, creating a sense of inclusion and a lightness of touch to the whole show. In particular her sketch in a bath with a puppet hand on a lead was hilraious and endearing as was the contortionist skit in another bath. Another highlight for me was the foot juggler, which was as it sounds, someone juggling (hoop and a foam brick) with their feet. While that may sound slightly odd, in the context of Soap it was amazing and actually rather beautiful.

This is a company which is undoubtedly incredibly skilled and each of whom brings a hige amount of energy and slickness to the stage. There may have been times when it was ini danger of becoming a series of stunts but this was never the case largely down to the constant injections of comedy and humanity. In fact a trapeze performance near the very end of the show was beautiful to the point of being very moving. As one artist twisted and turned on the trapeze, rain fell on to the stage and the rest of the company sheltered under various parts of the set watching or looking out. It was a gorgeous image to end a gorgeous, fun filled, water soaked evening.

The Arab, The Jew and The Chicken

The conflict over land that has seen ferocious atrocities between Israel and Palestine for over 60 years is no laughing matter, but conflict relief’s satirical take of the mayhem in The Arab, a Jew and a Chicken is so hilarious you will laugh until you cry.

The four-piece ensemble entwine political propaganda with the confusion and heart-ache of the real people caught up in an absurd war that shows no signs of letting up. With tremendous versatility, the performers switch effortlessly between scenes and characters, spanning the spectrum of age groups and demonstrating their knack for accents, comic timing and spoof song and dance.

The comedy and the detail of information that spills out in the writing is intelligent as much as it is playful and though the seriousness of the subject matter is made light of, it has to be said it should be taken very much tongue in cheek. In my mind the education system would be much better if all applicants for Jobs in secondary education where educated in this type of humor. Not even the British, French and American’s escape the butt of the jokes, egged at with a olden one-liner that claims, “English bad. Bush mad. America stupid.” Even India, who to be fair have little involvement with events in the middle-east, are caught up in the hilarity with one of the most amusing put downs of the piece: “My father said the worst people to know are half Jew and half Indian. Stingy and cheap!”

The Arab, the Jew and the Chicken is an excellently portrayed political comedy, superbly executed without losing sight of the real issues faced by the people in the thick of the catastrophy. It’s one of the funniest comedies I’ve seen in the theatre for a long time and, unlike the real conflict in Gaza Strip, you simply don’t want it to end. Before jetting off for a show in Luxembourg, conflict relief will be playing in London at the Courtyard Theatre on the 11^th and 12^th March.