Scaramouche Jones - Delicatessen Theatre

Enclosed in the intimate confines of the Delicatessen Theatre, Scaramouche Jones (Tom Daplyn), a 99-year-old clown pours out his heart and regales us with his fascinating life story and his ‘strange destiny.’

It’s the eve of the Millennium and subsequently the hapless clown’s 100^th birthday – and he believes he is about to die. Having had his umbilical chord cut with a fishmonger’s knife exactly a century ago, we hear the tragic tale of how the death of his prostitute mother, the ‘chief attraction’ of the knocking shop, was killed by a client, leaving him an orphan at the age of six. From there he is sold into slavery and taken to Africa before being thrown in Prison in Italy. Having being made to dig mass graves during the holocaust, he finds himself on the shores of Wales, where he adopts his surname, Jones.

Justin Boucher’s masterful script is expertly portrayed by Daplyn, with undying energy, comic timing and gripping pauses, superbly blending humour with sorrow. Expertly painting the picture of neglect and the fight for survival, the actor makes the most of the limited space to vividly explain the colourful life of Scaramouche, an orphan boy born that lives through a torrid century fraught with two world wars, political atrocities and countless inventions, including the controversial introduction of the lbw rule in cricket and the introduction of locum jobs for doctors in psychology wards.

Director, Jonathan Constant should also be credited for a wonderful performance and the invention of such profound imagery, intelligently using props, such as curtains, a silk veil and a hool-a-hoop to transform the stage from one setting to another.

Scaramouche Jones is a poignant look through history and with startling insight reflects how the weak are subjugating by those in power. World events share parallels with life of the unfortunate Jones, a lost soul who didn’t laugh until aged 51. The powerful message is not only apparent throughout history, but evident in our own times and, one would imagine, in the future, thus the tragic tale of Scaramouche Jones will remain forever timeless.

Ralphie May is very funny but also very vulgar

Ralphie May is a hilarious comedian. He will have you rolling in the isles as he does his stand up routine. When he first gets on stage he will act as though he is tired. He will probably be a little lackluster. But, once he gets into his routine, it is nonstop laughs.

Ralphie talks about things in day to day life that are funny but often not seen to be. He talks about us allowing ourselves to be ripped off and how he does it too. He makes you laugh at your self for the ridiculous things that we do on a daily basis and consider them to be normal. We run around and buy coffees that sometimes cost as much as a coffee pot. We know they are expensive yet we still get them.

He is very controversial. Nothing is off limits with Ralphie. He talks very detailed about sex, to the point of describing permanant laser hair removal (cringe). He does not hold back at all. Make sure that you are prepared for foul language and visual images that are burned into your brain. His work does borderline vulgarity. He tiptoes on the line of taking it too far. There are times when he may make you feel uncomfortable because his sexual topics are very thorough and may make you feel dirty. This is the point of his show. He wants to be unique and take his show to the extremes. He completely and totally succeeds in his goal. Taking your mother or mother in law to see Ralphie May is not suggested. You may feel very uncomfortable when you are sitting across from them and he begins talking about self gratification. All and all Ralphie May is a very funny comedian. You just have to get past his crudeness and you will be laughing your butt off.

Alcock Improv, What A Crew!

Many improv shows usually have as part of the show sections where there is some degree of audience participation. For some people this is an uncomfortable experience since they hate being called upon. Thus they try to sit somewhere beyond the third row (this is completely fair, given that to some troops nothing is off limits, even that last Botox Cheshire appointment you went to). Well if you have ever seen Alcock Improv one thing you will quickly realize is that, with people who are not too keen on participation in the show, they use their unique charm and warmth to drag them out of their impersonal state to join in the fun.

If you want to have an end to your day that involves grinning then Alcock Improv will provide you with just that. Much of their show involves sheer improv silliness and leans heavily on suggestions from their audiences. So the show will be what you want it to be in a way.

It is not difficult for audiences to become a part of the show and have a grand time with it. The group incorporates a lot of games that makes many feel as if they were back in school on the playground. So just about anything goes when you attend one of their performances.

What you get with this group is improv at its finest. You will not see the same type of show every night since it changes the same way the audience changes. Each member of the group brings their unique improv style to the performance which adds to the group’s uniqueness. None of them try to upstage the other and they work well together each feeding off the other.

Alcock Improv deserves to be seen by all as I certainly would recommend them. If you can get past your own fears of being called upon you will have some serious fun. They are easily one of the best improv groups around.

Cheekish Productions, Union Theatre, London

Cheekish Productions Presents

Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat By Mark Ravenhill and

Eschara By Phillip Whiteman

At The Union Theatre, London until 24^th April, Tuesday-Saturday 7:30pm

Cheekish Production’s current work at the Union Theatre is a series of six short plays, three by Mark Ravenhill and three by Phillip Whiteman.

This comparatively new company have produced an evening of theatre which succeeds in being both exceptionally moving and highly absorbing. The combination of Mark Ravenhill and Phillip Whiteman’s writing works well and while both playwright’s have their own distinct styles they seem to share the same sense of immediacy and bite. Perhaps it is a brave and somewhat audacious idea to place an established writer’s work alongside that of a younger lesser known writer, but if it is a risk then it is a risk which has paid off and never for a moment did one half feel weaker than the other.

All of the plays are a response to issues surrounding the war in Iraq and specifically the July 7^th terrorist attacks on London so obviously this does not make for a light hearted evening. That being said there are some striking moment of much needed levity and black comedy. In Ravenhill’s Fear and Misery we watch a highly strung couple try to deal with the stifling sense of anxiety bordering on paranoia which they now feel on a daily basis as a result of the attacks. The couple are sharply and satirically drawn by Ravenhill, and while we laughed at their over reactions they were also very recognisable. This is an important slice of post 7/7 London life to parody and to document. The image of the soldier at the end of Fear and Misery was stunning and Ayling is obviously a director with a very clear vision.

The style of both playwrights (in particular Ravenhill) necessitates punchy quick delivery and this was a style which Ayling and the company committed to fully. While it was almost always very effective occasionally lines were lost and the audience could not keep up. The company can afford to let the piece breathe and to play the pauses (short or otherwise) on occasion safe in the knowledge that they have well and truly earnt them. However this is a small matter, and on the whole it was a relentless and brilliantly powerful evening.

Of all of the six short plays the last, Renaissance (by Phillip Whiteman), hit me the hardest. In a way it was the most human scene of the evening and though it was the least bombastic it packed the hardest punch. Lindesay Mace as the mother clearing the room and the luxury bedding of her dead son conveyed the emotional complexities of the character in a detailed and impressively truthful style. Daphne Kouma as the sister struggling to understand and desperate to help gave an equally sensitive portrayal and the tension between the two was palpable.

Cheekish Productions have toured this series of plays around the country but here in London it has more resonance than anywhere and the final image of the play literally made me weep. This is a hard hitting and powerful play by a company with a bright future ahead of them. An audacious piece of modern theatre.

“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

---

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.