Theatre Review: Mmm Hmmm at Theatre Shop, Clevedon

This review was first written for The Public Reviews

Mmm Hmmm was a word-of-mouth hit when performed in Bristol’s Tobacco Factory last year, and for those who missed Verity Standen’s a capella song theatre, the show’s visit to Theatre Shop’s inaugural season in Clevedon provides a welcome opportunity to catch up.

This really is a genre-defying piece, combining three stunning female voices: Standen herself in collaboration with Ellie Showering and Dominie Hooper. Their vocals harmonise closely before breaking apart, sharing words and syllables one at a time as though playing a story-telling game whose ending can only be guessed at. There is sheer power here but also subtlety; perfect timing but also the courage to exploit the breaks between songs, creating what might be silence but for the deliberately raw sounds of breathing as the trio recover for what is yet to come.

Mmm Hmmm has no real narrative but offers a series of vignettes of modern life: very British apologies for minor public infringements and a Gregorian chant encompassing a litany of malaises – an incorrectly-typed password, the swiping of a Nectar card, a debit card declined. The limitations of the First Great Western buffet car and its garbled tannoy announcements resonate. There is a tribute to lost love too, which, of course, demands the eating of biscuits and portrays the comically alarming outcome – especially for the audience in the front row – of singing with your mouth full.

Playful or mournful, the impact is not only aural. Mmm Hmmm is visually arresting, the three performers kitted out in Harriet de Winton’s contrasting block-coloured jersey dresses with sleeves and hoods which adapt to hug or disguise the body. While singing they bounce and jostle around the stage, crowding into each other with the tensions of the everyday struggle to survive.

The theatricality builds wave upon wave of sound in a startlingly original and mesmerising world which, once entered, is not easily forgotten. This may be a show of only fifty minutes duration, but it’s time enough nevertheless to reach out and touch upon the soul.

Reviewed on 16^th May 2015 | Photo: Paul Blakemore

Theatre Review: Frantic – Queen’s Square Street Theatre, Clevedon

This review was first written for The Public Reviews

Theatre Shop’s season in Clevedon includes not only professional live performance in an empty retail unit, but also a variety of free street entertainment. Ballet Central danced on the pier to an audience of 700, a jester tumbled colourfully along the prom and a giant-sized game of live hangman was open to everyone.

To this eclectic mix, contemporary dance and circus company Acrojou bring their latest show Frantic, a combination of acrobatics, dance and physical theatre choreographed around a bespoke tubular wheel with a chair fixed in its centre. One man is trapped by his busy world inside the wheel, running and typing manically on a keyboard. A blind flickers open before shuttering him in again as he is first observed and then helped outside by a young woman.

His movements are frenetic, hers repetitive and controlled, until she helps him to escape and unleashes an elemental expression of emotion in sand and water. There follows fluid freedom of movement outside the wheel, a discovery of love and harmony for them both, culminating in a cathartic rainstorm to mesmerising music.

This short twenty minute piece is slow to catch light – which risks losing the attention of a mobile audience – but intriguing when it does. It creates a narrative without words that invokes echoes of Gecko’s Institute and showcases Acrojou as a company to watch.

Reviewed on 16^th May 2015 | Photo: Pete Axford

Theatre Review: The Devil and the Shopkeeper at Theatre Shop, Clevedon

This review was first written for The Public Reviews

There’s something thrilling transforming the seaside town of Clevedon this month, with the inaugural season of Theatre Shop, an empty retail unit on a pleasant square, reborn as a venue for professional live performance.

Bristol-based Living Spit is one of the creative forces behind this reinvention, as well as a major player in the theatre’s programming. Not only are they involved in presenting Living Quiz, a theatrical-style pub quiz, and their show One Man and his Cow, they also perform in Parts 1 and 2 of their retail-themed caper The Devil & The Shopkeeper.

Told with Living Spit’s trademark combination of rhyming couplets, silly songs and live music, with a cardboard cash register teetering on a counter of empty fruit crates, The Devil & The Shopkeeper recounts the woes of independent store-owning Jeremiah Brown to a packed and expectant family audience.

Jeremiah’s small shop was once the thriving hub of the community, catering to all possible tastes and requirements. Who knows when you might need a hat with a light on it? But recently, he’s been losing out to the new superstores moving into town and now he hasn’t made a sale in weeks. Cue the entry of a mysterious stranger offering to bring hordes of customers flocking back to his door. But his contract comes at very high price and may not be quite the bargain that Jeremiah was expecting.

Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin unfold their tale with energy and freshness – despite this being their third show of the day, there’s no sign of flagging. Words are cleverly crafted and there’s great musical agility on display – from double bass to ukulele. Coggins is endearing as the put-upon shopkeeper and Mcloughlin suitably menacing – in true pantomime-villain style – as the visiting devil. With little in the way of lighting and special effects – a solitary red light and the odd puff of dry ice – in the daylight of the intimate shop surroundings, they make very effective use of space; strutting out of the shop door to the bemusement of passers by, who also peer in through uncurtained windows from time to time to see what all the fun’s about.

Part 1 wraps up with a very silly and satisfying conclusion and Part 2 continues Jeremiah’s story as the devil – having exposed a hitherto unsuspected weakness – returns with another dastardly plan.

This is a tautly-written, lively and fun-filled sixty minutes of family entertainment. Its enthusiastic reception suggests that, in bringing the best of Bristol to a wider north Somerset audience, Theatre Shop is providing a hugely diverting distraction from the joys – or otherwise – of real-life shopping.

Reviewed on 16^th May 2015.