Young Company Reviews
Sixteen Up by Lizzie Smith – November 08
I thought it was amazing. The actors were brilliant and they had so much emotion put into it, they actually cried on stage. I personally thought that there was nothing they could have changed. I have had experience in movement directing and I could not have changed anything. Also as they put so much emotion into it, it made it more effective and believable on what was happening and it made you feel like you were actually on stage with them experiencing all the different emotions.
The design of the stage was really well set out. All it had was two stage trucks that they could just move around when they needed to, however at times it got stuck and they struggled to move it. The dancing in the play was very good it was full of bad passion and good passion depending on what part of the play it was. Also they had certain parts where they needed to synchronize their moves, which they did very well. The script for the play was written very well.
In the Guardian newspaper there was a review of Sixteen Up, however Lyn Gardener only gave them 2 out of 5. After reading the article I do not agree with any of it because all she is doing is putting the play down. She says “we keep being told how Adam and Evie feel, but as we don’t have any strong sense of who they are. It is hard to care very much”.
I personally think that she was very harsh stating this because when I watched the play I know they tell us how they feel, but I had a strong sense of (which they were). If I had to mark this play out of 5 I would have gave a 4/5 because this play is mainly aimed at teenagers not older people.
Urban Hype egg Café night by Dan Martin – November 08
The event was a night where a different crowd could come in and show their appreciation towards their mates. The night was focused on Mc’s who all were very good and kept the crowd entertained throughout the night. The lights really set the mood for the crowd to be in when watching the Mc’s. There were dancers in the middle doing break dancing. Overall, the event was a success and was very good for the target crowd.
The first Mc which took the microphone was Toby T. Toby was very good and got the crowd warmed up but said “ok….ok…ok..” at the start over and over which made a few audience members laugh and thought it might dent his confidence but didn’t.
The South West Youngaz were third on, and kept up with the speed of the other Mc’s on before them, but could have been a little embarrassed because the only people screaming were there mums.
El Nino was good and done nice beats and nice lyrics and gave a new way to spit lyrics, without it being all about drugs and sex which is the feeling you get if someone says they Mc.
The breakdancers came on after a few Mc’s to mix the night up a bit. There were only two because a few had injuries and some didn’t come, but for two people, they kept the energy of the crowd high for the other Mc’s to work on. One of them (Dan) was using foundation breakdancing skills and mixing it with style and power, and the other (Grant) was utilising skills he has taught himself which fell into the category of popping and locking. Dan did make a huge mistake which would of cost him the battle if it was one. The DJ was scratching on the beats to make new beats for the performer when the breaker wasn’t communicating well with the DJ. But overall they kept that “hype” for the other Mc’s which was more important then messing up or not.
OfFKeY KiD was without a doubt, the best act of the night. He is a completely different person when he is doing his set. He set the mood for the audience to be in and little things like that which made him fantastic. Before he went onstage, I had a chance to speak to him and he was very nervous about doing his set of tracks. Personally, I thought it was going to bomb by him getting way to nervous or him forgetting the words. But once again, he killed the whole night and was the best act easily.
Nitro also was there and showing his talents to the audiences which was brilliant. He only talked when he was onstage and was very focused to perform well which is great to see in people.
Overall the night was a great success and I highly recommend having another night with more different types of talent.
Review of Max and Beth by Sophie Mogen – July 08
The performance was fantastic! It was really bought to life. The acting was so powerful which truly had me drawn in. It was like I could feel the things that were going on. There isn’t a particular part where this was happening because it all felt so real. In actual fact it made me think about life today and why it shouldn’t be about drugs, crimes etc. They made a very good point.
The set was amazing – that made it even more real. I loved the way that the audience were sat practically in the set because it was different and I’ve never come across a play like that. You could tell that the cast had put a lot of effort in to the play. They gave it there all. Considering some of the cast had never acted before they done an incredible job!
The narrators Chloe and Dane were great; they were very deep about their feelings. Everything they said was full of meaning. The dancing was outstanding. They really did give it one hundred percent, and they danced like no one was watching, even though the audience had eyes on them from all different angles.
The witches especially were terrific. I loved watching them along with their make up which looked thrilling but incredible. As for the fighting it had everybody fascinated, the audience were getting worked up and wanting to join in and be part of the play.
The lighting that was used gave the set a remarkable effect; it also made the characters look professional. Their acting was also very professional like they had been acting for years!
My favourite part of the play was the Witches’ dance. They stayed in character, had serious faces, were really good at acting and the dance was also very good. Plus I like the music they danced to because it was them speaking on a track which was awesome. I also enjoyed when Banks got stabbed even though it was very sad, they made it look and feel so real. It bought a tear to my eye!
Overall the play was outstanding. I could watch it over and over again. The only problem is that it was short. It would have been a lot better if it was longer.
Cabaret & Sixteen Up Review by Bridie Campbell – October & November 08
In the last couple of weeks I have watched two very different shows called Cabaret and Sixteen Up. They were so different in so many different ways.
Cabaret is a musical that was set in Berlin in the early 1930’s and has a very comical sexual humour and also has a strong storyline. Sixteen Up is a show about two young people falling in love with each other but didn’t want to show their emotions to each other, also involving dancing and singing but wasn’t so professional. It also had a very strong storyline mainly towards teenagers.
In Cabaret, I loved the dancing and also the singing even though I don’t usually like that sort of music. Sally Bowls (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) was amazing at singing and she was also very good at her character and I really believe everything she was doing and talking about.
I liked the fact that even though it was a strong storyline they still made it humorous and made everything fit really well. I think the best bit in the show was when there was the backing set and there was different sexual actions going on in the different parts. I thought that was really funny. Also when the boy ran into the bedroom scene with Sally and Cliff totally naked was hilarious. I also thought the set was really good and how they was dancing with the stairs and make a dance around it.
My worst bits about Cabaret were defiantly the bedrooms scene because it wasn’t really anything happening. It was just them standing around. I also didn’t like when they where just singing for ages and nothing else was going on because it just dragged on.
In Sixteen Up, I loved the storyline but the best bit was defiantly the very end when they got together and said that they loved each other. That was so sweet I felt like crying. I also really like Evie (played by Elizabeth Cadwallader.) She was an amazing actor and she also done the Liverpool and London ascents really well. I thought she was actually from one of them places. I also think that they made the show really realistic because I thought that they were together in real life.
I really didn’t like the set in Sixteen Up because they had to move it around themselves and then the computer came up on the overhead projector witch I thought was really unprofessional. But as it was there first ever show to the public I thought it was still really good how they presented it and didn’t look nervous at all.
All in all I thought Cabaret was a lot better because it was a lot more professional with the set and how they produced it but I think that Sixteen Up’s storyline was a lot stronger and had more emotional effect of the audience.
As part of my research I looked at other people’s reviews on Cabaret (review by Peter Brown) and Dirty Kissing which is another play by Box Clever (review by Cecily Boys.) In the Cabaret review Peter Brow said ‘ Anna Maxwell Martin seemed oddly edgy as Sally Bowles which I totally disagree with. I think that she was amazing at acting and I believed it all. Also Peter Brown said ‘I don’t think any of the lead actors in the production could be called exceptional singers.’ I completely disagree with this I thought that they where all amazing singers.
In the Dirty Kissing review by Cecily Boys said ‘Box Clever are a writer-led company, dedicated to working on projects that are interesting and relevant to young people. In Dirty Kissing, they revolve the story around a 17 year old girl’s relationship.’ I think that this show has got the same sort of storyline as Sixteen Up.
STOMP by Natasha Hunt – November 08
The cast of Stomp brought their unique combination of dance, percussion and comedy to the Theatre Royal Bath. I did not know what to expect of the show; I heard so many great things about it and I could not wait to see it for myself.
The cast were great. They created music with dustbin lids, brooms, match boxes, newspapers, pots, pans. If that was not enough they even used the kitchen sink! They polished their performance off with very fluid choreography which was amazing.
The Western Daily Press stated: ‘The show could have been better balanced if we could have seen more of the dancing skills’ I disagree with this as the show had a lot of dance and it wasn’t all about dance anyway. I think the show was balanced very well.
How they can make that amazing racket that even the old women who would normally ring the police for noise pollution enjoyed?! They got all the members of the audience involved by clapping and getting the audience to copy which I thought worked really well. This also made a bond with the audience and the performers.
In each routine they used a different piece of rubbish to create a different rhythm, gradually bringing in more cast members to compliment the rhythm with their own different pieces.
Stomp does not have a plot, but they do show some sort of emotion by leaving cast members out and pulling faces to the audience .This was very funny in how they did this with no dialogue but facial expressions and different noises from their ‘instruments’. The Wiltshire Gazette agreed with this as they wrote in their review
‘…there is also a lot of visual comedy in abundance.’
It was great to be a part of the audience as it was electric and the atmosphere was amazing. The performers had barely finished each routine before the audience was cheering and clapping. The whole show was mind blowing. The way the performers made amazing sound with everyday rubbish and house hold objects was really great; surprisingly the noise did not get too much.
I really enjoyed this and they made my Saturday afternoon great!!! I would see it again any day.