Did you know, in the first 60 days of 2018, there have been 18 gun-related incidents in American High Schools? Now that’s a lot. Every year, someone goes on the rampage in a school, a park, at their work or out of a hotel window. It’s become so commonplace now that, whilst we are shocked by the images on the news, we still watch them as part of our evening’s viewing. Afterwards, the politicians and pressure groups come out with their standard cliches and the perpetrator joins the long list of such people – normally described as a loner with a love of porn and video games – who we sort of forget, unless their name comes up in a pub quiz. The reality is we never entirely know the person themselves or their motivation for doing what they did. The same cannot be said of the vengeful lad in Alex Packer’s show Ballistic at the King’s Head Theatre. Him, we get to know only too well.
Ballistic is a first-person monologue performed by Mark Conway and traces the life of a man from age twelve up until his first year at college. We follow him from his first fumblings as he learns how to pleasure himself, through his parents’ divorce, his attempts to chat up women and then on to his final journey into college and the terrible retribution he brings to those that have mocked him. But he doesn’t just want his revenge, he wants the world to exult with him and, thanks to the wonders of social media, he can do just that.
Writer Alex Packer was inspired to write the show by, among other things, the 107,000-word manifesto of 22-year-old mass-murderer Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in a California shooting spree in 2014, and has put together a really compelling story. The character is actually pretty likeable at first. A typical flawed human being who never seems to catch a break. We watch his story and laugh when things go wrong. Even at the end, I couldn’t hate him, and the point where he did something totally unexpected – no spoilers – actually made me like him once more. At an hour long, the narrative moves well but, to my mind, comes too quickly to the ending. Personally, I believe this is a case where an extra thirty minutes of dialogue could be added to take the show from amazing to phenomenal.
Mark Conway was energetic, warm, affable, friendly, loveable at first then as the character becomes more isolated and out of step with society, he becomes brooding, worrying, scary and finally terrifying. Mark’s performance is extremely good and realistic so that there were times I could even identify with the character. We’ve all had moments where something has gone wrong and we have wanted to blow our top. Similarly, I’m sure many people have secretly plotted the downfall of a rival or felt unbelievable hurt when a friend has ‘betrayed’ us. The only difference between us and him is that we have an internal switch that tells us the difference between fantasy and reality.
Frances Roughton’s design of a wall of squares that could be lit in various combinations – even making Tetris shapes – along with Peter Tomes Lighting and the excellent sound really add to the atmosphere created by Ballistic is not an easy play to watch. It is so well written, acted and downright realistic that, in a way, I actually felt guilty at the end for getting enjoyment out of something so horrific. Maybe that’s the message in Alex’s play. Whatever it is, this is one show I’m definitely going to remember for a long time.
Dawid Minnar Janine Ulfane – Photograher credit Alixandra Fazzina. “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. Which means that even in the most inhospitable of placers, life will find a way – even if at times, you may look and think what’s the point? For example, in South Africa, the aloe plant is considered one of the country’s most powerful, beautiful and celebratory symbols. It survives out in the wild when everything else is dried. At the end of everything, the aloe is still there. And it is this survival that is at the heart of Athol Fugard’s A Lesson From Aloes which has returned to the UK and is currently in residence at the Finborough Theatre. Set in South Africa in 1963, where apartheid is at its height and the citizens are living in a paranoid police state. The play revolves around a middle-aged left-leaning couple – Afrikaner Piet Bezuidenhout (Dawid Minnaar) and hi
Since 1912, the Blackburn Musical Theatre Company has been entertaining the theatre going folks of this Lancashire town with their annual musical production. In that time, they have covered the vast array of musical theatre from their first production - Sunday - through to their latest - Hello Dolly - which I caught at the Blackburn Empire Theatre. Dolly Gallagher Levi (Sue Chadwick) is a woman that likes to meddle, or as she puts it, arrange things. Whatever you need doing, Dolly is the person for the job. And right now, she is the talk of turn of the century New York, having brought together Mr Horace Vandergelder (Kris Wlodarczyk), the well-known half-a-millionaire and Mrs Irene Molloy (Laura Mitchell) a widowed millener. Their engagement and subsequent marriage seems pretty much sewn up though neither is marrying for love. Horace, as he tells his Chief Clerk, Cornelius Hackl (Ryan Coe), and Assistant, Barnaby Tucker (Fletcher Illingworth), is looking for someone to r
Since July 2014, I've seen and reviewed 588 shows altogether. 2017 was a fairly quiet year with a total of 132 shows visited by yours truly. So, in the best traditions of end of the year ideas, here is my list of the top 10 shows that I've seen this year. Please remember, this is my list not anybody else's and if you don't agree with the pick, well, what can I say? 1. Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Bridewell Theatre This story of friendship and hope took two drag queens and a trans woman from Sydney to Alice Springs, in a big pink bus. Along the way, the met new friends and face rampant homophobia. SEDOS brought every element of the show together beautifully, and to a standard that you would expect to see in the West End. Sold out virtually as soon as it was announced, this was the ‘must see production of the year. 2. La Cage aux Folles, New Wimbledon Theatre This is was a touring production of a show that demonstrates the importance of family a
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