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Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular
by cha97mw As an Easter treat I decided to buy tickets to the Arena show, Walking with Dinosaurs. The show has just opened for a UK tour in Sheffield, and is about to move to various arenas across the country between now and the end of May. My children are both rather interested in dinosaurs. They have seen skeletons in the Natural ... History Museum in London and watching the film Jurassic Park, so I thought they would really enjoy the chance to see the animatronic versions that are featured in this show. Based upon the BBC show Walking with Dinosaurs, this show provides a stunning visual and audio experience, but also provides an insight into the history of the Jurassic and Crustaceous periods of history in a way that can be appreciated by children and adults alike. The show has one male actor who acts the role of narrator in the form of a time travelling paleontologist called Huxley. His voice over, alongside the images shown on a large video screen provide the background information you need to appreciate the action being performed by the animatronic dinosaurs. The set to this show is pretty simple, featuring a series of rocks in the middle of the arena which can be moved to represent the moving of tectonic plates in the Earth's crusts. Around the stage entrance there are huge dinosaur teeth as though the robots are entering through a mouth. As the show progresses, there are inflatable plants around the arena edge which unfold as the story progresses adding a real 'wow' factor when the set is brought to life before your very eyes like watching many years pass by in a matter of seconds. The show is divided into two acts, covering two different periods in the history of the creatures, with the animals appearing getting larger and more impressive as we go through the herbivores until we reach the carnivores, where we meet animals ranging from the gentle brachiosaurus, a flying pterosaurus, and the piece de resistance, the stunningly terrifying T rex. From the first sight, the scale of these animals was pretty impressive, but as you watched them moving around the Arena floor, and you could see the realistic movement of the muscles under the skin, and the way that the animals were interacting with each other and Huxley, you forget that you were watching robots and actors wearing costumes, and instead, you feel like you are tranpsorted through time and you really are blown away. Add to that the way the animals are vocalised, and you are moved by the fight for survival in the hostile environment, and how the pack animals work together. There are moments that had the audience fearful, and moments that had all the children laughing. The show is rather loud at times, and I did find that my younger son found it a bit scary and loud at times. He really did not like the fighting between the dinosaurs and sat with his hands over his ears at this point. My 6 year old however said that the show was really awesome, and he was thrilled to be getting chance to see this. My friends little boy watched this a few days ago, and he was enthusiastically recounting the things that he had seen to me that were strong in his memory. The show is expensive to produce, so the experience is not particularly cheap. We found a deal through my orange phone deal with Orange Fun Finder where we got the childrens tickets free with our adult tickets, but this was still £80 for a family of four. My friend had paid £56 for two tickets, and had priced it up at nearly £200 for a family of four, which quite frankly is a ridiculous price to pay. The Arena was at least half empty today. It is the first performance I have gone to at Sheffield Arena where we have not had to queue anywhere to get tickets checked or for merchandise or the toilets. It was a bit weird. My friend said it was the same on Friday on opening day. To me this is pretty ridiculous and I think the tickets should be priced more reasonably so the show sells out. It would have made for a better experience if the Arena was full. Merchandise as always was well over priced with a programme at £12, so we didn't bother buying anything. I saw some of it that someone else was looking through, and it was a glossy book full of photographs, but I think in the current climate, spending so much on a souvenir is not for me. Photography was allowed in the Arena, but not with flash or with professional cameras with detachable lens, so although we took some photos, the quality was not particularly high. We have something to keep this in our memory however. All in all, this was a stunning show - it was a once in a lifetime experience to go and see it, and I am glad we did it. I do feel its a shame though that its price will prohibit some families from taking part in the experience I think this is something that my children will remember for a long time. 4 stars - one knocked off for the price. Read the complete review |
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Oxford Playhouse (Oxford)
by 1st2thebar There is something 'Windows 95' about a membership database that doesn't compute while 'updating details', such as: your correct name. Of course, this happened to me, when a work-experience staff member of the Oxford Playhouse initially added a letter (s) to the end of my surname. This was when I was accepted as an honorary member of the ... 'OP Production Database' - naturally, a proud moment for me but slightly tarnished by being plural - there is only one of me and frankly for the good of the human race I'm glad this is the case. I'm not for cloning either, as I'll be worried what the other me is thinking - assuming that clones think. After getting the production listings via snail-mail for five years the urge to knock the (s) off the end of my surname became too enticing. I decided to inform the 'OP' database staff of this plural error - After forty five minutes of; 'umming and haahaa-ring' while occupying the Foyer, I swung out the double-doors and gulped in CO2 vehicle fumes. My mail ire vanished as the update had been granted - the Playhouse's archaic computer system had accepted me as I really am on paper. Any other establishment I would've given five minutes maximum before bursting a blood-vessel, but the Playhouse staff gave me a cappuccino and a wafer-biscuit, to compensate for the timely ordeal. Deep down I actually liked the clunky, whirly workstation and the staff etiquette, who worked tirelessly to please a theatergoer. They apologized profusely, I apologized profusely, for not being plural and they now annually give me free tickets to a production, usually at the beginning of the panto-season. 'Oh yes they do' - and it gives a license for my Nieces to screech in an auditorium - usually pre-commence of the production and untimely during the production. Maufe's Playhouse Architecturally theatres are renowned for incorporating trap-doors and fulcrums into the plans and Maufe the Oxford Playhouse's architect probably the only one who knows where they all are. Bespoke in erecting monumental, commemorative blocks of ornate architecture - Maufe's enthusiasm in building a Playhouse that had nooks and crannies, bells and whistles, with a purpose to entertain, must've stimulated his creativity. The Playhouse exterior was to be in-keeping with the Beaumont Street design and street plan - and visually Maufe kept to the script; in 1938 the Playhouse was finished. A small eloquent theatre - facilitated with a big heart, this resonated the beauty of Oxford - A place for performance, drama, epitomizing a middle class man's lounge - albeit, the womb shape Auditorium interior elevated audio from the stage and surrounding vicinity, no lounge has such eccentricities, surely. Acoustically the Oxford Playhouse is 'sound,' every morsel of audio is on stage, including the creak of the 'Fire Exit' door. My first experience of the OP (Oxford Playhouse) began on a warm evening in June 2002. The highly acclaimed Irish Playwright Sebastian Barry was on show - well he wasn't, but his dense vision of politics, imperialism and its effects on relationships, the play was called: 'Hinterland'. The dull-lit stage, accentuated the totalitarian mood, a stark contrast to a bright evening in June. Threads of rococo swirls are an eye-catching distraction as you eye wanders and the mottled crimson flooring complimented the curved, shell-like seats - joined together as if they're holding metaphoric hands. Rather intimate, too cosy if a play encouraged a full-house, I felt - although I didn't experience such an event till viewing; Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest'; a Whyman production during the late summer of 2005. The theatre became frightfully intimate and I wondered how it compared to 'The Old Vic' in London (built in 1818). My conclusion: the theatres' were at each end of a vein, on the same leaf. Whyman's production was an opportunity to witness the acting prowess of my old school mate Dominic Rowan who was playing 'Algernon' - His forte is periodic dramas so this was right up his alley. 'Algernon's' banter with 'Jack' was suitably spiffy Wildean. All of them talented and used the theatre's ambiance too their advantage - echoic for performance emphasis. What is it with Irish playwrights 'dead or alive' who demand my attendance? The 'OP' stage is closer to the audience - to the point it doesn't detach itself via an opening or closing of a curtain, and the musician quarters are hovelled together adjacent to the stage steps, not ideal for a claustrophobic musician - who's only visible if a rampant joyous tune stimulated quickened head bobbing. Their side-doors reminded me of quaint twelfth century dwarf doors to a church pew - I wasn't aware Sir Edward Maufe the architect was a slight man - yet the beautifully crafted seating area definitely wouldn't be suffice for a cumbersome derriere, leg-room notably cramped if over six foot tall, or have long legs. My patella has complained somewhat on lengthily productions. Thankfully, most I've encountered do have a break half way through - well, the actors require vocal lubrication the same as my ceased up knee joints require maneuvering. - - - Stalls - 18 on the Ground Floor: 13 - 16 seats - first four front stalls: 16 - 27 seats are in the lower to centre stalls: 27 stalls to the back. Circle First Floor - 7 stalls 27 seats in each stall. - - - 'Jack and the Beanstalk', 'Mother Goose', 'Dick Whittington' productions, brings lighter, jovial content which encourages the adults just as much as their children. OP has had 'Xtra Factor' staff who're on stage to galvanized silliness and stalk the audiences for embarrassed gents to step up to the performance plate in December 2012. One year I had the pleasure of being Mother Goose's love interest, I learned quickly it was apparent a special seat is advocated to participating parties. Noticeably it is always the males who get soaked by water pistols, wet toilet rolls, and usually gets roped into doing something unmanly. I'm not complaining, duly on the promise of free tickets later on this year again. At present, the Andy Parsons skit-show is a crowd-puller - although I'm more incline / addicted to the aristocrat capitalistic dense proses of the Irish kind to get my creative embers glowing - or I could be swayed to an Alan Bennett offering. With the British Art Council funding the Playhouse until there is zero money in the pot - I wonder when they'll be forced to up the stall fee; it is 15 to 30 GBP per head depending on performance, actors and demand - soon another factor will take effect, called: 'theatre survival' - hopefully the austere period won't dent the audience numbers, enthusiasm for theatre, and eagerness for their array of light refreshments and hot beverages at 'Pret a Manger' prices on the right of the Foyer. Normally I would grumble and abstain from refueling but I remind myself I'm on their monthly database, they made a grandiose effort to knock the (s) at the end of my surname, they gave me a free hot drink, free tickets for the mandatory pantomime, free product listing via snail mail. All this and they're a charity - a charity that's been a platform for film 'greatness', 'has beens' and 'Mr Bean' - and been applauded by those who're 'Gielgud and feeling good'. Of course, I appreciated the silence, ambient noise, sweet wrapper cracking, the emotional roller-coaster of the performances, and the rumble of the traffic on Beaumont Street, the pivotal swing and squeak of the chair, the susurration awe of an audience in unison, locked in the drama of a confined space. Worth a visit. Read the complete review |
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Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty
by ladybracknell Some years ago, dancer-turned-choreographer Matthew Bourne began his choreographical career first with his interpretation of The Nutcracker, rapidly followed by his award-winning masterpiece, Swan Lake, a reinterpretation of the great classic with all male swans. With both those ballets using musical scores composed by Russian composer ... Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, it seemed a natural progression to complete the trilogy with Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky's third ballet score. The completed ballet debuted to great critical acclaim and has since been touring the UK. I haven't seen Matthew Bourne's version of the Nutcracker but I was absolutely blown away by his updated Swan Lake which I was lucky enough to see with Adam Cooper in the role of the swan. For Christmas last year my daughter bought me tickets for Sleeping Beauty and after several weeks of eager anticipation (at least on my part) we went to see it last week at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking. Matthew Bourne formed his own dance company, New Adventures, to perform and film his productions. The company includes dancers from both the ballet and contemporary dance worlds in its ranks and although his productions are generally referred to as ballets they are, in fact, more accurately described as fusions of classical ballet and contemporary dance as they encompass both genres. This version of Sleeping Beauty, although using Tchaikovsky's musical score, doesn't closely follow the story of the original ballet. Instead Matthew Bourne looked to early sources of the tale both Perault's original, written at the end of the seventeenth century and the Brothers Grimm's re-imagining in 1812 as well as Walt Disney's later film version from the mid-twentieth century and he has brought it right up to date. Like all good fairy tales, this ballet begins with a 'Once upon and time' in the year 1890 and ends roughly 120 years later with 'and they all lived happily ever after' but some of what comes in between has been tweaked a little. Matthew Bourne claims, and I tend to agree, that the original ballet was fairly unimaginative and was limited in that Princess Aurora falls asleep almost as soon as she's fallen in love with the prince and it's never properly explained how he managed to be around to wake her with his kiss some hundred years later. Also, the instrument of Aurora's long sleep, the evil Carabosse, isn't given as much coverage in the story as maybe he warrants. Matthew Bourne has solved these problems with a nod to the current fascination with all things vampire and paranormal and with the inclusion of a couple of new characters, one being that of Caradoc, Carabosse's son who is out to exact his revenge on the treatment of his mother. Plot: Once upon a time there was a King and Queen who had not been blessed with a child. They sought the help of the dark side in the shape of the witch/fairy Carabosse and eventually their daughter, Princess Aurora was born. All the fairies blessed Aurora with their gifts of beauty, happiness, generosity and the like but Carabosse was never thanked for her part in bringing about Aurora's birth and, not surprisingly, took offense and ultimately her revenge by cursing the child to be pricked by a spindle and fall into a long sleep which could only be broken by a kiss from her true love. Although Aurora grows to womanhood in a very protected environment by the time of her coming-of-age party, Carabosse is dead and her parents think that the threat has gone. However, Carabosse's son, Caradoc, comes to the party and exacts revenge on behalf of his mother...... The Music: This is the first ballet I've ever attended without an orchestra. This has a soundtrack instead coupled with updates on the story projected onto the curtain. To begin with I was unsure whether this would work but it does. It actually allows the score to be adjusted to fit into this new ballet concept and is especially effective when introducing non-musical sounds such as thunder, a baby's cry and where deep resonant sounds are needed to symbolise unearthly noises not easily reproduced by musical instruments. The cast: The company has 24 cast members and unusually there are no specific principal dancers as such and certainly no high profile names from the world of dance. This is very much an ensemble piece and, in fact, the principal roles are shared by several dancers which has the advantage of keeping the piece fresh for every new audience. One of the cast members doesn't even get a credit and that is the baby Princess Aurora which takes the form of a wonderfully realistic puppet. The puppet crawls, sits and in one instance, climbs in a beautifully choreographed imitation of a baby. This was a very clever device which has the audience laughing at some of her antics. The costumes: The costume and set designer, Lez Brotherson has collaborated with Matthew Bourne on all his productions and brings great originality to his designs. The ballet is in four acts set in 1890, 1910, and the present day so many of the costumes begin with a very Edwardian look. Those for the paranormal beings make use of lots of denim, velvet and filmy gauzes all combining into a wonderfully imaginative gothic look. Although Caradoc's costume is very much in the style of your run-of-the-mill vampire, his evil henchmen in the present day are clothed in hoodies so that it's impossible to see much of their faces other than that they are hideous. It's amazing how sinister a hoody can look! The best and most sumptuous costumes are saved until almost the end for the vampire ballroom scene with everyone wearing red and black with lighting to match. It was spectacularly dramatic. The sets: These were also designed by Lez Brotherson and although simplistic in design, they were very effective. The woodland scenes were particularly good with ghostly silver birch tree trunks and a huge luminous moon with dry ice providing just the right amount of swirling mist. My overall impressions: From the beginning when 'Once upon a time' is projected onto the curtain until the final 'And they all lived happily ever after' I was in dance heaven. This is a beautifully modernised and interpreted version of a pretty mundane classic ballet and it's hard to pick any faults with it. Some of the innovations introduced into the ballet, such as the clever puppetry and a moving stage were used to great effect, making the whole production as far removed from the accepted view of classical ballet as it's possible to be with not a single tutu in sight and no dancer en pointe at any time. Although I didn't have any problems following the story, my daughter said there were moments in the ballet when she was confused. I think this is because there are occasions when mime is used but if she'd bothered to read the programme any confusion would have been removed as everything is perfectly explained there and updates to the story are given throughout the performance with text projected onto the curtain before each act. As I said earlier, this is very much an ensemble piece so I don't really want to single out any one dancer for special mention other than to say that on the night we attended the entire company brought a wonderful sense of youthful joie de vivre to their parts and the dancers involved in the special set pieces such as the early scene with the fairies bringing their gifts to Aurora and the vampire ball were both beautifully danced with many of the individual performances receiving audience applause. The end of the performance resulted in about seven well deserved curtain calls! The ballet is still touring the UK before returning to the West End and if you get a chance to see it, you won't be disappointed, though you should expect to pay around £30 for the cheapest tickets. Our tickets for the Royal Circle cost £37.90 but costs may vary from venue to venue. I couldn't go so far as to say that Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty is as good as his version of Swan Lake, which was absolutely stunning, but it's thoroughly enjoyable, visually appealing and dramatic and, despite the darker elements introduced into the story, it's suitable for all the family. Read the complete review |
Theatre / Musical National |
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