Reviews by karen dobres

Have you ever wanted to be Beyoncé? Well, this 45 minute show is a light-hearted attempt to teach you to. Quite literally. There is no more to it than that.So, how’s it done and does it work?Two young women dressed in sexy black trouser suits posture like Queen B on stage and present the show as a glorified lecture. Pens and papers lie on desks in front of audience members and our lecturers (with qualifications ‘in Beyoncé’) talk us through ten steps to revealing your inner Bey. They themselves, they reassure us, have perfected that ‘unleashing the diva/queen/mother/woman/pop icon/feminist’ thing. "You can ALL become strong, powerful, black women like Beyoncé" they drawl citing "Fierceness", "Stage Persona" and "The Voice" as skills to master. They pose, sing phrases, instruct, all in front of a screen bullet-pointing key phrases.There are dubious moments that don’t quite raise a laugh. For example, what’s with "If you’re white, be more black, if you’re black, be more white"? And then there’s a recounting of how feminism was a dirty word in the performers’ families – until Beyoncé defiantly declared herself "a feminist" and then all was ok. I felt sad rather than elated at this point, and am doubtful that this was the intended reaction.On entering The Hat at The Warren my friend and I were told that we must sit at the front. I explained to the usher (not a member of Fringe staff but part of the show’s production crew) that said friend suffered from anxiety and needed to sit in any row but the front one. Surprisingly this was unacceptable to the usher, and not until I’d had a stern chat about accessibility did he concede to let us sit in the second row – and this, although the large auditorium was practically empty. By the time a long and difficult conversation (which should have been quick and easy) finished, the front row was full, and we gladly sat in the second. Let me tell you, Beyoncé would most definitely not have taken that s*&t, and I felt I’d passed a Fierceness Test with flying colours, pointedly flicking my hair and not smiling before sitting down. It’s just a shame the interchange wasn’t actually part of the show – not only would it have excused bad behaviour, but it would have lent the performance the increased audience involvement and depth that it lacks. Or maybe it needs a packed house?I left trying to work out who would really enjoy this straight-up Beyoncé-Admiration Fest. Hmmm, a Hen Night posse might appreciate the dancing, or perhaps an outing of uber-fans (although they wouldn’t learn anything they didn’t know). But it was 4.15 on Friday afternoon, we were a diverse bunch, and we needed either more audience participation to raise the fun factor, or new Beyoncé facts to sashay away home informed. Or perhaps after a re-write, in a different space, free of rows and seats, this show would make a funny and impressive dance lesson? Don’t Worry Be Yoncé, did at least deliver in one way for this punter… providing the perfect opportunity to release my inner Sasha Fierce, albeit just before the show began.

What if Frankenstein’s monster were transported to our modern-day technological world and treated with the same fear and disgust he encountered in the original story? Not so hard to imagine. But what if Frankenstein’s creator Mary Shelley was treated in the same way as her newly created monster? What if, in her real life, she suffered from the same kind of soul torture that she penned for Frankenstein’s monster?The play opens on the gravestone of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Women, mother to Fanny and Mary. Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth to Mary. Her daughter Mary, (Mary Shelley to be), now grown, wails in grief for her mother, desperate and bereft. Later in the play, her bereft Creature will have a parallel experience.The ensemble are dressed in grunge-style grey and black clothes and move around a white-dressed Mary, using the stage to good effect. Mists swirl, the action is fast and dark, and Mary begins to write. She gives birth to a baby and the baby becomes Frankenstein’s monster. At this point the action becomes double-stranded and alternate narratives are acted out as scenes change from past to present in flashes of lightning.The first narrative concerns Mary’s life 200 years ago. The second shows us The Creature (effectively played with animalistic passion by Liam–Gerasimo Ireland-Karytinos) arriving in the present as the eponymous ‘Item’.We watch both Mary and her Creature as they are accosted by their respective hostile environments. Uncared for, unsupported, both meet mainly fear, ignorance and anger in the humans they interact with. Notable exceptions are Mary’s sister Fanny, and a blind, homeless woman who helps The Creature. The lack of humanity shown to Mary’s monster, and to Mary herself - who the play reminds us is an 18 year old, motherless, pregnant runaway at the time of writing her novel Frankenstein – is at once shocking and exceptionally well choreographed and enacted. This piece of theatre is the end of year performance for the first cohort of the Brighton Institute of Contemporary Theatre Training (BRICTT school). The students have been trained by industry experts for the past year, and the show is directed and adapted by Gary Sefton, produced by James Turnbull, with Creative Director Mia Bird overseeing, all of these being leading industry figures. It is slick, impactful and brimming with the fresh youthful energy of the cast, a credit to both performers and teachers. A longer, more detailed version of the adaptation might make the parallels in the plot clearer and facilitate both greater sympathy for Mary’s character and a more satisfying ending. But, for an end-of-the-first-year 45 minute performance, blimey - this is a rare treat of emerging talent backed by experienced prowess. Catch it if you can, and congratulations BRICTT!

The first thing to say about this show is that it made me re-think my (fairly nebulous) relationship with high-end fashion labels. The second thing to say is that it’s timely – right on the politico-cultural trend. The desire for designer trainers causes riots in places where people live on the poverty margin, and many of our youth grow up believing that certain brands will make them feel special - "worth it". As social inequality rises, luxury brands thrive.Paula Varjac has written, and performs in, a one-hour long one-woman show, exploring the power and exclusivity of high-end designer brands, alongside her personal journey of enthrallment and disappointment at the hands of Kenzo. With the British fashion industry having a net market value of billions per annum, and Who Wore What being one of the most talked about subjects in popular culture, a theatrical examination of the consumption of fashion is long overdue.Varjac shows up in a white sequin dress which shouts “I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR SO I PUT ON THIS MOSCHINO DRESS", and it isn’t long before I believe her and her message-dress. Surely her name is no coincidence…wasn’t Paul Varjac the name of the character played by George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Is Paula a modern-day Holly Golightly?She tells and enacts true stories of growing up in awe of a glamorous label-loving grandmother; of later feeling excluded from the hallowed spaces of the designer stores of Bond Street; of her desperate and emotionally-charged trip to buy clothes from a collaboration between luxury designer Kenzo and high street store H&M as soon as a collection came out; and of her jubilant purchase of a designer carrier bag from a Brighton charity shop for 50p (apparently they go for a fiver on eBay). These tales are told with great energy and girl-next-door-ease by Varjac who simply uses carrier bags, designer boxes and make-up items from luxury fashion labels as props, with a stage backdrop playing imagery and clips, deftly used to add to these stories.I loved Varjac’s impassioned descriptions of her long wait at the opening of the Kenzo/H&M collaboration to purchase a dress that would make her feel special – "a warrior", "a hunter" – only to find that ‘her’ dress is still on sale weeks later on Black Friday with its price slashed. The pathos is evident and sympathy oozes from the audience: she was promised a dream but has been sold a pup and is no longer "that woman".I walked out behind a woman who had related so strongly to Varjac’s experiences that she said she felt "understood" by the show. The evening would benefit from more slickness around the timing of videography and sound, and more clarity around the stories being told: at one point one story seemed to merge with another which blurred the important take aways about consumer culture that the show holds up to the spotlight.Overall I felt I’d witnessed the genesis of a thought-provoking and entertaining piece which is clearly SO this season. As it tightens up on timing through its tour this show should have tickets flying off the rails.

Taking a pew in the beautiful St. Nicholas Church - the oldest in Brighton, with features dating back to the 10th Century, the last thing you might expect to see is a large computer screen dominating the altar area. 'Universe downloaded. Begin Play' says the screen and so the show begins. Stage right are the band, dressed in hospital coats and bandage masks: patients, doctors, aliens? It’s hard to say. Stage left an anonymous man wakes from a coma on a hospital bed, a mask covering his post-accident facial reconstruction, his memory gone. He devours reading material, especially political and philosophical tomes, and works with his psychiatrist using meditation and hypnotherapy. This is our eponymous character, named after a dream he had whilst comatose, featuring the Angel of Death who called him ‘Trim Tab’, and the letter in his pocket addressed to ‘Jim’. The show is about the fundamental importance of a ‘simple message’. It’s performed as a rock musical and suggests that we may all be part of a badly programmed computer game, acting subject to coding and under the illusion that we have freewill. Trim Tab Jim, played by James Mannion lead vocalist and writer/creator of the show, sings his way through realisations whilst the back drop screen shows a series of film clips, from protest scenes to scientific discoveries. Mannion’s vocals are passionate and engaging, his songs varied enough to hold interest throughout. The only other actor on stage is the Psychiatrist. In what is part play, part musical and part lecture, they discuss the pitfalls of contemporary activism, concluding that people shouldn’t outsource their power to politicians and that protests lack a simple clear message about the problem and its solution. Following a mind-messing first half, the second half sees Trim Tab’s body double ‘singing’ about encompassing everything from the pulpit, Jesus on a crucifix behind him; the back drop screen shows us the seemingly randomly changing boundaries of the map of the world since the beginning of history; and a likeably frenzied Brighton news reporter keeps us up-to-date with the peaceful activism inspired by our hero – now unmasked, out of hospital, and sitting meditating on Greenwich Hill, his written manifesto for change hanging from a nearby tree. But it lacks something of the plot and heart of the first half. I'm left wondering if what this show needs, to do full justice to Mannion’s inventive ideas and escalate it to Game-Changer of this year’s Fringe, is perspective from a lead actor who is not also the writer. The show emerges as a discussion on ethics and freewill reminiscent of The Truman Show. The setting is special, the band accomplished, the material catchy, the plot absorbing, unsettling and ambitious.

In a Brighton basement eight young women sit on stools, waiting, the audience in a semi-circle around them. A woman sings Miss Represented over and over in echoey, soft tones. A screen behind shows film footage of the performers on the streets of Brighton, walking, texting, applying make up, gazing out to sea, biting nails or  looking after a toddler. Close-ups show unsmiling faces, their necks, their backs.Can You See Me Now? is the result of Miss Represented, Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival’s flagship creative learning project for young women aged 13-23. It provides a space for those who have been excluded from school and/or have contact with the care system. This evening is billed as ‘a cross-art show full of hope and truth’ including ‘the voices you seldom hear’, and as the girls start, it feels like we’re witnessing some rare act of courage and art. The music and lyrics are original, the film and stories crafted from the tellers’ shared conversations at the Miss Represented project.A young woman shyly moves to front of stage, takes up a microphone and sings a story of her ‘invisible’ life. The encouragement from the group’s facilitators, also on stage, and the other performers is tangible. Another girl stands up, using spoken word to describe the experience of multiple school exclusions. She’s followed by a couple acting out shoplifiting, rage and powerlessness as the film continues behind. Yet another young woman steps up to say: ‘Everyone I ever hung around with had some sort of shit situation’. One sings, eyes cast to the floor, about the baby boy in her heart (but no longer in her care) and members of the audience are moved to tears. There were times I felt I was watching an alchemical performance, making gold from experiences that would otherwise have left these young women unseen and worthless. In a society where they speak of feeling controlled, untrusted, untrusting and hopeless, Miss Represented has pushed authenticity, courage and wisdom back into the limelight. There was no fakery here, only a burning desire to be seen for who they are without shame or misrepresentation, and the space to do it.After the show came a Q&A with an emotional audience, some of whom had to wipe away tears before they could speak. In a post-truth era this was one reality show deserving of the genre’s title. Yes, Miss Represented, we can see you now. And we like it. Very much.

A chair, a poetry book, a man, and a bottle of water to wet his whistle – other than these there is no set and the stage is bare.In his Slooshy Wordshow Greg Byron departs from physical theatre for the evening to give a performance of spoken word poetry, ranging in theme from science and quantum physics, to Brexit, to memory, to what it might be like to be a woman, and even on this particular evening, just 24 hours after the terrorist attack at London Bridge, to the Manchester bombing.Byron is engaging, warm and attentive, checking for yawns, asking us who is a parent, who has cats, and offering each poem as if we were old friends sharing an evening together.His reading is accomplished, and yet humble. The words rhyme easily and wittily and they’re delivered with a Northern twang that’s at once strong and gentle. At the end of each poem I find myself sighing, ahhing or mmming along with the rest of the audience. There’s something about good poetry that makes you recognise things more clearly, and at the end of the hour I feel like my life and the world have been thrown into sharper relief. I’ve made a mental note to tell my kids to visit their remaining grandparents more and say they love them. The poet says it’ll be too late one day.There are also character sketches, cleverly observed lines about some of the eccentric individuals from a village he used to live in, and some ingenious 55 (not 54 and not 56) word stories.It was hard to clap after every piece, not because it wasn’t moving or skilful, but because it nudged the heart-strings and pushed at the mind, in a way that made me want to ponder rather than immediately respond.If you like your poetry performed and your evenings good-humoured and reflective, then this is the show for you.

How funny is Non Violent Communication? Apparently, NVC is a way of talking which involves getting your needs met, as well as the needs of others. When Susan Earl’s marriage broke up she gave it a go and it only led to public crying in the aisles of Waitrose. In her new comedy show Earl turns the story of her collapsing marriage into NVC Tips Gone Wrong by way of gentle, well-observed humour.A forty-something mum of two primary age children, Earl confides that she was thinking a lot about measuring up to being a perfect woman and mother whilst dealing with her relationship. She tried NVC but demonstrates with this show that it’s not necessarily the best way to deal with a ‘selfish narcissist’ (Earl’s ex) especially if you are a self-confessed ‘people pleaser’.Working a room of just 7 in the low-energy, post-lunch graveyard slot on a hot sunny day in Hove is not the ideal context in which to air a new show but Earl gamely entertained with parenting anecdotes and wry observations on relationships and womanhood.Over the course of an hour she introduced two new characters: Julie, a hot Australian Instagram-obsessed fitness expert, and Fran, a Scottish child-centred woo-woo parent who ends her skit by liberally squirting breast milk all over the audience. The three young men in front of me were more shocked than amused.Earl chats about her unsuitability for the life she lives in a Berkhampstead of Botox and canapés and calls out the capitalist patriarchal pressure on women to be ‘perfect’ as sexual partners and as mothers. She writes and sings short ditties to illustrate her points in the manner of the late Victoria Wood and they certainly raise a smile.For me, it was like being at the pub with a funny friend - and that was both the charm and the problem. Earl’s manner is engaging and her singing voice doesn’t disappoint, but the raw material of her life needs more alchemical joke treatment before it becomes comedy gold.

Old people, eh? A bunch of forgetful wasters who always have a hatchet to unbury or a cup of tea going cold. At least that’s what you might think if you came to see Giles Cole’s double-bill When Love Grows Old.The two interlinked short plays explore how the elderly can feel a loss of purpose, suffer from forgetfulness and regrets, and have a pressing need to confront significant others with what they know before they either forget it altogether or die.In The Romance of the Century, an elderly, well-to-do couple, exchange spiky dialogue on a small stage set as a drawing room. The pair turn out to be Edward, Duke of Windsor and Wallace Simpson, both imagined by Cole towards the end of their lives. Edward, known as ‘David’, has grown to resent Wallace and threatens to show her up by behaving badly during the Queen’s impending visit.As the two-dimensional Queen arrives, David wants to take this last chance before death to express his regret to her. James Woolley convinces as the charming, charismatic ex-King in exile and the scene is set for a dramatic climax. However the Duke’s confession to a reluctant ‘Lilibet’ has none of the expected wow factor. It’s as though the play had the potential to be an interesting insight into a major historical event but in the end had to mind it’s language. Maybe David couldn’t pay the price of honesty? It’s left unclear and is a missed dramatic opportunity. The second play, The Weatherman, is a conversation between two elderly male friends over their regular evening tipple. Alf has forgotten the name of a TV weatherman and, annoyed with himself, enlists Charlie’s help in memory jogging. Again the set is sparse, just two chairs and a drinks table in an intimate setting. The focus is on the dialogue. Conversation turns to relationships and follows a tricky path. Alf confronts Charlie for having had an affair with his wife, wanting his friend to know that he knows, before it becomes, like the weatherman’s name, something he won’t remember anymore. David Henry playing Alf gives a particularly nuanced and poignant performance, making his unburdening and concomitant forgiveness credible. Charlie’s denial is less credible. In all, the show lasts an hour and engages the audience, sometimes more, sometimes less, throughout. Some of the plot lacks clout, some of the acting is less believable, but it’s gratifying to see older actors being written for and the theme of ageing explored.

Sometimes in comedy, as in life, things don’t go as planned.Comedian Matt Price was just about to tell all eight of us, upstairs at The Quadrant, why life coaches are ‘fucking idiots’ when the audience suddenly tripled as a flurry of latecomers bagged seats at the back. As you might expect from someone who, when not performing, also teaches the ‘post-modern art of interactive narrative stand-up’, Matt focused attention onto the newbies. He picked up his mic for the first time that evening, acknowledging the change in atmosphere, and proceeded to pick on individuals with sharp and funny personal observations. An expert at bonding, Matt had everyone cracking up in no time, quickly drawing the whole room into his yarn.However, when yet another latecomer arrived, daring to nonchalantly answer back our uber-engaging host, Matt spontaneously abandoned his story altogether. He may have joined the party late, but audience member Sam sat alone vaping provocatively and casually mentioned that his Mum’s dog’s penis was poorly. This was a gift Matt couldn’t ignore. Our storyteller left the stage asking us to turn our chairs around to witness his conversation with Sam, which he neatly worked into an anecdote about a one-time gig, entertaining psychopathic serial killers at Broadmoor. The gags kept coming as he moulded his material to this ‘mixed ability’ group.The advertised show was called The Weed Fairy and purported to be a story about the time Matt’s pensioner Dad got mixed up in illegal gardening - but no such story came. Instead we were treated to an unpredictable hour of hilarious room-working.Matt had fessed up earlier to his natural unassertiveness: a problem that once got him into an unlikely job as a bodyguard to a dominatrix. This same lack of resistance served him well as he just went with the flow of a lively Brighton audience. We never did find out about his Dad and the weed, but we were so involved in the jokes and pointed commentary on his growing relationship with us that it didn’t matter. This is a master comic story-teller at the height of his powers, who entrances and doesn’t release you from the spell until the hour is up; a courageous tour de force executed with skill and precision.

Bluebird Tea Co are on a mission to make you happy with a cuppa. This thriving, young company want to open British minds to the idea that tea types and flavours can be mixed to create a variety of taste sensations. Going into their flagship shop in Brighton for a 3 hour evening of Tea Mixology woke up my palette from its Builders’ Tea slumber – but not to smell the coffee, mind - they “don’t mention the ‘c’ word here”.So why is making a cup of tea part of the Brighton Fringe?The evening verges on a performance, starting with uber-enthusiastic tea-presenter Emi’s explanation of the company ethos to a group of five of us keen tea-drinkers. The session comprises of tea-guessing games, then a talk on different types of processing and forms of tea, followed by a tea-tasting session in which we were all surprised by how much the amusingly-named teas tasted just like they smelt. Rhubarb and Custard, for example, smelt and tasted just like the penny sweets, whereas Coco Chai No. 5 was creamy and chocolatey, and thankfully whiffed of cocoa rather than the designer perfume. After this we moved on to creating our own personal blends of loose leaf, three types each to take home, working with bases of green, black, mate or rooibos, and adding from a whole range of fruit, flowers and herbs to flavour. Which is why I’m sipping a cup of my own Cor bLIMEy! as I type - a mix of black tea with lime, my favourite builder’s, with a refreshing twist.Throughout the evening we were encouraged to drink as many tea cocktails and concoctions as we liked, whipped up by James, another effervescent member of the Bluebird team.Bluebird have their tins arranged on a Tea Wall in order of caffeine power, going through rooibos, to fruit to herbal to white, then green, oolong, yerba mate and finally black.A sucker for a good Darjeeling, I asked James if there was any to buy. A furtive look crossed his face as he offered some ‘last season’ Purple Rain (first flush Darjeeling with a parma violet taste) from ‘under the counter’, and weighed me out 0.15kg. I felt like I was drug-scoring in a civilized environment and left on a tea high.