Godspell by Steven Schwartz is a popular musical covering a collection of parables from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus leads his disciples in telling the lessons from The Good Samaritan to the Prodigal Son. These are familiar stories and Patch of Blue Theatre tell them well. This production was filled with energy. From the choral singing to the storytelling, the pace was fast and the young cast held my attention throughout. As a chorus belting out the likes of ‘Prepare Ye (The Way of The Lord)’ they were in their element. Besides the odd beat-boxing, the chorus numbers were well executed. The performers were at their most comfortable when they sang and so was I. When it came to dance and movement, I was not so comfortable. The space was very small and this hindered their ability to move well within the space. The dancing was unnecessary: I just wanted to hear them sing without their heels clip-clopping on a concrete floor or arms not reaching full extension due to lack of space. A nice surprise however was the tap dancing, simple but a nice change. With 13 cast members already on stage, I failed to grasp the reasoning behind embarrassed audience members being prised from their comfy pillows onto the stage to assist the story. The interaction unfortunately did not help move the story along or aid it in any other way - in fact it hindered it at times, especially with the shadow puppetry. A special mention must be given to Tom Mackley who played the role of Jesus - his storytelling was good and musicianship strong. Janette McManus is one to watch out for and Suzanne Rooney’s performance of ‘All for the Best’ was a toe-tapping delight. Sometime companies advertise themselves as ‘physical theatre’ without fully understanding the implications. In this case, I feel the term has also been misused - there was plenty of dancing and basic movement but unfortunately the cast were not skilled enough for true ‘physical theatre’. However, the company are clearly quite strong musicians and this is clear in Godspell. If you like musicals, then pop along to C venues to see a young and vibrant cast perform their cotton socks off.Editor's note: I am informed that this show was indeed categorised erroneously and was never intended to be described as physical theatre.
