Cabaret

Report by David Slater - D3 (standing in for Nathan Benson - D2)

 

This was my first visit to Kirkham Grammar School for an evening of entertainment from a large cast of youngsters of all ages. Forgive me if I neglect to mention everyone involved in the enterprise by name (it would swell the word count of the report to something resembling ‘War and Peace’!) but suffice to say, everyone had clearly put in a huge amount of work to provide a very eclectic cabaret programme for an appreciative audience. My thanks also to the staff at the school for making my guest and myself feel so very welcome.

There was no shortage of young performers delivering a very varied - some might say bizarre - programme, giving us a smorgasbord of music, movement and drama: songs, dramatic monologues, dancing, instrumental soloists, vocal numbers, a spot of Shakespeare, a bit of Bach, poetry, sketches… Something for everyone! I did miss anything approaching a unifying theme or something which could be said to broadly knit the evening together but there was no denying the sheer volume of activity on stage throughout the evening.

Something worth mentioning at the outset is the fact that all the performers on stage had clearly worked long and hard in preparing for their cabaret performance; there wasn’t a single need for a prompt all evening, nor were there any flutters, fluffs or mistakes made at any point during the show. The confidence on display and the well-drilled running order was incredibly impressive: this was a troupe who had clearly put a lot a time and effort into giving of their best.

As it would be impossible to go through every act to grace the stage in detail, I hope you’ll forgive me for splitting the rest of the show report into two halves: firstly, I’ll get mildly negative - forgive me - with the aim of injecting some constructive criticism to take on board for future Kirkham Grammar School offerings; secondly, I’ll end my show report on a wildly positive note with a run-through of some of my favourite moments from what was, after all, a very successful cabaret evening which left a large audience thoroughly satisfied.

Having spent many years in the arena of youth theatre - and far too many years teaching Drama in secondary schools! - I have always resented the attitude of making some sort of strange allowance for the age of the performers on stage to somehow excuse any gaffes or slip-ups, or that for some peculiar reason young performers should be patronised as being somehow ‘lesser’ when it comes to reviews or show reports in detailing their talents. It has to be said that for the most part, there was a great display of young talent on stage and any criticisms I may have aren’t meant with any spite in their direction. 

The staging of the show was very simple - which could have worked to the advantage of keeping the cabaret evening moving along at a good pace - but I felt that needless pauses and bringing the curtain in and out to no good purpose really slowed things up. Pointlessly closing the curtain really stopped the flow of the evening: great use was made of arranging the curtain in an artistic fashion for Tabitha Berry’s number from ‘Chicago’ - which worked well and Tabitha gave a really great performance too - but otherwise, dragging the curtain in and out every two minutes became a bit of a chore. Perhaps a little more thought could have gone into how to make the best use of the stage space for other items in the programme too, as far too many bits of stage business were undertaken towards the rear of the stage.

Given that the musical talent on display throughout the evening from the students was of such a high calibre, I did wonder why there was a need to rely on backing tracks (something of a bête noir for me I’m afraid) for the vast majority of the evening. I would have loved to have seen the talented musicians - who appeared all too briefly on stage as soloists - gather together to provide the musical accompaniment for the musical numbers in the rest of the show. I did feel that some of the material which our young performers set before us was perhaps a little too ‘age inappropriate’ and that an older and wiser head should have perhaps vetoed, rather than rubber-stamped, several of the items for inclusion on stage. As mentioned before, I would have preferred a theme to tie the evening together, rather than have an unconnected series of one-off turns following one after the other: as a result, the evening had the air of a Year 9 end of year display to keep mums and dads satisfied after a particularly gruelling parents’ evening. This was a shame as there was much to take away from the evening from some very talented youngsters who were unfortunately all too often hidden away in the lengthy enterprise and got lost in the mix. Some of the items presented were beyond baffling and left me befuddled (perhaps the Kirkham area has a historical and cultural affinity with so-called ‘devised’ pieces of ‘Murder Mystery’ which haven’t made it out into the wider world quite yet?) and some of the monologue choices didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the programme and were frankly quite bizarre. 

Apologies dear reader: a few critical words there but nothing meant as being particularly cruel or unnecessary, merely constructive advice. Our hosts for the evening, Tyler Cowrie and Poppy Taylor did a good job of keeping things moving along (and fortunately, managed only occasionally to come across as being rather too full of themselves). Brooke Medhurst gave a superb vocal display to round off Act One and it would be interesting to see her take on the role of Audrey in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in future. Brooke also impressed with her song from ‘Les Mis’ in Act Two. I really appreciated all the instrumental soloists who gave an excellent display on stage during the evening, whether on the piano, saxophone, violin or flute: great work. Also worthy of mention were the hard working backstage crew who kept things flowing. 

I imagine that given the talent on display at the cabaret evening, Kirkham Grammar School’s next show will no doubt be of a very good standard, when there will be a script and a score to follow and some keen direction to knit the multiplicity of talents and abilities together. Thanks again for the warm welcome afforded to me and my companion and I wish you well with all your future endeavours. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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