Cameo

What a lovely evening we had on our visit to watch the talented students of St John Rigby College in their latest drama production named “Cameo” which was an eclectic mix of excerpts from various well known and some not so well-known drama pieces.

The first excerpt was from the play “Bouncers” by John Godber performed by Kian Rowland, Adam Collins, Charlie Anderson, and James Harkins. “Bouncers” is set in a nightclub called Mr Cinders, and focuses on the exploits of four bouncers and their customers, both male and female who are on a night out at the club. All the roles are played by the same four male actors which include the four bouncers who are four very different characters, Les is young, impressionable and volatile, Ralph is young, but a bit less volatile, Judd is all brawn and very little brain and Lucky Eric is the eldest and most knowledgeable of the four. As the female customers the four young actors strutted about the stage with handbags, I am sure there was something rather familiar for the women in the audience about their behaviour and how they danced around with their handbags, then as the men they were, crude and appeared to be after one thing. I have to say it was rather comedic watching these actors imitating young men and women, they seemed to have got everything spot on, maybe the men and women in the audience just might have seen something of their young selves in the parodies on the stage.

Next came Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet’s” iconic balcony scene, performed by Abbey Hayes and Jonathan Mitchell. They both spoke with very clear diction, good phrasing with light and shade, which is very important when performing Shakespeare, it also meant that the dialogue was clear, and the audience could follow the story easily.

 Floyd Dell’s “Enigma” was performed next with lots of emotion by Alice Broome and Luke Atherton.  The piece is about a couple in a relationship that has broken down and it examines the subtleties of and reasons for their like and dislike of each other, as they struggle to determine which of them is the dominant one in the relationship. 

 “Kidnapped” was an anonymous piece, performed very well and believably by Charlotte Dawson. It is about a kidnap victim who has been held in captivity for a long period of time and here we see she has been joined in her prison by a new unseen victim, she is warning her fellow captive about their kidnappers, by explaining how to survive and what she has learnt about them. This was a gripping and thought-provoking piece which had the potential to shock and could possibly be uncomfortable but was essential to watch.

 The next piece was “Scott Peterson Speaks” by Nick Zagone very well performed by Jack Heaton with a very good American Accent. This was a monologue spoken by the convicted murderer Scott Peterson, speaking while on death row after having been convicted of the murder of his wife and unborn son. This was a very thought-provoking piece and topical, as this was a very high-profile murder case and there is still much discussion in the media about Peterson’s guilt or innocence and several television programmes and documentaries have been made about this subject.

 “The First Fireworks” by Alex Broun, was performed very caringly with understanding by Rachel Darbyshire and Eve Haslam. Here we see a woman stumbling her way to a bench which she then sits on. She is joined by her daughter Helen who is all dressed up for a party; she has been summoned to help find her, dying mother. She knows this is her mother’s special spot as thirty years ago she brought her there on New Year’s Eve, to watch the fireworks.  This is a very tender poignant piece, as we hear about their family and the daughter supports her dying mother.

 “The First Fireworks” was followed by a scene from Willy Russell's “Blood Brothers”. We see twin brothers who don’t know each other exist, as one was adopted at birth, meeting each other for the first time when they are seven years old, they immediately become best friends and blood brothers. The scene was performed by Abbey Harris and Jonathan Mitchell who both produced two lovely comedic childlike, yet also poignant performances as seven-year-old twins meeting again and not knowing they were brothers.

Overall, diction, projection and clarity of words was excellent from all the performers, and they also demonstrated very good observational skills when producing their characters. However, just a small constructive observation, allot of work had obviously been done on phrasing, punctuation and the flow of dialogue but on a very few occasions we noted that some of the phasing was a bit too precise and could have flowed a little smoother, this is something I am sure will come with experience. Congratulations must go to Rebecca McDonald for putting this drama revue together and anyone else involved in teaching and guiding these very talented young actors into producing such excellent performances, I hope they will all have a big future on the stage. Thank you very much for inviting us we had a great evening.

 

 

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