“Then, with mathematical precision, I will jump!”
In Pink Mist staged by the ensemble of Tom Adair, Max Hackleton, Adrià Mir Muntades, and Sullivan Riches, we witnessed a prologue of playful war games in the playground, through to an obsession with video games and finally to Camp Bastion and armed combat. Their skill at shifting mood and atmosphere had us on the edge of our seats from the downbeat. The ensemble employed naturalistic techniques to truthfully inhabit their characters and also wove in heightened physical expressionistic movement to make manifest inner feelings. The quintet of Toby Bamert, Calvin Chen, Henry Findlay, Harri Kokkini, and Joseph Monks captured the adrenaline and allure of war, following a group of young men eager to escape their mundane, ordinary lives and embrace the adventure the army promises. Exploring the devastating effects of PTSD, isolation, and for-
In a whirl of cartoon multi-roling, slapstick, melodrama, and silent movie, the quartet of Solomon Adeyemi, Harry Blake, Oliver Stallard and Anton Zhelesko presented us with Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, Mrs Aouda, Inspector Fix, Colonel Stamp Proctor, the gentleman at the Reform Club, as well as flower sellers, street beggars, deckhands, train guards, and bandits. They dazzled and charmed with the staccato stichomythic exchanges as they took us on an hilarious adventure through the streets of Victorian London, ocean liners and trains across the American plains in their playful depiction of some of Fogg’s infamous journey in his quest to beat the clock.
Matthieu Perrin cavorted clownishly and with perfect synchronicity as the rivals Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, squabbling over the announcement of the new arrival. Calum Skinner played a brilliantly vacuous Postmaster as well as the brow- beaten Osip, while Frank Gibbons conjured Judge Lyapkin Tyapkin as a mercurial icon of corruption, all perfect foils to Wilf Patten’s roguish, and deliciously self-obsessed, Khlestakov. Heartbreak AND Hilarity GCSE Drama: Pink Mist & Around the World in Eighty Days Students staged extracts from Owen Sheers’ verse drama, Pink Mist, and Laura Eason’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days . All four groups integrated a densely detailed language of athletic movement and physical theatre techniques, as well as deft and nuanced characterisation.
gotten trauma, this piece exposes the brutal rea- lity soldiers face upon returning home. Their raw and visceral performances laid bare young men and women grappling with lost friends, shattered bodies, and fractured lives. The quartet of Marley Amarteifio, Noah Darley, Luca Mercuri, and Seb Sweeney also presented extracts of the three young Bristol men deployed to Afghanistan, highlighting the struggle to return home and the mental scars that never fade. Fusing naturalism with expressionistic physical theatre tropes, the ensemble skilfully conveyed that for Arthur, Hads and Taff, their journey home was the greatest battle. All ensemble playing was of the highest dramatic order, evidencing a maturity beyond their years with some highly impactful performance work, complemented by a compelling LX design by Leo Michealides.
[1] The Mysterious & the Macabre [2] Shakespearean festivities [3] Vivid Reinvention – Oedipus [4] Government Inspector
Around the World in Eighty Days
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THE ALLEYNIAN 713
DRAMA
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