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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Staging massed ranks of delight Our Day Out Stage 2 Crescent Theatre, Birmingham **** AT times, it is chaos – but it is
disciplined chaos. Director Lucy Bailey has mustered a cast of thousands
– well, 80, but what a pleasure it is to be overwhelmed by them! – and
each one of its components clearly knows what he or she has to do. Crowd scenes? Ask Stage 2: its young members –
oldest, aged 20; youngest, 10 – come fully primed and agog to go. And
every small portion of the crowd, every individual youngster, is
involved, aware, a vital part of the whole. Stage 2 carries no
passengers. It's a joy. And it's all happening on a coach trip to Conway
Castle, with a pause at a zoo on the way. Author Willy Russell – who
strangely doesn't rate a mention in the programme – has plenty to say
about deprived kids from soulless estates, and here we find them
depicted so deftly, so naturally, so beautifully. And sometimes, when the chaos of free spirits is
at its height, there is a freeze – and everyone becomes a marvel of
immobility. Again, it's the discipline, no question. It's the discipline that makes things look so
easy – as when one of the younger girls is piggy-backed at a gallop by
an older lad, up the auditorium steps, stage left, and then down again.
It is the discipline that ensures that when heaven knows how many of
them have to get back on the coach by disporting themselves on a central
staircase of six steps, they do it with the smooth inevitability of a
hippopotamus on castors.
This is such a team effort that it would be
invidious to name names – though having said that, there are a couple of
special cameos involving Bored Girl 1 and Bored Girl 2 that strike at
the discouraging disaffection which afflicts young people so often. But
we won't name names, just offer a silent thank-you for reminding us so
vividly of what life outside the theatre is all too often like for the
junior generation. From the tiny waif who opens the show – and who
later makes it clear in a well-accomplished confrontation that she
doesn't want to go home – to the older members who represent the staff
on the coach outing of the Progress class, (and at one point stage a
stand-up argument between letting kids enjoy themselves and keeping them
in order), there is no one who prompts a quibble. There's a chorus of 34, singing their hearts out
to stirring effect. There is an unseen legion behind the scenes. There
are even more looking after front-of-house. This is Stage 2, grasping the nettle that is live
theatre and releasing the butterflies of talented imagination. This is
Stage 2, and Stage 2 never lets you down. To 23-07-11. John Slim |
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