Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
The night's entertainment was begun with the unannounced addition of two stand-up comics. Michael Wilkins went first, and managed to deliver a cohesive and flowing set, which, while rather light on belly laughs, was interesting in its observations of Anglo-American relations and ruminations on the British class system. Following him was Ian Angell, who was filling in for a different stand-up who had apparently dropped out; he nevertheless managed to deliver many classic one-liners and puns. There was nothing hugely fresh about his act, but it was still funny, especially considering its short notice creation.
The first sketch of the evening featured Ed Greenwood as a vaguely crooked self-help guru. I can't help but feel that the performers were at this stage warming up, as the exchanges between him and Stuart Hall seemed slightly laboured and unnatural. The writing was interesting and funny, but arguably not a hugely original topic. The second sketch, however, seemed in my opinion to be the opposite. While the actors were clearly warmed up at this point, and Charles Deane's playing of a camera-shy DVD dating applicant cannot really be faulted (though Stuart Hall and Helen White's performance as the understanding but exasperated camera operators was particularly good), it seemed to drag on a little too long for the eventual punchline, though this was evidently a part of the sketch.
One of the more humorous sketches in the evening involved a prospective viewing of a nursery. While beginning in a relatively mundane manner, Helen White, playing the part of nursery owner, remarks that she instils into her children the belief that she is God. Her line delivery in this scene was perfect, as were the quiet objections and questions of couple Stuart Hall and Anjali Vyas-Branni. I'm not sure if it was intended or not, but the scene functioned as a rather entertaining riff on classical theism.
An equally well-delivered scene was one featuring two teachers, played by Deane and Hall. Upon being questioned as to the status of his class, Deane's remark that “I believe they're all dead, sir” was delivered with exceptional good humour, as were the subsequent lines of how he managed to kill them all, as well as Hall's worrying about the paperwork that this would create. Without a doubt though, the best performance of the evening was Helen White’s in a sketch about two prisoners who believe they may have telepathic abilities. Over the course of a five minute monologue, she recounts a relatively mundane tale of prison life, yet does so with highly convincing emotion. It can be very hard to fake laughter, but White expertly pulled it off. While not a hugely humorous sketch, White's enthusiasm made it thoroughly entertaining.
My reservations about sketch comedy were, it seems, largely unfounded. While yes, the evening was rather hit and miss, the hits far outweighed the misses, both in acting and in writing.
You must log in to submit a comment.
