Fresh from an award-winning run at both the Edinburgh and Dublin Fringe Festivals last summer, Irish Theatre Company 15^th Oak’s energy bursts into the Soho Theatre in The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle. The show is an imagining of what happens once you kick the bucket: after being hit by a car aged only 58, Mr Argyle finds himself in purgatory. He is forced to witness telling episodes in his life, leaving the audience to act as a sort of jury for his final judgement. These episodes are ordered into a loose chronology by a book that Eric wrote whilst still alive about his own life, which is pasted together in the mortal world by an unwitting stranger who happens to stumble upon the disorganised pages. The script of The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle is a piece of new writing by the successful Irish comic Ross Dungan, an experienced writer for both the Edinburgh and Dublin Fringes. Dan Herd, an Associate Artist at the Soho Theatre, directs it.

15^th Oak’s storytelling style is extremely vibrant. The episodes in Eric’s life, whether they are funny, touching or tragic, are woven together with skilful fluidity. The actors transform the space into the different places of significance in Eric’s past, simply by shifting around the every day furniture that appears, on first impressions, to be stage clutter. The story is brought to life by the exceptionally energetic performances of the actors, who are all a joy to watch. The company double- and triple-role as the characters in Eric’s life, effortlessly changing their accents and age, and also providing a live musical underscore for the piece. A stand-out performance is Davey Kelleher’s caricature of Eric’s pedantic uncle – a speech therapist with a wonderful penchant for emotionally belittling his pupils.

In their characterisation, the males slightly outshine the females. However, the women make up for it as they are better at narrating, and make years of Eric’s life zip along as they read passages from his book. This narrative style is very much in the style of the recent production of Gatz, where the whole of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby was read aloud onstage to aid the actors telling the story. Although this style ensures that there is never a dull moment, it means that the production often seems too wordy. It would benefit for occasionally slowing down and having a few well-placed silences to add gravitas to the moments of pathos which are never allowed the time to develop properly. The production makes good use of the small space of the Soho Theatre, through the excellent design by Colm McNally, which effectively draws your attention to the depth of the space when all the stage and house lights are taken to blackout, save for several floodlights shining at the audience through the gauze backdrop.

The small problems in the production are ones that could have been smoothed out with more rehearsal time. These are not faults that are due to lack of development, but are symptomatic of the style in which the piece is being performed. The relentless energy behind The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle makes it a joy to watch, but also means its delivery is somewhat frenetic and occasionally confusing.

The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle is playing at the Soho Theatre until 20 April. For more information and tickets, see the Soho Theatre website.

Hannah Elsy

Alongside reading English at King's College London, Hannah runs around the capital watching and performing in as much theatre as physically possible. She enjoys creating new work, and is currently workshopping new ideas with the National Theatre's Young Studio. Hannah has worked as an arts journalist for the Fierce Festival of live art and Bristol's In Between Time Festival.

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On the same day that writer Fin Kennedy released ‘In Battalions’, his report into the effect of the cuts on new writing for the stage, Soho Theatre opened a double bill of transfers from last year’s Edinburgh Festival, Bitch Boxer and Bottleneck. Both plays are by writers in their early twenties. Both are one-person shows (a sign of the times?). Although Kennedy’s report is gloomy reading, I can’t help but feel a surge of hope having seen these plays, which are packed full of bite and vitality.

Bitch Boxer, written and performed by Charlotte Josephine, is a tour de force. When 21-year-old Chloe Jackson from Leytonstone hears the news that women’s boxing will be part of the London 2012 Olympic Games, and that the site is on her doorstep, she decides that she is going to go for gold. Coping with the death of her father and blossoming love, she knuckles down and channels her energy into her gloves. The text is delivered at breakneck speed as we are taken from dodgy club to boxing ring, via a range of characters to help to shape her journey.

As Josephine developed the piece, she was training at Islington Boxing Club, and the physical accomplishment of this play is as impressive as the verbal one. The climax gives us Chloe’s fight that will qualify her for Team GB. As Josephine delivers a monologue-insight into the psychology of the boxer mid-fight, she bounces around the stage sparring with her invisible opponent. We feel every punch.

At its heart this is a piece about getting on with it. “I’m from Leytonstone,” says Chloe. “Sitting there talking?! Nah mate, get off your arse and do summink about it!” In a play which feels as tender and personal as much as it is a punch in the face, this is a call to action for disengaged youth. Often criticised for being apolitical and apathetic, Bitch Boxer flies in the face of inaccurate stereotype. It celebrates a generation which seizes opportunity, works hard and aims high.

Luke Barnes’ Bottleneck is an angrier play about a generation which has been betrayed. 14-year old Greg is growing up in the 1980s in “the boot” – an estate just outside Liverpool. Played with verve by James Cooney, Greg’s story is a familiar one of growing up. He (sort of) has sex; he (sort of) gets involved in drugs. It’s fairly unremarkable, and yet we are drawn into this character as he saves up the 15 quid to get to a football match. He’s like a Scouse Just William, but we sense there is a darker undercurrent somewhere. Greg is a bit worried about paedophiles. But aren’t we all? He is beaten with a belt by his dad. But it is not this moment that the drama hinges on.

While the first half of the play deals with personal milestones, Bottleneck turns on a milestone in Liverpool’s history. This is only Barnes’s second play, but he displays such mastery of craft that when the play shifts and reveals its secrets the audience is knocked sideways, and the atmosphere in Soho’s small studio space tightens. The play’s bottleneck feels like an appropriate metaphor for the dead-end Greg feels squeezed against. He is forced to live through traumatic events and becomes a victim of huge injustices.

But there is a whole different squeeze happening to the environment which nurtured these tremendous plays. Times are tough. Talented young theatre-makers are dropping like flies as the support they are given by theatres shrinks. But I can’t help but feel that, with the energy and spirit displayed in these plays by Charlotte Joesphine, Luke Barnes and James Cooney, we’ll be okay. Because writers, like Josephine, are fighters.

Bottleneck and Bitch Boxer run at the Soho Theatre until 9 March. www.sohotheatre.com 

Guy Jones

Guy is a director and dramaturge who works with professional and non-professional actors and writers to create new work.

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Artistic Directors Bethany Hitchcock and Pascale Kasirabo took the reins of this student company less than a year ago. After In A Nutshell Theatre founders Haydn Evans and Dominique Chapman left to study in America for a year, Hitchcock and Kasirabo were handpicked to take over the roles. Still brimming with the desire to expand the company’s dream a couple of terms after taking charge, they reflect on the progress the company’s making.

So, in a nutshell, what’s the ethos? “In A Nutshell sets out to give every student an opportunity to be involved in drama, regardless of his or her degree”. Both Hitchcock and Kasirabo noticed that non-drama students rarely venture into the world of theatre productions at university. Aware that they were potentially surrounded by budding talents in the history department or physics labs, they sought to change this. Hitchcock describes their aim as a group: “it’s about finding new talent and giving people who might not necessarily have the opportunity normally, a chance”. They do this by mixing things up for every new show: “we have a new director, a new production team and new actors” who bring their own unique and distinct creative interpretation.

Supporting and cultivating individual ideas is certainly admirable, but is it hard to have a unified identity as a company? Not with Hitchcock and Kasirabo keeping a firm hold on the direction of In A Nutshell. They choose a number of plays to produce along a certain themes and then select their individual production companies for each performance run. Just recently they’ve completed a term of Irish playwrights’ work, firstly holding auditions for the director post and between them choosing the director with the most exciting vision for each show. Chosen directors then audition for their actors and technical teams. “This system gives all students the chance to experience a professional theatrical atmosphere, while still studying for their degree,” Hitchcock and Kasirabo observe. And with no bias towards arts students, being involved is simply down to enthusiasm, excitement and vision.

This is a style that keeps the company continuously diverse, growing with and shaping its identity from the influences of those who partake in its projects. However, the real challenge comes when its artistic directors graduate. Kasirabo tells me that when this happens in the next year or so, “the goal is to split the company into two parts, moving one to London and the other staying in Canterbury. The London branch will then attack the Fringe.”

There’s a clear mission here, but one not without its challenges as they seek to establish the company in two locations and break with the traditions that have made the company strong. Hitchcock explains, “there has been a ‘Nutshell family’ develop over the past few months: people from different shows helping each other’s performances out”. Splitting this family up doesn’t necessarily mean losing out. The company is built on the foundation that giving students an opportunity to be artistically creative will repay with great productions but also great contacts for the future.

The longterm aim is to have “past students affiliated with Nutshell, who are working in the arts in London, to be part of a professional production through In A Nutshell Theatre, whether acting, directing or on the tech team”. The London branch of the company would act like “a conveyor belt, using graduates – mainly those who appear in the ‘Nutshell family’ – to take the lead in professional productions”. In A Nutshell has amassed a collective assembly of creative individuals who are key to the company’s success and would-be continual success post graduation.

Hitchcock and Kasirabo are well aware of how competitive the theatrical world is, but putting plans for the future in action now seems to be the best way to ensure the continued life of this particular student company. Of course, the true test of the company’s skill and creativity is only just beginning and for now, they’re enjoying student life as they embark on a spring season of sex, siblings and the self, kicking off with a production of Closer by Patrick Marber. Operation attack-the-Fringe? That remains to be seen…

Find out more about In A Nutshell Theatre at their Facebook page https://en-gb.facebook.com/InANutshellTheatre?filter=2 or follow them on twitter at https://twitter.com/InANutTheatre.

Image credit: In A Nutshell Theatre

Joe Raynor

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Emma Jane Denly and Daniel Hutton discuss the issue of star ratings in theatre – what are the benefits and limitations of star ratings? Is there an alternative to this much-used method of ranking theatre?

EJD: On my return from Edinburgh this September, it has become increasingly obvious that there is a discrepancy between star ratings up at the Fringe – or the star ratings from what we could loosely call ‘Fringe reviewers’ – and those that can be found in London or national publications. Clearly, this makes for a confusing message: when theatre-goers need to choose where to go and what to see, they may be given conflicting advice by different publications. Is this a big issue, or does the bulk of the problem actually lie in the way we ‘grade’ theatre in this linear way? Perhaps, somewhere out there there is an alternative solution that suits theatres, reviewers and ticket-buyers alike – a replacement system that is more highly nuanced to the qualities and form of each piece of theatre, rather than relying on a rather basic linear scheme.

DH: Firstly, I’d like to put my cards on the table by saying that I’m firmly against star ratings. I think they commodify theatre where is shouldn’t be commodified and reduce years of hard work to a simple number. Theatre companies don’t like them and reviewers (on the whole) don’t like them; the only people who are really ‘for’ star ratings are marketing departments. I think the issue lies with the differences in opinion about who theatre criticism is designed for: the company, the audience or another entity. I’m of the opinion that criticism isn’t for either; its purpose is to record events as the writer sees them and add to a wider cultural discourse. It’s obviously difficult, however, for one company or publication to stop using them, as this would mean a dent in sales. I therefore propose a blanket ban on star ratings. We’d learn to cope very quickly.

EJD: I’d like to propose that there are alternative solutions. If you look at Fringe Biscuit, and other pioneers of alternative reviewing (Pinterest is an interesting one – there’s definitely possibility there if that visual form of reviewing is honed) it’s clear that there are indeed ways of making the nuances, faults and positives of each production available in a digestible form. I’m not saying that full reviews should be scrapped completely – as you say, people do still read full reviews and they are fundamental to theatre-makers as outlets of constructive criticism – but rather there needs to be an accompanying measuring system that is more complex than star ratings. The English language is full of synonyms – even three words have the potential to encompass a production far better than a number. If you were to ‘title’ the production as ‘fizzy, pulse-racing, apocalyptic’, the readership immediately know that the production is good; that it’s probably a thriller and it’s probably about the end of the world.

DH: Ok, so if we accept that, for the benefit of the audience, some kind of value system is necessary (I still reject that somewhat, but I’ll go along with it), then what we need is a system which acknowledges subjectivity and allows for nuance. Initially, I thought the review system used at IGN could be useful. They use a long-form system which goes into depth about the game being reviewed before concluding with a rating system which gives different points for presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal before finding an average. Obviously, those aspects would have to change for theatre, but it’s worth a go. Perhaps even better, however, is a reviews aggregate website like Rotten Tomatoes, which pulls lots of reviews together to come up with an overall mark.

I’ve recently found out that CultureCritic uses a ‘Critometer’ to do a similar thing for theatre – pulling together reviews to put percentages on shows, allowing audiences to decide whether or not they should see it. That way, practitioners and critics can find more nuance in reviews, while audiences can determine which shows they see based on a mixture of reading the critics they trust and consulting this website. This is still a form in its early stages and needs to pull together a wider selection of blogs and reviews from outside the mainstream in order to be useful. I also think the focus should be on words rather than stars, but the notion still stands. It’s far from ideal – I’ll fight star ratings and the commodification of theatre until the day I die – but there may be a happy medium to be found there.

EJD: I think at the moment, our best chance at revolution is going to be the ‘happy medium’, as you call it. A total overhaul is the ideal, the current situation is unfair – shooting somewhere between the two is where we’ll have to leave the debate. As long as we pact to avoid star ratings wherever we can – perhaps the future will be sparkly in a new and exciting way.

What’s your opinion on star ratings? Add your thoughts in the comment box below and join in the conversation.

Image via Photos in a box.

A Younger Theatre

A Younger Theatre (AYT) is a platform for young people to express their views on theatre and performance. The site is maintained, edited and published by under 26 year olds who all have a passion for theatre.

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