Reviews

The Festival aimed to bring on young writers and actors and had the backing of celebs such as Bill Nighy and Sinaed Cusack. Although I didn't spot them in the audience on Saturday, local actress Diana Quick (aka Mrs Nighy) was in the foyer/bar area. 

A series of workshops with playwrights and directors such as Richard Eyre had taken place in the run-up to the festival, so this was a chance to see if they worked or not. All the plays are around half an hour in length.

Lyre

The first show featured a full performance of Lyre which is written by Megan Walsh and directed by Mary Nighy. Moll (Hannah Taylor Gordon) arrives home to find that Max (Sam Hodges) has not been practising his harp. Coupled with his rush to conceal the fact that he's just been smoking you wonder exactly what their relationship is. Moll strips to her tights and stretches her legs across his lap - the first suggestion that these siblings' relationship is a little deeper than normal.

Their mother has died recently and Moll appears to be taking over the maternal role - badgering him to learn his instrument despite his reservations that it's for girls. The play explores Max's uncertainties with what he wants to do with his life and with the opposite sex.

Lyre

Max's attempts at working as a swimming pool lifeguard seem to be from an imaginary John Godber play (which would probably be called "Lifeguards"?). He's clearly not suited to the job and it provides a comic interlude before his final act of rebellion when he returns home.

Hodges captures a shy adolescent well and Taylor Gordon, as the overbearing sister gives the relationship an air of mystery. It reminds me a bit of Ian McEwan's Cement Garden, but this new play leaves us to draw our own conclusions as to whether brother and sister are incestuous.

Assembly

Assembly was performed as a reading when I saw it - but you wouldn't have noticed the lack of movement or a set. Five adolescents (students? sixth formers?) sit around a table discussing the formation of a new political party and Tom Basden's script is a laugh from start to finish.

It took me back to having political arguments with friends when I was that age and hit the nail right on the head. Jared (Sam Hodges, again) is an inept chairman who can't come to any firm conclusions while the rest of the activists bicker with the arrogance of youth.

The reading was stolen by Chris Harper who plays Duncan - a chinless wonder who doesn't seem to have a clue about anything. He plays him a bit like a Bertie Wooster-esque character. But whereas Bertie needs Jeeves' brain, Duncan ends up by saying the only things that seem to have any real insight - namely that people have withdrawn from the political process because their lives are fine or that they're not interested in things which they perceive to be outside their own lives.

Oh, and while the committee opposes corporations on principle, they conclude that the BBC may be a corporation but it isn't an unethical one. Fine sentiments which this website agrees with.

Ned & Sharon

The next play/reading double-header opened with the much bleaker Ned & Sharon which is set in a children's home and focuses on Sharon who has anger and authority issues. Life is complicated by the arrival of reformed delinquent Ned and Sharon's need to find out more about boys.

Sharon (played by Charlie Covell) reminded me of a girl in my form at school who had 'behaviour issues' (not mentioning any names!) so the actress and writer (Sam Holcroft) must be doing something right. Adam Lake (who looked remarkably like This Life and Coupling's Jack Davenport) played the hostel worker Graham who has to try and deal with a teenager who won't behave.

What was a fairly convincing play dealing with the social underbelly (think Tim Roth in Alan Clark's Made in Britain film), was sent a bit off-kilter by the ending. Ned and Sharon simulate sex with the barrier of a chair between them. It seemed a little bizarre and unrealistic to say the least when an explosion of violence seemed more likely.

VI/VII

Rounding off my Saturday evening was another reading - this one examining the morning after the (one) night (stand) before. Pericles Snowdon's play puts together a (Jewish?) woman and a Muslim man who can barely remember sleeping together. They discuss what's happened to them on 7th July 2005 as it slowly emerges that London is being brought to a standstill around them by the terrorist attacks.

The pair spend most of the next half and hour bickering with lots of very rude words. Evangelica moves from benign amusement to hostility and back several times over - even taunting Tick that she's given him Aids. It makes you wonder why Tick doesn't just get up and leave the house - there seems little reason for him to hang around which makes it a bit of an unrealistic situation.

I think I'd rather see this as a play than a reading. The restriction of having a couple arguing but remaining static didn't really work. You expect to see plates flying or chairs being smashed.

Aside from the dark bits there were some very funny lines: Evangelica: "You're a Pandora's Box of bollocks!" Tick: "I don't know what that is, which means you're being pretentious!" And Jamie Oliver comes out of it well: "You think he's a twat, but he's alright!"

High time for another HighTide?

The festival was close to completely selling out for the two double-headers I saw on Saturday, so hopefully the organisers and funding bodies will be able to make it an annual event.

Some food for thought - my (female) theatre-going companion pointed out that virtually all the female characters were unsympathetic. An alternative review of these plays can be found by clicking on the link on the right>>

If you went to see any of the other plays we'd be interested in publishing your reviews.