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Amateur Theatre Reviews |
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Round the Walls (Six Interwoven Stories)By Helen Burke, Sara Murphy, Paul Burrows, Fiona Pearson, Ged Cooper,
Rob King "It's June. It's the evening after a day at York Races and six sets of characters walk along York City Walls…" And so begins a breezy night of stories from some of Script Yorkshire's writers touring the old walls looking both back and forward in time at the characters' lives and their historical setting. Musician Simon Davey begins the evening, and suitably intermingles his guitar playing alongside the stories and their transitions. As he says, 'Everybody has a story to tell'. Burke's Let's Face the Music follows with a whimsical story of homeless young Billy (Isaac Cadbury Parker) talking to the mythical Hal (Sarah Padgett) and arguing for his future. Unfortunately Cadbury Parker had some problems with projection and it was hard to hear how this story began. However the pace and energy was soon picked up by three girls fresh from the champagne tent at the races in Sara Murphy's Bar Walls. Two's company and three's a crowd, as Kylie (Leola Cruden-Smith) observes, and bickering soon breaks out. Tang Hall girl Loz (Lucy Popplewell) has slept with Emma's (Michelle Berry) boyfriend and outraged Kylie storms off with upper class Emma in tow. Murphy's writing provides some lovely, dynamic dialogue and the actors do it credit with some commendable performances from Popplewell and Cruden-Smith. These scenes add some punchy comedy and characterisations to the evening. Next a well dressed couple amble round the walls looking for the spot where Neil (Nigel Smith) proposed to Susan (Anne Cooper) forty years ago in Burrows' Been Here Before. This seemingly romantic beginning soon uncovers deeper schisms in their relationship with the self obsessed Neil ignoring his wife's needs and ideas for the future. Cooper gives a lovely performance as the memory-bound Susan with a secret ace up her sleeve to later trump her selfish husband. A very different couple come next in the form of well-to-do Amelia (Rose Alexander) and bit-of-rough Jono (Ben Sawyer). The Ballad of Millie and Jono by Fiona Pearson contrasts two characters from opposite ends of society who have only just met at the races and in the end find they are closer in their schemes than first would have been expected. Sawyer's Jono comes across well as a independent crook who lives by his wits to survive while chased by an abusive past but Alexander's Amelia only leaves the impression of stereotypical 'posh girl'. The gem of the evening is contained in Ged Cooper's The Colorado Beetle, aided by an excellent performance by Ruth Ford as Esther. American tourist Maggie (Allison Loftfield) has bought her 'elderly' mother Esther on a trip to Europe after her husband's death and they take a walk round the walls after a day at the races. Esther has won five hundred pounds on a horse, the eponymous Colorado Beetle, and wants to see as much of the history as possible. Her daughter in contrast is blistered from the day's walking and wants to return to the hotel. Cooper paints an affectionate picture of mother and daughter with humour, not to mention action as elderly Esther foils a robbery with her very own flying fists! Disappointingly this happens off stage but due to the many constraints of the venue it is inevitable, and Ford gives a lovely account of her adventures as SuperGran. Finally Rob King's Creative Wall finishes the line of stories with rowing couple Martin (intensely portrayed by Gerard Keogh) and Denise (Fiona Kearns). King effectively parodies this evening's presentation of writers' work with struggling creative writer Martin protesting that he runs 'wanker's workshops' as a job, and he has come against a wall in his creativity. Comparing himself to his hard working and earning wife, their relationship cannot cope with the imbalance in their financial contributions to their future. All in all this proves an entertaining evening for York-ites with many references to their cultural history, and director Helen Cadbury makes a clever decision to cut each scene into each other and twine stories around each other. This did leave you aching for the characters to cross over at some point and talk to each other but with six different writers this is difficult to achieve. Interestingly the City Walls themselves did seem to become a silent partner in all these characters' lives and it does make you wonder what these long standing stones would say if they could only speak.
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