Thursday 8th October 2008

Going to see the play last night was a really interesting experience. I haven’t been to see amateur drama for a long long time and to be quite honest I had no idea what to expect. Finding the Rondo wasn’t that easy, but I planned my journey beforehand and arrived in good time. I queued at the front desk and having watched the people in front of me pay for their tickets I felt slightly guilty picking up mine for free. However there was undeniably a sense of pride and self worth when I told them that I was here to do a review of the play for the Chronicle. This may only be amateur dramatics but it’s still nice to be made to feel important.
Well, that evening , after the play I celebrated with a few beers in the pub and the next morning it was time to write the review, and it was.... difficult.
For one, I’d never written a review before, two I have no idea about amateur dramatics and three, reviewers tend to use flowery, pretentious, complicated language. Not easy. I’d written down a few pointers and remarks in the theatre the night before and these were the starting point for the review. For the next hour or so I toiled with it, trying to make it witty and scholarly. It was a battle I couldn’t win. After this troublesome hour I looked back at what I’d written and decided I hated it. So I started again, but this time instead of trying to sound all scholarly and wotnot, I just tried to remember the emotions and thoughts I had in the theatre as I watched the play. I wrote down the experience in the first person and got every thought and feeling that came into my head down on paper. After I had finished, I jazzed it up a little, used the thesaurus to find some more academic words and finally, I was happy with the result.
But this was my big opportunity and the last thing I wanted to do was send off something an amateur like me thought was good, but by industry standards was rubbish, so.... I took it to someone who knows every nook and cranny of the publishing industry, Mimi Thebo. There were still a few bits and bobs that needed tidying, and thankfully Mimi, helped me iron out these kinks. The essence of the review however, was still very much my own.

The Review:

John Pamplin directs Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions at the Rondo Theatre with assurance; tackling the tricky scenes and dialogue changes with a sure hand. You’d never know it was his directorial debut.

Confusions is a series of five loosely interlinked, farcical plays, which take place in various familiar settings; family home, restaurant, bar, village fete and city park, but the play, under Pamplin’s direction, rarely seems as segmented as the premise suggests.

An experienced cast deliver their lines with energy and enthusiasm and the occasional tendency to overact is a testament to their efforts in bringing their characters to life.

Parts of this play had the audience in stitches, the village fete scene, where everything that could possibly go wrong, does, was particularly humourous. Also, Derek Le Page’s show stealing performance as a canny waiter in the restaurant scene left us clutching our sides with laughter.

Confusions is a thoroughly enjoyable evening out and although the slightly dated jokes are likely to appeal to a more mature audience, everyone could enjoy this farcical take on loneliness, infidelity and human nature.

I sent it off to Christopher at about three o’clock that afternoon and almost immediately I received this email:

Dear Jake
That is just right. Perfect. So perfect in fact that I wonder if you are free on Tuesday to go to the Mission Theatre at 7.30pm to do A Taste of Honey. Same form as before about tickets etc. Only thing is we will need the review very first thing on Wednesday morning – say by 8am as it has to go in Thursday’s paper.
Best wishes
Christopher


I am well chuffed.