A Room With Review

Production Diary: 113 at Theatr Bont, Bridgend Sunday 7th December: The First Day Back 2 months after we last performed the show, myself, Isobel Glover, and our director Rio Joubert are back in the rehearsal room for 113 . We are going into our 6th production, which is to begin in 3 days in Bridgend, South Wales. All that stands between us and our Welsh debut is today's single, 5-hour rehearsal. This might sound pretty fast-and-loose, but to be honest it's a mercy - we've put endless hours of rehearsal into this play already, not to mention 18 performances (the muscle memory is pretty well-ingrained). Bear in mind, the show is now so slick that we can do it in under an hour, so long rehearsals allow us to go through the entire thing multiple times. But what makes today exciting is that Isobel, Rio and I are rejoined by Sali Adams (who plays a character called "J.Doe"), having not performed with her since July. Sali was part of the show in Leicester, Oxford and Is...

Review: Doctor Faustus at the Keble O'Reilly Theatre Friends know about my love for Shakespeare, Pinter, and Miller. Few, though, know that the first playwright I became bizarrely obsessed with was Christopher Marlowe. When I was 13, my first abysmal attempt at writing a full-length play was a biography of his life. This overconfident undertaking had been prompted after I read Marlowe's entire works (excluding Henry VI , which I suppose would now be included). My favourite was always Doctor   Faustus . Marlowe's most famous play is an elaboration on the same classic Faust legend that Goethe later took on, about a man who sells his soul to the Devil. In exchange, Lucifer ( Ali Khan ) dedicates his demonic servant, Mephistopheles ( Cameron Spruce ) to Faustus ( Paul Tomlinson ), effectively giving him supernatural access to his every desire. Eventually, of course, Faustus must pay the price for his hubris, and is dragged to Hell ( "thou must be damn’d perpetually!"...