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Blog News, reviews and cool stuff from the FestBuzz team.

Festbuzz Review: Superclump

Posted by elise on August 20, 2009

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What: Super­clump fea­tur­ing  Henry Paker, Henry Widdicombe,Sian Har­ries, Mike Woz­niak, Elis James, Ben Par­tridge, Tom Craine, Josh Wid­di­combe, and Nat Luurt­sema.
Where: The GRV
When: 2.40pm, until Sun­day 30 August
How Much: £5

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “If they can just get the tim­ing as fast as a speed­ing bul­let Super­clump will become a sketch group of steel.”

I’m not sure how many peo­ple are in Super­clump. I could find out but I pre­fer to be hap­pily daz­zled and mys­ti­fied by the array of char­ac­ters this large and enthu­si­as­tic cast play.

This is a bizarre sketch show, with some Big Train-ish moments and lash­ings of stu­pid dances. It holds together well, but the pac­ing some­times loses its way, leav­ing the audi­ence unsure when to applaud. Some sketches were just too long (a bril­liant stand off between two macho lothar­ios loses it’s way try­ing to get to a pun) and oth­ers just too short (the annoy­ing Red Rid­ing Hood and her short tem­pered grandmother).

The act­ing for the most part is pretty strong: Mike Woz­niak is absolutely on top form, and he clearly leads the group on stage. Tom Craine and Nat Luurt­sema get some of the best lines, but it’s a real team effort over­all and there’s some­thing delight­ful about watch­ing sketches where you’re never sure quite how many more peo­ple will end up on stage.

The team are quite suc­cess­ful in get­ting all their per­son­al­i­ties across, despite play­ing a vari­ety of char­ac­ters with­out break­ing the fourth wall par­tic­u­larly often, though it was a charm­ing and reveal­ing moment to see Craine and Elis James corps­ing in the Aesop sketch. It’s clear there is a cen­tral drive to the sense of humour which makes Super­clump great, and with such a large cast they could have eas­ily lost their way with this.

In order to really get the most out of this show, watch out for when sketches take a darker turn: a dance turns bizarrely vio­lent, chil­dren play some very odd games, and just wait until you find out what’s in the party bags…

There are def­i­nitely a few dud moments they could scrap in this show, and it suf­fers mildly from the post-lunch sleepy slot, but when Super­clump shine they really dazzle.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich

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Festbuzz Review: Warehouse 364

Posted by elise on August 10, 2009

What: Ware­house 364 by Nottingham’s New The­atre
Where: C Cubed
When: Thu 6  —  Mon 31 Aug (not 18)
How Much: £6.50-£9.50

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Ware­house 364: Where good things hap­pen to bad peo­ple. Like Cube meets In Bruges.”

A tale of inter­con­nected, but seem­ingly dis­parate, strangers embroiled in das­tardly goings on as a result of some far­ci­cal mis­un­der­stand­ings. Ware­house 364 would have all the mak­ings of a turn-of-the-century par­lour com­edy were it not for the brash lan­guage and mot­ley crew of unsavoury char­ac­ters which inhabit this slightly sur­real underworld.

The show is about the sin­gu­lar part time pros­ti­tute Eleanor, bet­ter known as sim­ply E. Oddly start­ing the show with a mono­logue about loss of inno­cence, child­hood, and dis­tance, Anna Sher­riff plays an aim­less yet brave hero­ine whose fate is deter­mined more by hap­pen­stance than any of her own failings.

The story fol­lows E as she aspires towards a bet­ter life after a chance meet­ing and mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion with vil­lain Tuffnell (a world weary Tom War­ren), and a fleet­ing glimpse of the money and poten­tial power that could be hers.

As a result, she finds her­self in the gang­land hang­out of mas­ter drug crim­i­nals, (though slightly more eccen­tric and elo­quent than I imag­ine real drug run­ners are), try­ing to escape a maze-like series of rooms, chased by her hap­less room­mate Sally (exas­per­ated mother-figure Laura Wishart), and a bizarre selec­tion of thugs des­per­ate for blood, revenge and answers.

Will Vick­ers is a bit of a treat as head thug Lip­son, whom he has cho­sen to por­tray as some­thing of a Mal­colm Tucker, the anti-hero spin doc­tor from BBC hit satire The Thick of It. A psy­chopath in the true sense of the word, his scathing remarks are far more chill­ing than the rest of his gun-toting antics, and it’s a proper delight to watch his under­lings squirm under his gaze.

The only unset­tling thing about Ware­house 364 is the lack of a moral cen­tre: while I don’t believe any piece of art needs a sin­gu­lar pur­pose or eth­i­cal mes­sage to be suc­cess­ful, I was left doubt­ing my sym­pa­thies for any of the char­ac­ters, and feel­ing slightly dis­ap­pointed that there wasn’t any real res­o­lu­tion to the plot. How­ever, though the sud­den end­ing left me crest­fallen, I heartily enjoyed the ride.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich

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