BPreviews Archives - Page 31 of 69 -

June 16, 2017July 27, 2017

BPREVIEW: Supersonic Festival @ Various 16-18.06.17

Words by Charlotte Heap

Back after a brief hiatus, Supersonic Festival is returning with its trademark artistically adventurous programme – promising a weekend of experimental experiences across Birmingham.

Launched in 2003, this established festival has a reputation as one of the UK’s most anticipated avante garde music and arts events. Utilising some of Birmingham’s best performance spaces, Capsule (the self-proclaimed ‘cultural alchemist’) have curated a schedule which is bursting with cutting edge artists.

Organist Anna Von Hausswolff opens the festival at the Town Hall: her gothic style complements the concert hall’s magnificent architecture, fusing live electronics and a traditional guitar band with the huge sound of the historic organ installed in 1834.

Capsule have incorporated Lucy McLauchlan’s large scale street art in and around the Digbeth based festival hub, hoping that her monochromatic explorations of Birmingham’s waterways – displayed along the canalside – will entice the viewer to McLauchlan‘s residency within Centrala (Minerva Works) and Boxxed (Floodgate Street).

Committed to bringing challenging cultural experiences to the masses, Supersonic even has a child-focused performance: Melt Banana, a Japanese band, are bringing a somewhat intimidating described “riot of sound and fury” to Symphony Hall’s exalted stage. For Birmingham’s younger audience it should be a memorable musical moment in one of the country’s best concert venues.

An important part of the Brummie cultural calendar, Supersonic needed to come back with a bang after it’s break in 2016. With workshops, talks, film showings and more, the festival’s 2017 line-up is a welcome return for Birmingham’s culture vultures. Ticket prices for Supersonic events will vary across the weekend’s programme, depending on how much you want to do and where you want to be.

Supersonic Festival comes to various venues across Birmingham, running from 16^th to 18^th June. For direct festival info and online tickets sales, visit www.supersonicfestival.com

June 14, 2017July 27, 2017

BPREVIEW: The Play That Goes Wrong @ REP (House stage) 19-24.06.17

Words by Lucy Mounfield / Production pics by Helen Murray

On Monday 19^th June, The Play That Goes Wrong will bring theatrical disaster to Birmingham REP’s House stage – as produced and performed by the Mischief Theatre Company. The Play That Goes Wrong will be running daily (except Sundays) until Saturday 24^th June. Matinee performances will be held on Thursday 22^nd and Saturday 24^th June at 2pm.

Standard tickets start from £15 with matinees from £10. For direct event information, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

The Play That Goes Wrong is written by co-authors Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, whose first production, Let’s See What Happens, was devised by the former LAMDA students in 2008. The Play That Goes Wrong depicts the very opposite to the multi-award-winning trajectory that Mischief Theatre have taken.

This meta-theatrical experience of a play within a play has been running for five years (on the West End since 2014) and builds upon the tradition of turning amateur performance disaster into comic triumph. The premise is simple: The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society are putting on a 1920’s murder mystery, but as the title suggests this does not go to plan. Think Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap meets Fawlty Towers, as the wannabe thespians cringingly carry on ‘against all the odds to reach their final curtain call, hilarious results ensue!’

But this well received farce is certainly this is no amateur production; Mischief Theatre are getting it wrong perfectly. This comes in many forms: slapstick, travesty, set malfunctions and miss-communications between the actors of the drama society who really are learning on the job. The Play That Goes Wrong promises physical humor such as planks of wood knocking out actors, but will this get too much for the real audience watching a play that is depicting another play going wrong? Does this kind of farce have to be believable, or is it simply about the hi-jinks?

What springs to mind when thinking about a play within a play genre is the ridiculous Michael Frayn play Noises Off – considered by many the greatest of all backstage farces. Noises Off manages to create nuanced characters and personality conflicts to explain away the comic failings of their play, thereby producing something akin to the believable. The National Theatre’s One Man Two Guvnors (which in my opinion was the funniest play I have ever seen) may not be a backstage based narrative, but utilises the artistic components of slapstick to full effect – by setting up a story and the characters motivation, the chaos that ensued was far funnier and quite often surprising.

The Play That Goes Wrong surely further takes influence from Morecambe and Wise’s Play’s Wot Erne Wrote, in which Morecambe and Wise invite a celebrity guest to star in one of Ernie’s plays (of course, it goes wrong as its badly written, badly acted and no one has a clue what is going on). But the play within a play tradition works well here because of the unsuspecting guest’s attempt to act whilst the others don’t, in turn making them look ever more the fool.

The Play That Goes Wrong has been running solidly in London’s West End and on Broadway, winning a slew of awards including an Olivier for Best New Comedy. So once more we tread the precarious boards of a play within a play, one that promises to push the boundaries of this genre even further and I suspect my laughter even louder.

The Play That Goes Wrong – Mischief Theatre

The Play That Goes Wrong runs at the Birmingham REP from 19^th to 24^th June – on the theatre’s House stage. For direct event info and online tickets sales, click here.

For more on Mischief Theatre, visit www.mischieftheatre.co.uk

For more from the Birmingham REP, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

June 13, 2017

BPREVIEW: Coppélia @ Hippodrome 13-17.06.17

Words by Ed King / Production pics by Andrew Ross

On Tuesday 13^th June, the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Coppélia opens at the Birmingham Hippodrome – running daily at 7:30pm until Saturday 17^th June. Matinees will be held at 2:00pm on Thursday 15^th and 2:30pm Saturday 17^th June, with an audio described performance at 10:30am also on Saturday 17^th June.

Tickets are priced between £11-59 depending performance date, time and seating. For direct details, including full performance times and online tickets sales, click here.

A ‘comic ballet’ in three Acts, Coppélia was first choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to a libretto from Léo Delibes. Attributed as an adaptation of the German folklore short story Der Sandmann – E. T. A. Hoffmann’s macabre story of demonic alchemy and revenge, Coppélia premiered at the Théâtre Impérial l’Opéra in Paris on 25^th May 1870.

Coppélia tells the old tale of man loves woman, professor builds doll, man falls in love with doll, woman pretends to be doll, man falls back in love with woman… we’ve all been there. Although I guess it’s slightly more plausible than being held prisoner in a house made of short crust pasty.

Coppélia, the eponymous life sized dancing doll, is the invention of the Dr Coppélius – a somewhat dubious man with an unhealthy habit of building companions and leaving them sitting on balconies. Franz, a young man in Dr Coppélius’ village, falls for the motionless Coppélia and attempts to woo her by climbing up to the aforementioned balcony and declaring his love.

Franz’s fiancé, the incredibly forgiving Swanhilda, breaks into Dr Coppélius’ house and pretends to be the life sized doll come alive – dancing her way back into Franz’s heart and down the aisle. All ends well, despite Dr Coppélius’ secret plan to kill Franz and steal his soul (I did say dubious) with the original end to Act III seeing the whole village dancing in celebration as Franz and Swanhilda are finally wed.

Since its debut Coppélia has been adapted and performed by companies across the globe, making it one of the cornerstones of Classical Ballet. A firm favourtie with family audiences, Birmingham Royal Ballet has performed Coppélia for many years with changes being made to the narrative in several new productions.

Last performed at the Birmingham Hippodrome in 2015, Peter Wright heads up the 2017 production with further choreography from Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti.

Coppélia – Birmingham Royal Ballet 2017

Birmingham Royal Ballet brings its production of Coppélia to the Birmingham Hippodrome from 13^th to 17^th June. For direct gig info and online tickets sales, click here.

__________

For more on Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Coppélia, visit www.brb.org.uk/whats-on/event/coppélia

For more from Birmingham Royal Ballet, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.brb.org.uk

For more from Birmingham Hippodrome, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com

June 10, 2017June 10, 2017

BPREVIEW: Kyla La Grange @ Mama Roux’s 12.07.16

Words by Ed King

On Monday 12^th June, Kyla La Grange comes to Mama Roux’s in Digbeth, with support from FOURS. Doors open at 7pm with tickets priced at £8 (advance) – as presented by Birmingham Promoters. For direct gig info and online ticket sales, click here.

Kicking off a six date UK tour in Birmingham, Kyla La Grange will leave the arches of our industrial hangover to play King Tut’s in Glasgow (Jun 13^th) and The Hope and Ruin in Brighton (Jun 17^th). Expect some major city pit stops en route – click here for details.

Launching into music with her debut album, Ashes, in 2012, Kyla La Grange is kind of hard to pinpoint – great for the cultural conscious of the world, difficult for a tired hack with a deadline. But I guess that’s the point; pejorative office metaphors be damned, you’ve got Google and ears now get to work you lazy bag of nerves and tissue.

But I’ll give is a stab. Apologies in advance… Moving from the more indie rock six strings dance backbone of her debut (I did start this with an apology) Kyla La Grange has seemingly embraced a more electronica approach with her more recent work.

Ashes, a pretty stellar fourteen track introduction, jumped from the determined rock of ‘Walk Through Walls’ into the haunting ballad of ‘To Be Torn’, only to end up basking content on the shores of ‘The River’ – an addictive track I bet a pre-Mercury Awards Marling wishes she’d have written.

Cut Your Teeth, Kyla La Grange’s sophomore album, came out in 2014 produced by Jakwob. Ten tracks that traverse corners of electronica from brooding tech to Calypso, it’s a well spent three quarters of an hour. I’ll just cite some songs and save you the adjectives: ‘Cannibals’, ‘The Knife’, ‘Big Eyes’ and start as the God of programming intended with the title track.

So now it’s 2017, where the hell has she been I hear you ask? You didn’t, it’s a segue, and I honestly don’t know. But probably touring the planet with Faithless. There have been a few ‘distinguished’ singles drip fed to keep us interested though: some more pop that electronica, some more vanilla than the darker flavours of Cut Your Teeth. But again, Google your way (or grab a hipster and shake them until answers fall out of their tiny pockets).

Plus if you’ve got a few more minutes to spare then check out Kyla La Grange’s Twitter feed for an approach to politics and the public domain debate that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And breathe… perhaps we’ll be OK after all. Not often I’m directed to The Morning Star’s website whilst researching an artist.

Anyway… if music be the blah blah here’s a Snickers bar. Get to Mama Roux’s on Monday for the rest.

‘Skin’ – Kyla La Grange

Kyla La Grange performs at Mama Roux’s on Monday 12^th June, with support from FOURS – as presented by Birmingham Promoters. For direct gig info and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Kyla La Grange, visit www.kylalagrange.com

For more on FOURS, visit www.soundcloud.com/itsfours

_________________

For more from Mama Roux’s, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.therainbowvenues.co.uk/venues/mama-rouxs

For more from Birmingham Promoters, visit www.birminghampromoters.com

June 1, 2017

BPREVIEW: Ed Geater + Lady Sanity, Andrew Souter @ mac 02.06.17

Words by Ed King / Pic by Rob Hadley

On Friday 2^nd June, Ed Geater headlines a showcase at mac for his upcoming single with Lady Sanity, ‘Found a Place’. Alongside their collaboration Lady Sanity will be performing a full set of her own material, with further support coming from Andrew Souter who will be opening the evening.

Doors open at 8pm, with tickets priced at £7.50 – as presented by Impact. For direct gig info and online ticket sales, click here.

Coming out on Brox Records, a new Birmingham based label, ‘Found a Place’ will be available to purchase from 16^th June – check online outlets including iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play, Amazon. “I’m so excited,” says Ed Geater, “Lady Sanity is one of Birmingham’s most exciting talents right now, and the combination of our different styles has sparked something original and fresh.”

“When writing the lyrics for ‘Found A Place’ I really wanted to focus on the beauty of the world I see despite how much negativity we see on a daily basis,” adds Lady Sanity. “‘Found a Place’ is really about finding happiness in the small things and appreciating them. In my case that joy and relief comes from music. Ed’s guitar really brings it to life. You can hear the frustration in the track but it also uplifts you.”

‘Found a Place’ was first released into the public domain via Ed Geater’s Soundcloud page, with an audio only version posted on 29^th May. Click on the link below to listen:

‘Found a Place’ – Ed Geater Feat. Lady Sanity

Ed Geater performs in mac’s Theatre on Friday 2^nd June, with support from Lady Sanity and Andrew Soulter – as presented by Impact. For direct gig info and online tickets sales, click here.

__________

For more on Ed Geater, visit www.edgeater.co.uk

For more on Lady Sanity, visit www.ladysanity.com

For more on Andrew Souter, visit www.andrewsouter.co.uk

For more from mac, including a full programme of events and courses, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk