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Day: June 2, 2016

Pride in London present screening and panel discussion of ‘Oriented’

Posted on by Gary Hart

LGBT Identity, culture and religion takes centre stage in Soho on Friday, June 3 as Aritha Wickramasinghe and Pride in London present a special screening and panel discussion of ground-breaking gay Israeli-Palestinian documentary, Oriented.

Left to right: Khader Abu Seif, Naeem Jiryes and Fadi Daeem
Left to right: Oriented actors, Khader Abu Seif, Naeem Jiryes and Fadi Daeem

Oriented follows the lives of three Palestinian friends exploring their national and sexual identity in Tel-Aviv during the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014. Determined to make a change, these three best friends form a non-violent, cultural resistance group making viral content for gender and national equality.

In a series of cultural events leading up to Pride Festival, London’s eclectic Ham Yard Hotel will host a special screening and a panel discussion talking about the LGBT experiences of cultural minorities.

On the panel, Oriented director Jake Witzenfeld will be joined by actor Khader Abu Seif and film producer Hanan Kattan. The discussion will be chaired by LGBT campaigner Aritha Wickramasinghe.

Aritha Wickramasinghe
Aritha Wickramasinghe

Aritha, said: “I’m delighted that Oriented is playing its part in this year’s Pride Festival to help tackle issues of identity, culture and religion among LGBT cultural minorities.

“Oriented is essentially a film about people’s identity, about not fitting in on several different levels. More importantly, this film is also about people searching and being able to find their own direction. This is an important message for many LGBT people in London trying to make sense of who they are and how they fit in.”

Mohsin Zaidi
Mohsin Zaidi

Director at Pride in London, Mohsin Zaidi, added: “One’s identity is a complex matter, made more so when two innate parts of it find themselves at odds with each other. There are too many young people who don’t feel comfortable with the way they were born because of the way they were raised. Pride in London is delighted to be hosting this debate and hope that it fuels continued engagement by the LGBT+ community and beyond with this subject matter.”

For more information about Pride events, click here:

Event: Film screening of Oriented – A discussion panel and a drinks reception will follow.

Where: Ham Yard Hotel, 1 Ham Yard, London W1D 7DT

When: Friday, June 3

Time: 6.30pm

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REVIEW: Peppa Pig’s Surprise@Theatre Royal

Posted on by Eric Page

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Peppa Pig’s Surprise

Theatre Royal

It’s a lovely day and Peppa is playing outside with her friends. Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig have got a surprise for her and George – they can’t guess what it is, can you? Peppa Pig, George and their friends are back in this brand new live stage show, Peppa Pig’s Surprise.

Emma Grace Arends is Daisy our guide into the world of Peppa is full of bubbly energy from the off and kept us all interested and included in the show, she never flags and I was impressed by her relentless full beam smile. Must be hard keeping that up for two shows a day, five days a week. 

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The rest of the cast are excellent puppeteers and recreate the iconic voices of the characters they are playing, the puppets themselves are great, Peppa and her friends are human sized, Mummy and Daddy bigger and it keeps everything in a child sized perspective and familiar to younger audience members who are used to screens.

All in all you know what you’re getting with Peppa and this is a fun show which catches and keeps the attention of the youngest members of the audience while still giving them plenty of fun, thrills and new experiences. The songs are fun (and more importantly short) with plenty of shouting out, silly simple audience participation and few on stage tricks to make folk laugh.

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The show takes the format of many short stories that build up into the longer narrative so nothing too complex or taxing and with a fun ultra violet light and puppet show half way through that had us all ohhhing and ahhhing with delight. My young companion Hadley (3) was delighted by the neon glowing jellyfish dance and daft crab dance. There’s a lovely bed time story with the cheeky Red Monkey and Mr Potatoe pays a visit at the end to help us set a new world record for his new dance. All gloriously silly and fun.

Greta fun and certainly worth a trip out on a wet half term afternoon and a wonderful way to introduce kids to the Theatre.

Plays until June 3

Theatre Royal

Brighton

New Road

 

REVIEW: Brighton Fringe: Club Briefs

Posted on by Eric Page

briefs-photo

Club Briefs

Republic

Brighton Beach

BRIEFS was born in the back warehouse space of a bookshop in Brisbane’s West End in 2008. The boys put on a club night to give performers the chance to try out some new late night cabaret/variety acts. There were no rules or restrictions. They weren’t answering to a brief or a venue or a funding body. It was purely artist driven with no agenda. It was completely off the radar. It was stuck together with a bit of hope, gaffer tape and glitter.

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The cast of  Club Briefs are male burlesque performers par excellence. They include not one, but two former holders of the world title King of Burlesque. This is their late night show and a re-creation of how they first came about, mucking about together in the back rooms of clubs in Brisbane and coming up with crazy ideas and clashes of styles and formats that have an in your face vibe whilst showcasing these talented performers. A few years down the line and these crazy Queers are now seasoned festival performers, traveling the worlds and wowing the crowds with their well-rehearsed and slick routines. This attempt to recreate a slightly more edgy, raw and challenging show is something which must be welcomed and it’s always good to see performers try something new or even go back to their roots and give us something old but bloody good.

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Briefs the Club is both of these things and some of the very well-known routines are given an extra erotic twist by being performed naked, one from youngest member of the team and heart-throb Louis Biggs (that’s him in the photo above..) , or with some tongue in cheek commentary.

The reason these lads tour constantly is because they are good and seeing them in their element at Club Briefs is certainly worth the wander out to the biggest Spiegeltent in Town, it’s just along the beach, up from where the Wheel used to be, they have cheap bar prices and you’ll get to see some of the hottest men in the city, covered in sequins, almost nude or in your face super-hot naked, and there’s no better late show in the festival this weekend. Hosted with deadpan blaze panache by Fez Fa’Anana who keeps it all upbeat and moving along.

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After they are done with their show they spin some toe tapping club tunes and mix with us mere mortals in their pants, you can’t beat that. This was an engaging and fun night out with some seriously talented men who give us their all, and flash a lot of sculptured flesh while they are at it with a decently priced bar and plenty of eye-candy (both on stage and in the audience), this was a fun way to spend a damp May night.

Club Briefs returns this Saturday at Republic for one night only!

Recommended

Republic
East of the Volks Electric Railway Station
Brighton Beach, Madeira Drive

Saturday, June 4, 2016

10:00pm til 4:00am (last entry 1:00am)

For more info or to book tickets see the Fringe website here:

REVIEW: Brighton Fringe: Blackbird

Posted on by Eric Page

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Blackbird

The Rialto Theatre

David Harrower

Pretty Villains Productions

Blackbird charts the tense confrontation between Ray and Una, who has found him again 15 years after the abrupt ending of their apparent relationship. As recriminations fly, we see that both are irrevocably damaged. This taut and unflinching drama builds relentlessly to its explosive conclusion.

This heavy uncomfortable piece tackles the scratchy nasty subject matter of pedophilia through a young woman tracking down the man who’d abused her 15 years prior when she 12 years old. It was a two-handed piece predominantly and centred around the woman looking to understand what had happened all those years ago and ultimately make her peace with it. It’s dark, rough, in your face and drips with recrimination, guilt and unresolved issues.

The acting was excellent, gripping, engaging and passionate, Una especially, and although her older groomer and abuser Ray was more difficult to sympathise with he managed to add a human layer to what is frequently a demonized two-dimensional character. Una went through the full range from angry, confused, hurt, infatuated etc. and at one point delivering a powerful 10 minute monologue which gripped the audience .

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This is a well-paced play, with some serous narrative tensions going down, confidently acted and the hour and a half flew by despite the uncomfortable subject matter. Towards the end we saw Ray’s desire for Una reveal itself culminating in his step daughter turning up to fetch him whilst his partner was in the car outside with Una attempting to hide in the corner. The step daughter’s character displaying just enough affection to Ray to have Una, and us, wondering whether history was repeating itself.

The play begins straight into the action with the actors held in pose as the lights came up and it took me awhile to settle into the play, when I did I was rewarded by this challenging in your face piece of fresh writing and superb acting. A classic bit of thrilling chilling fringe theatre.rialto-front

The Rialto Theatre continues to produce and nurture some serious new talent and showcase award-winning shows and new writers, along with pioneering music nights and their cool cocktail bar. See their full up and coming events listings here.

REVIEW: Brighton Fringe: Torn Apart

Posted on by Eric Page

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Torn Apart (Dissolution) 

Distrikt

Bj McNeill

This play about the complexities of relationships and how our upbringing directly influences us and our ability to maintain loving relationships is a complex engaging piece of work. It focused on 3 relationships – American soldier and Polish woman in Germany, a young lad and girl from Melbourne, and a lesbian couple. The  minimalist setting focused the action; a double bed in the middle viewed through vertical pieces of string along the front of the stage representing the ties that bind, heart strings or the complex intertwining of emotional turmoil or perhaps how Macramé  is the cure for all ills.  Each couples had a slot each before being replaced by another and so on giving us an insight into their relationships and their struggles.

Full details of the show here

Ultimately culminating in the revelation that the American soldier was the father of the lad and the woman who had recently separated from her female partner.  I may have missed this being hinted at earlier but was too interested in the strings which were woven tighter than the narrative at some points and were used by the actors to bring to life their emotional struggle with some curious bits of physical theatre. This lost and confused me but the actors were committed to deliver a convincing and powerful performance despite not fully engaging on occasion.

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I enjoyed the setting of St Mark’s Chapel the space taken over by Distrikt who have accomplished something interesting in this new fringe venue and a helping of gratuitous nudity never goes amiss in the festival, although my companion thought it felt at odds for a play of this type. Short monologues at the end from the three protagonists culminating with the final scene of the American soldier and Polish woman slow dancing as if in a dream closed the show and I left feeling slightly confused and cold by the whole experience.

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