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Nothing could have been further from
 spouting
Shakespeare. This was a party where people had come to share delight
and above all to listen to one another with all barriers down. And
no setting could have been more perfect for such a sharing than
Rosehill Theatre.
The action started in the foyer and on the stairs where the voices
of Sing Owt captures the menace of winter in Shakespeare’s songs,
hauntingly set to music by their conductor David Camlin. Listening
to the words, David captures menace even in the word “merry” and the
sense of “benefits forgot” is never far below the surface. The safe
space where people had gathered for a drink before the show was
suddenly invaded by actors standing cheek by jowl with them and
insisting that they too become part of the action and listen not to
a remote performer but to the guy standing next to them with a fire
in his belly. And of course the scene from Twelfth Night brought
with a challenge to anyone in danger of taking himself too seriously
- “Art any more than a steward?” And so into the auditorium, where
choir and actors sang to greet the gathering audience. In every
scene there was a sense of people having something urgent to say to
one another. The message they had picked up from their RSC coaches,
Bardy
 Thomas
and Jennie Buckman was that they must listen to one another, even
when the point of the drama is that they screw up the message. This
was especially poignantly expressed in the scene from The Winter’s
Tale when all the messages that Leontes receives from wife, child,
friend and servant are hideously distorted in a mind undergoing a
psychosis. Geoff Hall unerringly reads the mind of tyrants
everywhere and especially in our own age, cracking under the
intolerable weight of their own supposed greatness. Art any more
than a steward?The bitter sweet pangs of despised love were
movingly played by Emma Dockeray in a hilarious scene from A
Midsummer Night's Dream with Teddy Kemp obnoxiously arrogant as
Demetrius, and Emmeline Long as Juliet on her balcony utterly
captivated her Romeo, superbly played by Tom Salmon. With such
young talent Rosehill Players promise some brilliant
productions to come. Ben Ramsbottom and Thelma Atherton
brought out the delight that both Petruchio and Katharine found in
their antagonism. Rarely have I seen the innuendo of
Shakespeare's language so graphically expressed as in their scene,
while Sheila Hawkrigg and Marian Finn made the audience share their
delight in their plans to torment the amorous two-timer, Falstaff.
Above, David Camlin conducts Sing Owt and cast
Left, Sir Toby (Tony Parker) confronts Malvolio (Wadvern Davies)
For a full review go to our website: www.egremont2day.com
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