East End Review

Tag: Freddie Machin

  • The Realness review – musical tackles problems facing prison leavers

    Ashley Gayle as in The Realness. Photograph: Hackney Downs Studios
    Ashley Gayle as Jay in The Realness. Photograph: Hackney Downs Studios

    The Realness is a traditional musical complete with more than a dozen songs, set on the streets of East London and brought up to date by a vibrant and fiercely committed ensemble.

    Created by the team behind Bad Girls: The Musical, the show follows Jay Johnson, a young man trying to go straight on his release from prison.

    But Jay’s problem is that back on the streets he is parachuted back into the same community that led to his criminal activity in the first place. He soon finds himself subject to familiar pressures.

    His closest acquaintances however have moved on – best friend Mikey is looking to tap into the seemingly limitless market for the East London coffee shop, and Shanice, Jay’s one time girlfriend, has started a course at business college.

    Ashley Gayle and Veronique Andre, who play Jay and Shanice, are exceptional. On point with every musical and emotional beat, they are present, committed and vital.

    Predictably, Jay’s promises to change cut no ice with Shanice. “Whenever you turn over a new leaf there’s always dog shit underneath,” she says, undercutting his many pledges and oaths.

    And spectres of illegality – the drug dealers and rude boys – gather on every corner, ever ready to draw him back down.

    Jay’s Achilles’ heel is his anger, thrusting himself into a fight at the slightest insult which Gayle executes with raw precision.

    Shanice is equally energised by her resistance to Jay’s “wasteman” attitude. And when she launches into the first of her two solo numbers ‘Turn Around’, her power and directness is enough to send a shiver down the spine.

    The speed at which thought becomes action, at which people make flash decisions in life, is rarely presented truthfully on stage. But across the 14-strong cast, there is a live energy that crackles with the authenticity of life on the street.

    There is comedy too. ‘Civil Enforcer’, the traffic warden’s anthem, is proof that Kath Gotts’ music and lyrics can blend rap, humour and street life with great affection.

    This showstopping number, replete with hi-vis clad backing dancers, sees traffic warden K. M. Drew Boateng bring the house down, as Mikey battles with his Bajan sat nav.

    The sat nav’s refrain nags at Jay, the voice of his conscience telling him that he has taken a wrong turn. There are a host of excellent supporting performances and the production values are disarmingly high.

    The Big House theatre company, who co-produced The Realness, was founded by director Maggie Norris. Whilst working in prisons and school exclusion units she saw the need for a life skills and theatre training programme which continues to go from strength to strength.

    Inspired by the ideas and experiences of the cast members, Norris believes resisting a return to crime is the greatest challenge for anyone after a spell inside and the play is testament to the difficulty of that struggle.

    The Realness is at Hackney Downs Studios, 17 Amhurst Terrace, E8 2BT until 20 December.
    www.hackneydownsstudios.com

  • Shakespeare in Shoreditch festival launches

    Shakespeare mash up: Titus Andronicus
    Shakespeare mash up: Nic Lamont in The Best Pies in London

    Writing out of a purpose built shed outside the Rose Lipman Building in De Beauvoir Town, playwright Annie Jenkins has been challenged to write 1000 plays in just ten days.

    As part of the Shakespeare in Shoreditch festival, Jenkins will be welcoming people to drop by and share their stories and ideas, which she will turn into new dramatic works at a prolific rate.

    Originally from Seven Sisters, Jenkins is more than a little daunted by the task ahead. “It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” she confesses. “But that environment comes very naturally to me.”

    Jenkins’ shed is just one of the attractions that comprise Shakespeare in Shoreditch, celebrating East London’s part in the life of the world’s greatest playwright on his 450th birthday.

    Festival producer Francesca Duncan argues that “the South Bank has the Globe, and Stratford-upon-Avon has the RSC, so what about Shoreditch?”

    Thanks to recent archaeological discoveries, Shoreditch is now regarded as London’s first theatreland, a place where actors, poets and playwrights lived and worked during the golden age of poetry.

    Playwrights Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd roomed together just off Bishopsgate, Ben Jonson fought a duel killing a fellow actor in Hoxton Fields and Shakespeare premiered some of his best loved works including Romeo and Juliet at the Curtain theatre, commemorated on Hewett Street.

    The festival aims to re-connect Shakespeare’s vibrant Renaissance London with the contemporary area through promenade performances of newly commissioned work, playwriting workshops and salons with Shakespearean scholars.

    Felix Mortimer and Joshua Nawras, the festival’s creators, drew their inspiration from the Bard’s character names which adorn streets and tower blocks around Hoxton. Regan Way, Caliban Tower and Rosalind House are now the starting point for a new crop of writers, commissioned to reinterpret those same characters.

    Ten new plays, including a new piece by Rebecca Lenkiewicz whose play The Painter marked the opening of the Arcola’s new premises, will be presented in venues dotted along routes through Hoxton and Shoreditch.

    In preparation for her Titus Andronicus-inspired monologue, actor Nic Lamont even worked a shift at F. Cooke’s pie and mash shop on Hoxton Street, where The Best Pies in London will be performed.

    Jenkins says the wonderful thing about Shakespeare’s work is that it can be re-interpreted and re-imagined and still have relevance for a contemporary audience, and that “the plays are so universally applicable that everyone can engage with them”. Which is just what the festival sets out to prove to new audiences in Shakespeare’s old stomping ground.

    Shakespeare in Shoreditch Festival is at venues across Shoreditch until 12 October. See website for more details.