Creators: The Rotunda Theatre and Chris Neville Smith A different take on a beloved board game, It’s Not Cluedo delivers faithfully on the essence of Cluedo but, unfortunately… not much else. Conceptually, It’s Not Cluedo sounds entertaining. Six guest performers of the Brighton Fringe are welcomed by our host, Chris Neville Smith, to each take on a role as one of the suspects in our game of ‘Not Cluedo’. Names, locations and weapons are chosen via audience suggestion and then we proceed to a line of questioning the suspects, eventually revealing where, how, and whodunnit. These are the building blocks of Cluedo brought…
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Writer and Director: Simon Chambers Made without funding, Simon Chambers’ Much Ado About Dying is a wonder: you just can’t look away. While in Delhi planning a documentary on the Asian car industry, he receives the first phone call. His elderly uncle David in London announces, “I think I may be dying,” and in peremptory fashion, demands Simon return to look after him. We feel every twinge of Simon’s pain and guilt. It’s not as if he’d ever been close to David. Now he finds the nightmare of a house which David has inhabited for 40 years. As a hoarder,…
Writer: Douglas Day Stewart Adaptor: Sharleen Cooper Cohen Director: Nikolai Foster It became a cult classic in 1982, with Richard Gere and Debra Winger taking on the leading roles – creating an unforgettable Hollywood moment when the officer sweeps the factory worker right off her feet. The original writing by Douglas Day Stewart got a makeover by Sharleen Cooper Cohen for the stage, premiering in Australia in 2012 at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney – and that’s what has recently flown into Manchester Opera House to get audiences in the romantic spirit. It tells the same story that audiences have…
Writer and Director: Mukunda Michael Dewil Prey begins with an intriguing premise that blends elements of survival thriller with horror. The film begins by following a young couple, Andrew (Ryan Phillippe) and Sue (Mena Suvari), who find themselves in a harrowing situation after fleeing their Christian missionary post in the Kalahari Desert. Forced to board a rickety plane piloted by a corrupt smuggler, Grun (Emile Hirsch), their escape is thwarted when the aircraft crash-lands in the middle of an animal reserve teeming with dangerous predators. Prey attempts to offer a thrilling exploration of survival instincts amidst dire circumstances. However, despite its…
Writer: Edmond Rostand Adaptation: Glyn Maxwell Director: Phil Barnes This latest offering from Arkle Theatre Company follows their excellent production last year of the David Haig play Pressure, about the vital role of a Scottish meteorologist in delaying D-day in 1944, thereby preventing disaster. That show achieved, and this one lacks, a consistent atmosphere. We identified with that production’s well-drawn characters; a certain level of realism was maintained as the tension rose. By comparison, this production is a bit of a mish-mash. It seems to be reaching for a tragi-comic tone, but instead veers between farce and schmaltz, concluding with…
Writer and Director: Baloji Omen, by Belgian Congolese rapper and film-maker, Baloji, is his first feature, entered by Belgium for the Oscars’ Best International Feature and awarded a special Un Certain Regard at Cannes. It’s a wild, pulsating blast of a movie, but one that often omits the narrative links that would make it easier to follow. It’s hard too, to pick up the movie’s tone. Sometimes it’s overtly comic, sometimes little short of sheer horror. In particular, its sequences showing sinister shamanic figures performing cruel rituals seem to veer worryingly at times towards racial stereotyping. The editing (Bertrand Conard…
Writers: Melanie Manchot and Leigh Campbell Director: Melanie Manchot Lying in the archives of the British Film Institute is a groundbreaking 1901 crime thriller set in Liverpool. Normally, its existence may only be of interest to cinema historians, but it now provides the inspiration for director Melanie Menchot’s new film within a film. On one level, Stephen is an account of the devastating effects of addictions in a working class community. On another level, it is a penetrating study of the craft of film acting. Maybe the two levels do not always connect cleanly, but this 78-minute drams proves to…
Writer and Director: Will Gilbey Writer and director Will Gilbey pays a number of tributes in Jericho Ridge. There is a ‘’do-you-feel-lucky’’ confrontation between cop and criminal and the closing scene is framed using a doorway which recalls The Searchers. But the most obvious influence is the Howard Hawks/John Carpenter set up of heroes under siege by assailants with superior numbers and better weapons. Deputy Tabby Temple (Nikki Amuka-Bird) has picked a poor time to break her ankle as a murder has taken place in Jericho Ridge, which is unusual for the remote town. The Jericho Ridge Police Department could…