Spoken Word

Reviewer: Tim Harding “Astronaut wanted, no experience necessary”.  This was the strapline from a commercial that 26-year-old Dr Helen Sharman heard in 1989.  Sharman was, at the time, working as a chemist for the confectioners Mars, working on a team developing a Mars Bar flavoured ice cream!  She says she had no big dreams of going into space as a ...

Writer & Lyrics: Alan 'Cool' Clay Music: Andy Brooks aka Testament Director: Iain Bloomfield Reviewer: Rich Jevons Skip Rap is the debut solo show for Alan 'Cool' Clay, following some 20 years touring nationally and internationally with Mind the Gap, the leading UK company for artists with learning disabilities. The title of the production refers to on stage junk from ...

Reviewer:  Richard Hall Broadcaster and journalist, Stuart Maconie is familiar to many from his appearances on radio and TV, especially the afternoon show that he hosts on BBC 6music with Mark Radcliffe. As a writer, Maconie has enjoyed critical and popular success with his series of bestselling travel books including the fabulously titled, Cider with Roadies and Pies and Prejudice. ...

Writer: Sam Ward Reviewer: Jo Beggs Following a scratch performance at the Royal Exchange last Summer, YESYESNONO bring [Insert Slogan Here] to the PUSH festival at HOME, which showcases local companies and performers. Comparing the show descriptions, though, suggests that writer and performer Sam Ward has made some significant changes to the piece for what he describes as “the first ...

Music: Tim Blazdell. Writers/Directors: Two Destination Language. Reviewer: Sam Lowe "Belonging neither here nor there", as the audience are told in the performance, Declining Solo is a show which fluctuates between the multiple layers of what makes up identity. It explores the father and daughter relationship, a woman's relationship to her culture, her home, how the past affects the present, ...

Reviewer: Matt Forrest I’m sure somewhere in the bible it said that the geeks will inherit the earth, at least that’s what I thought my old Sunday school teacher told me. If that is to be the case then mathematician Matt Parker, master of experiments Steve Mould and singing ‘brainiac’ Helen Arney already have the keys to the kingdom and ...

Writer: Sylvia Arthur Reviewer: RL Bartholomew Sylvia Arthur used to be a dynamic Brussels-based communications strategist whose task was to promote the controversial Fourth Freedom - unrestricted movement of people inside the Euro zone. Black, efficient, and articulate, she could have been a poster girl for a thoroughly open, outward-looking Europe. Instead, Arthur discovered - just like Obama did in ...

Writer: Genevieve Carver Reviewer: Christie-Luke Jones The Unsung stands before its audience wearing two equally impressive hats. On one hand, it’s a globe-trotting, heartbreaking eulogy for musicians who lived and died in varying degrees of obscurity. And on the other, it’s a joyful celebration of music as an undying beacon of hope and inspiration. Poet Genevieve Carver and her three-piece ...