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Click on a link to go to the selected play or use the scroll bar to see them all
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Bonnie Hurren
Photo: Bob Willingham |
Female Parts
By Franca Rame and Dario Fo
Female Parts is not, despite its title, a documentary about anatomical dissection, nor a strip show
claiming respectability in the guise of avant-garde theatre. It is a collection of plays devised by the
husband and wife team of Dario Fo and Franca Rame.
Their work is firmly rooted in the tradition of Commedia Dell’Arte and rich in comedy routines,
mime, improvisation and rude humour. It was performed in factories, parking lots and circus
tents.
It is only comparatively recently that notoriety has given way to acclaim after years of censorship
in their native Italy.
This Crisp Theatre production, adaptation by Olwen Wymark, was first performed in 1990 at
Bristol’s Hope Centre with Bonnie Hurren in all three roles.
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Veda Warwick
and Kim Hicks
Photo: Bob Willingham |
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“...altogether
brilliant...beautifully
orchestrated” |
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“A startling performance” |
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“An original and
utterly compelling evening” |
Venue |
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Gloucester Echo |
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Bath Chronicle |
Through their “gorgeously realised acting” Veda Warwick and Kim Hicks make this
“mini-theatrical slice a joy to devour”:
Effie was put away in an institution at age 13: now 64 she is deemed fit to return to the community
by the same powers that deprived her of her freedom. Effie chooses an original and devastating
way to assert herself. Her sense of humour and childlike simplicity make for some sparky, often
amusing encounters with her doctor who has her own problems with Authority. The play shows a
developing relationship between doctor and patient as Effie’s poignant story slowly emerges.
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Juliette Grassby
and Ed Sinclair
Photo: Rob Lacey |
By Euripides
Translated by Brendan Kennelly
“Passionate and poetic, combative and compassionate”
Gloucester Echo
Euripides shocked his audiences by portraying their great heroes as cruel and cowardly. This
play is one of the most powerful indictments of war ever written. Kennelly’s interpretation
subverts and extends the key issues of the original in a grippingly contemporary context and
idiom.
Rich in the legend of Homer – the elopement of the beautiful Helen, the ten year siege, the
Wooden Horse, the rape of Cassandra, the destruction of the House of Atreus, the fate of
Andromache and her son – the story unfolds as a beautifully constructed sequence of episodes,
embellished with music and dance, as startlingly relevant today as it was in 415BC.
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By John Godber
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With just two performers
and minimalist staging this
was an impressive
production |
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...has an engagingly
bittersweet tone and brings
out the contrast between
home and abroad to good
effect... |
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A delightful evening of
theatre... |
Bristol Evening Post |
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Venue |
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Bristol West End |
John Godber has delighted audiences from Hull to Hampton Wick with his droll sense of humour
and accurate observations of human foibles and failings; as well as making ‘em laugh, his plays
allow the wear and tear in the social fabric to show through – in the best comic tradition.
Bet and Al lead a quiet, hum-drum life in their small Yorkshire home, until Bet wins a
“Romantic Breaks” competition in a magazine.
We share their first experiences of “Gay Paree” – the Eiffel Tower, Pigalle, the Louvre, Notre
Dame: you will be astonished at what they manage to pack in! Their lives will never be the same
again...
Crisp Theatre’s production first played at the Alma Tavern in Bristol with Kate McNab as Bet
and John Pamplin as AL.
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Devised and directed by Marion Reed
Crisp Theatre’s tribute to the Bard on his birthday
The Players
Mark Buffery
Alan Moore
Alison Stirling
Marion Reed
The Singer
Helena Eden
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