at Little Angel Theatre, Islington, London

“ it’s all a little too ‘safe’ “

Book Story is exactly what it claims to be: a story about books, told by books. It is a tale of a librarian whose books come to life when humans are not around. They sing, fly, dance, tell jokes, have adventures and become the subject of a picture-book themselves.

The setting is primarily in ‘Brians Library’ – and the missing apostrophe there (or, rather, not there) is exactly what the sign said, centre-stage, looking down on the audience throughout. Not a good sign, in more ways than one…

There is an imaginative use of props and a multitude of clever library and book puns to keep the adults interested. The style and story is just good enough to keep the children focussed. Although it is a little rough around the edges at times, Book Story is original and fun, but not magical and unforgettable. There is a Kindle-type product at one point, which reads aloud. The funny voice was instantly recognised by one child as sounding like a Minion. Much unintended mirth ensued.

MONSTRO Theatre claim to be pioneers of the Puppet Musical, which is a bold claim. To me, this is a play with a few songs in it. There is a brilliant cast, playing all the varied characters, singing and animating all the puppets: Karina Garnett, Andrea Sadler and Phil Yarrow, showing that, overall, this is a performers’ piece.

It was written, composed and directed by Ben Glasstone, from his and Michael Fowkes original idea. Fowkes also designed and directed the excellent puppetry. The children really liked the play, but they weren’t blown away by it.

Book Story has a tagline which is superb when spoken in a Sean Connery voice: Learn To Love Your Shelf… It is a ‘safe’ production for children to watch and enjoy. But that is also what is holding it back: it’s all a little too ‘safe’.

Show Length: 60 minutes (no interval)

Audience: Aged 5+

Twitter: @monstrotheatre, #BookStory

MONSTRO’s Book Story now embarks on a UK Tour.

October:

6th        Goodrich Village Hall, Ross-on-Wye

7th        Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant

8th        The Capitol Theatre, Horsham

9th        Hook Library, Kingston

11th      Central Library, Redbridge

13th      Trestle Arts Base, St Albans

14th      Old Town Hall and Arts Centre, Hemel Hempstead

16th      Tooting Library, Wandsworth

18th-21st            Take Off Festival, City Theatre, Durham

22nd     Gulbenkian, Canterbury

23rd      The Woodville, Gravesend

24th      Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

26th      Norden Farm Arts Centre, Maidenhead

27th      Arts Centre, Bridport

29th      Arts Depot, North Finchley

November

4th        Astor Community Theatre, Deal

Frost is looking at things with an eye to Christmas looming  on the horizon ( a time I love) but these  Hape products will make a great gift, NOW. Why?  It will give the grown up a bit of a break when they try to convince their offspring that bath or shower time actually can be a pleasurable experience.

What’s more, they have been well and truly tested by the junior members of the Graham family, and I just wish I’d had them while their mothers were young. It would have saved much grizzling and bad temper,  from those in the water, not to mention from me, the one trying to make it fun.

Hape’s Little Splashes range worked on our little ones wonderfully well. They do actually entertain. They are said to create a bond between parent and child, whilst learning valuable water skills, encouraging growth and development. I think what the child learns is to enjoy water, and treat it with respect, and see its potential so it’s just a short step from general enjoyment to learning to swim in the pool.

Hape Teddy and Friends Bath Squirts £14.93 from Amazon are suitable from birth.

Hape Pop-up Teddy Shower Buddy  £16.69 from Amazon:  Children can watch as Mr Teddy does his thing, making the perfect shower buddy. Gaze as the water falls from teddy’s cloud. Suitable for 12 months +.

Hape Swimmer Teddy Wind-up Toy £16.69 from Amazon Wind up and watch him go with this adorable little edition. Children can enjoy the magic as Mr Teddy performs his swimming tricks. Suitable for 12 months +.

Do take note that all Hape products are created using non-toxic finishes, water based paints and only the highest quality child safe materials.

Milly Adams’s latest novel pub by Arrow is The Waterway Girls

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Saturday 4th Noveember – Saturday 2nd December 2017  on tour around the country. See below for details.

image courtesy of Julia Etchart

What do you think of when you hear the words ‘Stripper’, ‘Escort’, ‘Pornstar’?

Originally devised in 2014, the award-winning Sex Worker’s Opera will tour the UK for the first time this autumn following a multitude of sell-out performances around the UK, Ireland and Greece. Comprised of 50% Sex Workers, this provocative show gives platform for sex workers – tired of being spoken for – to finally tell their own stories on their own terms.

Smashing together genres, Sex Worker’s Opera collides opera with hip-hop and incorporates sound art, projections and poetry to showcase an unflinchingly honest and upliftingly human insight into the lives of Sex Workers around the world.

Experimental Experience provides a platform to tell the unheard stories of Sex Workers from 17 countries across five continents, exploring a street worker giving marital advice, a webcam model and her ventriloquist dummy and a daughter making career choices in a male-dominated world.

Co-Director, Siobhan Knox, comments, Everyone has an opinion about sex work, even if it’s a joke or something they’ve heard on TV. Art and the media portray sex work in a very one dimensional way, it is either extremely glamorous or extremely tragic, and one of the messages of the show is that sex work is human, it is not good or bad it’s just complex.

An anonymous cast member comments, ‘It has given me the chance to explore my happiness in my career as a sex worker, to heal all my pain, to make poetry with my life.’

Sex Worker’s Opera       Running time   2 hours

Ovalhouse:  52-54 Kennington Oval, London SE11 5SW

Twitter @SexWorkersOpera

Website  https://www.sexworkersopera.com/tickets  for tour dates

Facebook  www.facebook.com/sexworkersopera

Age recommendation   16+

Editors Siobhan Knox and Julia Etchart

Tour Dates

4th and 6th November  Mumford Theatre Anglia Ruskin University, East Rd, Cambridge CB1 1PT 01223 352932 www.anglia.ac.uk/arts-law-and-social-sciences/mumfordtheatre/sex-workers-opera-4nov  Tickets: £12.50 (£10.50 concessions, £8.50 student).  Further discounts apply for Angelia Ruskin students and staff.

9th – 11th November  Theatre Delicatessen 202 Eyre Street, S1 4QZ   0114 278 6500  www.theatredelicatessen.co.uk/about/the-moor-sheffield/  Tickets: £14/10

16th – 18th November  Tropicana Marine Parade, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1BE 0117 902 0344 www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/sex-workers-opera/  Tickets: £14/10

22nd November – 2 December  Ovalhouse 2-54 Kennington Oval, London SE11 5SW 020 7582 7680 http://www.ovalhouse.com/whatson/detail/the-sex-workers-opera  Tickets: £15/10 (Under 26 – £9)

Reviewed by Jan Speedie

Lola Jaye’s emotionally moving story traces the life, tragedies and survival of the orphaned Cole sisters in the unfriendly world of London in the 1950s – No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs.

Tayo Cole and his family are excited at the prospect of a new life in London which is very different from their village in Nigeria. Tayo is hard working and provides well for his family but tragedy strikes with his unexpected death leaving his inexperienced young wife to cope. Their circumstances change and the sisters are sent to a cold, uncaring children’s home. Can the sisters stay together and surmount all the problems that lie ahead and make a new happy life for themselves?

Lola Jaye grew up in South London and has also lived in Nigeria and America. She has written four novels and a self help book which have been translated into several languages. She loves watching soaps and reality television which she believes helps with her writing.

Published by Ebury Press on 21^st September 2017 in paperback at £5.99

An amazing team of 22 supporters completed an epic ‘Marathon Effort’ to raise funds for the John Thornton Young Achievers Foundation (JTYAF).

Joe Barnett, JTYAF Trustee, organised the walk which started at Sandbanks and finished 26 miles along the coast path, in Lymington.  Although they headed off in glorious sunshine they battled wind and torrential rain at times, many picking up injuries too. They all accomplished what they had set out to do, showing great courage, determination and plenty of cheerfulness in adversity reflecting the true spirit of the charity. 

Pete Thornton, Charity Chairman, commented, “We can’t thank Joe and his team enough for taking part in this fantastic event. Thanks, must also go to all the friends and family who have supported them so generously. They are aiming to raise an incredible £2000 which will make a huge difference to the opportunities that we can make available to local young people in the year ahead.”

If you would like to support Joe and his team in their ‘Marathon Effort’ it’s not too late.  Visit their online fundraising page www.justgiving.com/fundraising/marathoneffortforJT

COMPANION DOG SHOW & HANDLER OF THE SOUTH

The John Thornton Young Achievers’ Foundation has arranged the Companion Dog Show which will take place on Saturday 30^th September at West Parley Memorial Hall.  With the popular ‘Handler of the South,’ Pedigree, Novelty and Handler classes, a Scurry and Fun Rally, there is something for everyone so why not come and join the fun?

Entry to both novelty and handler classes is just £1 with pedigree entry £1.50.  Our thanks to the Christchurch Chiropractic Centre for sponsoring the event. All funds raised will go to Poole Hospital Radio Therapy Unit.

The late John Thornton

COMPANION DOG SHOW

Saturday 30^th September

at

WEST PARLEY MEMORIAL HALL

Christchurch Road, West Parley

Nr Hurn Airport

IN POOLE HOSPITAL RADIO THERAPY UNIT

(KC PERMISSION)

Entries 9.30am – Judging starts 11.00am

Rosettes to 5^th and many trophies

The foundation set up to honour the life of John Thornton helps young people to achieve their dreams.

For enquiries please call Nicky Smith – 01202 486239 or Pam Rutley – 01202 673017

At The Arcola Theatre, London

“It ticks all the boxes”

A three-metre high cage separates us from Martin, a convicted killer. He’s a troubled young man, never receives visitors, orphaned. Cancer killed his mother, he killed his father. All he has, when allowed into this cage, is a basketball and the hoop to aim for.

There are no Hannibal Lecter moments, but that is for the better. ‘T’ introduces him to us. He is a writer/director and putting on a play about Martin.

Trevor White

Thebes Land is a play-within-a-play-within-a-play. Moments are created and recreated. Sometimes the audience are involved, mostly we watch events unfold. It’s part lecture, part biography, part autobiography, part drama.

One would think, therefore, that this overly-developed style is either too dumb or too clever for its own good. Instead, it is pitched perfectly to seamlessly flow into all the genres and leave before it gets too settled.

There are four quarters, plus overtime. The same length as a basketball match. The intelligence of the script doesn’t stop there, though. Thebes, Oedipus, the introduction of Freddie (the actor playing Martin now plays an actor playing Martin). Plus the surveillance cameras, their ‘live’ feeds shown on screens above the cage, showing the action as it happens/happened.

Alex Austin

Amazing how something so complicated can become so beautifully easy. This play won the Best Production at the 2016 OffWestEnd Awards and has reunited its original cast to open the 10th Casa Festival of Latin American Theatre. It was written was the Franco-Uruguayan Sergio Blanco, with the translation and adaptation by Daniel Goldman – who also directs.

CASA 2017

A play that works on so many levels can over-complicate things, but Goldman keeps it just on the right side of believability. Staged like The Young Vic’s Yerma or the classic Trafford Tanzi, it’s basically in the round with the house lights up. There is nowhere to hide for the cast: Trevor White plays ‘T’, the likeable Hugh Laurie-esque storyteller; Alex Austin revels in the dark Martin and the lighter Freddie.

The is a stunning production. It makes you laugh, cry, think. It ticks all the boxes. Even though the audience spend all evening on the outside of the cage, looking in, we are, in reality, in there with them. Probing, searching, discovering. What we find may be scary, but it is common to us all.

At one point, T promises to send a postcard. Martin requests a picture of a moose. When we leave the auditorium, we are given feedback cards. What’s the picture on the front? What else.

Running time: 2 hours 15 (plus an interval).

Production Photographs: Alex Brenner.

Twitter: #ThebesLand, #casa2017, @CasaFestival, @ArcolaTheatre

Facebook: @CasaLatinAmericanTheatreFestival

Performances until 7th October 2017.

Venue: Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL.

www.arcolatheatre.com – 020 7503 1646.

Monday – Saturday 7.30pm

Saturday Matinees at 3pm

Tickets £10-£22 – Pay What You Can Tuesdays (limited allocation, in person from 6pm)

As everyone knows by now, Frost Magazine is interested in literature, not to mention drama, and painting… Well, the arts in general, but especially literature. So have a look at Cheltenham’s mouth-watering line-up.

Around 1,000 speakers will take part in more than 550 events, from literary heavyweights and emerging talent, to the very best poetry and celebration of classic literature, including Salman Rushdie, Alan Hollinghurst, Sarah Waters, Amit Chaudhuri, Roddy Doyle, Claire Tomalin, Paul Hawkins, Philippa Gregory, Michael Morpurgo, Ian Rankin, Joanne Harris and the 2017 Man Booker Prize shortlisted authors.

The packed poetry programme includes Jackie Kay, John Burnside, Michael Symmons Roberts and Lemn Sissay as well as the stars of the next generation with Andrew McMillan, Luke Wright, Hollie McNish, Rob Auton, Inua Ellams and Sabrina Mahfouz.

This year’s Festival theme Who Do We Think We Are? will ask key questions about British identity and celebrate Britain’s rich literary and cultural heritage, and Cheltenham will also welcome five Guest Curators bringing fresh perspectives and voices:

Will Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor; Sarah Moss, novelist, travel writer and academic; Robin Niblett, Director of Chatham House; Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley; and Nikesh Shukla, author, editor and campaigner.

Sounds like a feast, doesn’t it. Lots of my favourites… Must get along.