REVIEW PAGE

Here are the reviews (and previews) for various Ullaloom show's.

 

Theatre Review: The Dark Room, Unity Theatre, Liverpool

Jan 28 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Bekah Sloan, Jake Norton, Lucy Brite and Filippo Fiori from the play, The Dark Room, at the Unity Theatre

Bekah Sloan, Jake Norton, Lucy Brite and Filippo Fiori from the play, The Dark Room, at the Unity Theatre _320

THE Liverpool theatre group Ullaloom has carved out a name for itself for ghoulish theatre, and The Dark Room could certainly give its audiences sleepless nights.

It is spooky with sudden outbursts of violence, and does make you wonder just what did go on inside some Victorian photographer’s studios.

The plot involves a Victorian photographer named William and his project to photograph scenes from fairytales, some of the more gruesome ones.

There is Red Riding Hood, who gets attacked by a wolf, the Goosemaid who threatens her mistress and steals her identity, and Beauty and the Beast, among others.

Naive Rose arrives for a portrait chaperoned by her protective mother Mrs. Berkely, falls for William and secretly agrees to pose for him. By the show’s end, she discovers the ghastly secret behind the photos and the Dark Room.

Devised by the company, The Dark Room has its moments of humour including over-the-top upper-class toff Gerald, played with glee by Jake Norton, and a stuffed fox named Arthur to whom William often talks. But it is the sense of brooding menace which dominates.

Several of the fairytale scenes are posed by the performers, each one more dangerous-looking than the last, while William (a bearded Filippo Fiori) gets more psychotic.

Bekah Sloan is a perfect Rose, and Lucy Brite plays a number of roles from Mrs Berkely to a victim-to-be, hard-up street girl, Lily.

The sense of unease is underlined by a creepy music score from Patrick Dineen and the lighting design of Phil Saunders.

The show is still in development for later touring, but at this stage looks like a winner.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk

 

THE TINDERBOX

 

The Stage

The Tinder Box

A school matinee certainly puts panto to the test. And this show passes with flying colours, enchanting the audience with setting, effects and costume, all as splendid as the cast.

In a melange of fairy stories, a poor soldier back from the war (Filippo Fiori) is tricked by a witch (Bekah Sloan) into retrieving the magical tinderbox, which literally makes his fortune. After befriending an all singing, all dancing cat (Lucy Brite), he falls in with a pack of rogues, headed by the splendidly villainous Aiden Lee Brooks as Bilal Farouk the Tailor. Finally, the Soldier finds out about Rosalind, an imprisoned princess (Rosie McLaughlin). And she manages to persuade her over protective parents, a dotty double act from Ross McKenzie and Lucy Brite, ‘tis better to marry than burn. Well, hang, anyway. The original threat was beheading.

An old fashioned moral tale, asserting that money and power, even shopping, are but naught compared with true love. But a new twist has a princess who is allowed to be funny, and the flawed, not particularly likeable hero is redeemed only at the end, when she is liberated.

Small scale maybe but this panto makes a big impression and should attract a wide audience.

 

BRAM STOKER'S NIGHTMARE...DRACULA

Extract from a review that was featured in the Whitby Dracula Societies quarterly news letter.

Review by Rebecca Gross

It was a wild and windy night which saw us travelling to the unlikely venue for our first encounter with the mysterious Ullaloom - Bishop Aukland town hall. Not knowing what to expect of either the venue or the evenings entertainment, our arrival at the town hall left us with only seconds to swig our red wine before we were hurried into the contemporary, almost sanitary theatre. It was eerily silent, and though the room was not full, the air was heavy with expectation. It is hard to arrive at a performance of Dracula without having at least some preconceptions. The lights dimmed, and the oversized stage curtains twitched, as the spectacle began.

Earsplitting music blared out from the house speakers, but this was not the traditional Bach-like Fugue which one has come to expect from theatrical representations of Stoker’s work - this was fast paced, raucous rock music. The curtains drew to reveal a stark and minimal vista.

The stage sported only a coffin, with a gentleman laid upon it…..

And there the journey began, a journey through the creation of Dracula by Stoker through the authors own eyes.

Through conversation with Sir Henry Irving and his ‘loving’ wife, Florence Balcombe, Stoker, played by David Milne took a tortuous path through the stuff of his own nightmares, which ran parallel to the trials and tribulations of his characters. The plot was ingenious, and possibly the most true and authentic representation of the novel that I have ever seen. Sadly the limited cast meant that Sir Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris were absent from this production, but the representations of all the other characters was first rate, with a stunning Dracula, and a truly remarkable Renfield.

Attention was paid to even the tiniest details, particularly the gory special effects, which are incidentally Ullaloom’s speciality. A chilling, disturbing, breathtaking romp through the mind of a genius!

 

Bram Stoker’s Nightmare, Dracula

Ullaloom Theatre Company
Unity Theatre, 16th February 2006

Reviewed by Mandy McFarland  Nerve Magazine

Bram Stoker was manager to the actor Henry Irving, a civil servant, lawyer and author of Dracula! The brochure blurb asks 'But what was Mr Stoker really writing about? Is his novel a simple story of good vs. evil? Or is it something far more complex and sinister?' After seeing this play I’d say that it was most definitely the latter. Right from the start I was gripped, and it didn’t let go for a single moment right to the very end. A quick glance round at the audience proved we’d all been pulled into the nightmare of domination, obsession, madness, lust, emasculation, and inevitable tragic death.

Gasps and squeaks sprang up as Dracula (Filippo Fiori) first entered stage left. He stood bathed in eerie light, his bald head and gaunt face chalky white, his eyes hypnotic and piercing, and his whole being oozing that dark, dangerous, menacing sensuality that is both enticing and repelling at the same time. Fiori kept up this wonderful performance throughout, and did not, I repeat did not, over-act this character in the slightest - as alas happens more often than not.

The other four actors - David Milne, Jake Norton, Lucy Bright, Beckah Sloan - also delivered their various and varied roles in such a way that the story unfolded, evolved, and reached its heady climax without being hampered by over or under-acting. They delivered this play beautifully; the transition and transformations of their various characters was flawless, their interaction with each other totally and impressively in tune.

It‘s no mean feat creating horror on a bare stage devoid of technical wizardry to wow and excite, but Ullaloom did just that with only the very clever use of lights, music, and dry ice. But it was the outstanding performances by the actors that made the fear, the chill and the nightmarish horror of this story so very real.

The story itself was very true to the book (and my companion seemed impressed and comforted by that), and you came away feeling you knew just a little bit more about something you thought you knew everything about – the mythical nightmare that is Dracula! If you ever get the chance to catch this again somewhere else, do!

 

To see this review in its original site: http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/reviews_index.htm