THREE NIGHTS, THREE SHOWS,
THREE UNPOPULAR PEOPLE
Earlier this year, at the Hove Grown Festival, Robert Cohen undertook the challenge of performing all three of his one-man shows - Something Rotten, High Vis and The Trials of Harvey Matusow - over three consecutive nights at the Sweet Dukebox,
Reflecting the author's strange affinity for unpopular protagonists, the three shows were presented under the umbrella title Men Without Friends. They played to sizeable audiences (sizeable, certainly, for a 40-capacity theatre) and considerable acclaim. Now the feat is to be repeated - hopefully with the sizeable audiences and considerable acclaim, but, at the very least, with the three consecutive performances - at the Stroud Theatre Festival.
Reflecting the author's strange affinity for unpopular protagonists, the three shows were presented under the umbrella title Men Without Friends. They played to sizeable audiences (sizeable, certainly, for a 40-capacity theatre) and considerable acclaim. Now the feat is to be repeated - hopefully with the sizeable audiences and considerable acclaim, but, at the very least, with the three consecutive performances - at the Stroud Theatre Festival.
Kicking off the trio is Something Rotten, in which we're invited to relive and reassess the events of Hamlet through the eyes of the Prince's usurpingly murderous yet undeniably hard-working uncle, AKA the new King of Denmark.. "An engaging and clever take on Hamlet's Claudius," quoth The Stage, on the occasion of the show's award-winning run at last year's Brighton Fringe. The Brighton Argus (responsible for said award) acclaimed it as "a marvellous work of imagination". The Stroud outing will be at the British School at Star Anise at 9.30pm on Friday 29th September.
Night 2 of Men Without Friends will see an abrupt change of location and tone, taking us from the deadly world of Shakespearean Elsinore to an unnamed seaside town in which unfold the events of High Vis, This is the tragicomical tale of Quint, a traffic warden confined to base - owing to the unwelcome attentions of an airgun-toting stalker - and resentfully having to teach wardenry to an audience of new recruits. Its praises sung by such diverse voices as Quentin Letts ("terrific stuff") and BBC scriptwriter Graham Duff ("shifts effortlessly from poignancy to laugh-out-loud funny”), the show has also evoked comparisons with the work of such as Peter Sellers, Steve Coogan, Leonard Rossiter and Ricky Gervais. That's taking place at 7.30pm on Sat 30th Sept.
Night 2 of Men Without Friends will see an abrupt change of location and tone, taking us from the deadly world of Shakespearean Elsinore to an unnamed seaside town in which unfold the events of High Vis, This is the tragicomical tale of Quint, a traffic warden confined to base - owing to the unwelcome attentions of an airgun-toting stalker - and resentfully having to teach wardenry to an audience of new recruits. Its praises sung by such diverse voices as Quentin Letts ("terrific stuff") and BBC scriptwriter Graham Duff ("shifts effortlessly from poignancy to laugh-out-loud funny”), the show has also evoked comparisons with the work of such as Peter Sellers, Steve Coogan, Leonard Rossiter and Ricky Gervais. That's taking place at 7.30pm on Sat 30th Sept.
High Vis and Something Rotten will be making return visits to Stroud, but the third of the shows, The Trials of Harvey Matusow, will be making its debut there on 1st Oct. This show brings us bang up to date, at least in the sense that its tale of a McCarthyite supergrass has chilling echoes some half a century on from the historical events it depicts. The Trials of Harvey Matusow is the strange-but-true tale of a man who, at the height of America's Cold War paranoia, spent four years as a professional witness - for HUAC, for the Justice Department, for Joe McCarthy's committee and for various others - then confessed to having made up most of his testimony. As we behold the strange daily soap of the Trump White House, there couldn't be a better time to revisit the story of Harvey Matusow, a man briefly infamous as America's most notorious liar.
So, just to recap, all three shows are at The British School, Gloucester Street, Stroud: Something Rotten on 29th Sept; High Vis on 30th Sept; and The Trials of Harvey Matusow on 1st Oct. More info soon, both here and www.stroudtheatrefestival.co.uk.
So, just to recap, all three shows are at The British School, Gloucester Street, Stroud: Something Rotten on 29th Sept; High Vis on 30th Sept; and The Trials of Harvey Matusow on 1st Oct. More info soon, both here and www.stroudtheatrefestival.co.uk.
NOW SHOWING ON YOUTUBE...
The Ragged Regiment is a darkly comic stage play depicting internecine warfare backstage at a stuffed-animal museum in Cromer. It won the 2014 Constance Cox Playwriting Prize.
A filmed extract from the play can be seen on Youtube: click on the picture to eavesdrop on an awkward breakfast conversation between Angie (Jenny Rowe) and her sister Trinity (Erica Smith), in whose boyfriend Noah she has taken an unacceptable level of interest. |
Robert Cohen can be Twittered at both @cohenbobbycoco and @HighVisTheShow
