Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th May 2010 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol
Showing as part of Mayfest 2010, Bristol’s festival of contemporary theatre

Tonight’s show, The Festival, is the third part in a trilogy of performances based on the idea of catastrophe by Lone Twin Theatre. While the previous two shows, Alice Bell and Daniel Hit By A Train, focused on more earth-shattering and wider acts of catastrophe like love and death, The Festival intentional centres intimately on much more domestic, modest and familial catastrophes; tiny incidents or encounters that can also have huge impacts on someone’s life.

As a choice to base a piece of theatre on, it’s a brave one, but as Lone Twin build upon it with their trademark raw and relentlessly optimistic songs and dances, taking the smallest incident and extrapolating and celebrating it takes on a real beauty. The incident in question during The Festival is a chance encounter with a stranger; two lives that cross at a festival, setting off a chain of events that discretely alters both their private worlds and evolving into a simple story of expectation, family and companionship.

The stage looks like a primary school classroom, very bright, fresh, pure, clean and open and, combined with the performance style, overall makes for an incredibly genuine and heart-warmingly positive experience. While on the surface, the performance may look a little contrived and amateurish, underneath it holds a real honesty and a purer innocence that would be lost if every performer was rigidly in-time with their dancing and singing or even completely convincing with their acting. However, as much as you can admire the charm of this honest theatre, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I got a little bored after the umpteenth charmingly simple song and dance. As beautiful as it is to explore a tiny incident, the fact remains that it is a tiny incident and the play really struggled to hold my interest for the duration. Rather than progressing the story or themes in any direction, a lot of the song and dance routines started to feel like filler and I left feeling positive but distinctly unfulfilled.

www.mayfestbristol.co.uk

Matthew Whittle www.matthewwhittleblog.blogspot.com