Review: Up the Nerd Punks at Newcastle Alphabetti Theatre

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We would like to introduce to the North East Theatre Guide... Matt Cumminsas guest reviewer:

Henry Raby – Up the Nerd Punks

Newcastle Alphabetti Theatre

Saturday 1^st August 2015 and then Edinburgh Fringe (see below)

Henry Raby

Dinosaur punk rockers, David Cameron reincarnated as a Pokemon character, the Bedroom Tax, and an analysis of gender roles in “Hey Arnold!” is just a taste of what you can expect in Henry Raby’s excellent show “Up the Nerd Punks”. There’s so much crammed into this piece that a taste is all that a short review can provide, and anyway to appreciate it fully you have to see Henry dance his way through it. He has an infectious energy and he exploits it to the full. Stood mostly on tip-toes, he delivers at top speed what starts as a re-write of Punk rock history (woven, somehow into palaeontology) leaves you feeling energised and excited. I wanted more.

His show is “more ramshackle than other shows” he warns us, but the disclaimer is unnecessary. Raby is extremely capable and very funny and despite these protestations to the contrary we feel very safe in his hands. This is a poet who knows what he’s doing. The poems may be about blue tack and gamer-boys’ untidy bedrooms, but the show is carefully crafted and considered, often with a deeply political as well as a personal message. Behind this dancing, friendly, energetic nerd is a brain, and a man who has clearly loved, and been alone, and been scared and fought for what he wants. And also a man who considers “1984” a friend and who wonders, via a story about writing a letter to himself, whether the real horror of our current situation is that it is the dystopian future that we worry about.

This show is extremely difficult to summarise. There is the familiar and the unfamiliar – he is at pains to try to explain what “cosplay” is to the uninitiated – the political and the personal, the polemical and the poetical. It’s a must see, very good indeed. “Up the Nerd Punks” indeed.

This review was written by Matt Cummins– thanks Matt,

Edinburgh Fringe Tickets:

Up The Nerd Punks by Henry Raby is part of PBH Free Fringe, showing from 23rd – 30th August(6.15-7.15pm) at the Stafford Centre (venue 175)

Website: http://freefringe.org.uk/edinburgh-fringe-festival/up-the-nerd-punks/2015-08-23/

Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes at Newcastle Alphabetti Theatre

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We would like to introduce to the North East Theatre Guide... Matt Cumminsas guest reviewer:

Matthew MacDonald – Something Wicked This Way Comes

Newcastle Alphabetti Theatre

Saturday 1^st August 2015and then Edinburgh Fringe (see below)

This is a deceptively simple show and if you are a fan of story telling and fairly tales, it’s not to be missed. You’ll get more than you bargained for.  I certainly did, and the “more” comes in some pretty dark colours.

Matthew MacDonald

In between working at a call centre and attempting to forget the experience of reading Bruno Bettleheim’s Freudian analysis of fairy tales, Matthew MacDonald has crafted what begins as a romp through familiar territory. We’re with characters that we know but their world seems a little more real that we are used to. We’re removed from the landscapes drawn by Disney/Pixar, however, and instead sent skittering back through centuries of our own storytelling culture to half known and half remembered characters such as the Green Man, The Queen of the Fey, Mab, and the Tooth Fairy, the latter in an incarnation that sends a chill up the spine. These are creatures dressed in things that they really shouldn’t be, characters you really don’t expect. One can’t help feeling that this is a resurrection of sorts, of something that we used to know collectively, but now don’t. An excellent enterprise indeed.

A mixture of prose and poetry, this is a perfect example of how a poetic sensibility can be employed to write stories. And delivered in Matt’s charming, warm, inviting voice it is a pleasure simply to sit and listen. It draws you in. But what you don’t realise is that you are being softened up. Obviously I can’t tell you what you are being softened up for, but what I will say is that if you like your meat rare, you won’t be disappointed, and if you are a vegetarian then you are likely to have that position reinforced. This is an easy show to recommend. Go and see it; you’ve nothing to lose – except perhaps that night’s sleep.

This review was written by Matt Cummins– thanks Matt,

Edinburgh Fringe Tickets:

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Matt McDonald is part of PBH Free Fringe, showing from 8th – 15th August (6.15-7.15pm) and 16th – 22nd August (2.15-3.15) at the Stafford Centre (venue 175)

Website: http://freefringe.org.uk/edinburgh-fringe-festival/something-wicked-this-way-comes-2/2015-08-08/