The Woman In Black Review

I first saw The Woman In Black stage play back when I was doing my GCSES, as part of our Drama coursework we had to do a theatre review, and that year coming to our local theatre was The Woman In Black. I remember vividly where me and my friends sat, that we attended 'schools night' (where various schools attend one evening show all at once), and also that we were completely terrified by the end of the show. I think everyone fed off each other and as the audience was full of 14 to 16 year olds, we all felt tense and as young people do - their emotions become intensified. So as the woman in black first appears and all the girls are screaming down in the stalls, we're all looking over the balcony and gripping each others hands tightly to see whats going on. The main thing I remember though - was that although we were scared out of our wits and that it was an absolutely incredible show, so when Meg mentioned wanting to see it, and we found out it was not only coming to the Everyman Theatre again but that we could also get £5 tickets, we jumped at the chance to buy them.

The Woman in Black was written in 1983 by Susan Hill and follows the story of Arthur Kipps. Stephen Mallatratt, a playwright, adapted the story into a play back in 1987, before it first appeared on stage in late 1987 before appearing in the West End in 1989; making it the second longest non-musical play within the west end. The story of Arthur Kipps is portrayed completely differently to that of the 2012 film which stares Daniel Radcliffe. On stage, the play only features 2 main characters (excluding that of the actual Woman in Black), The Actor and Arthur Kipps. The Actor - portrayed by Matthew Spencer - is helping an elderly Arthur Kipps (David Acton) to tell the story of his encounter with the woman in black to his family and friends by performing his story on stage. It is obvious at the beginning of the story that Kipps has never performed before, and so he recruits the Actor to help him perform his story. Within their onstage play, The Actor plays a young Arthur Kipps, whilst the 'actual' Arthur Kipps plays various other characters that appear within his story - these include Keckwick - the driver of the Horse and Trap, Mr Bentley - Arthur Kipps employer who sends him to Eel Marsh house and Samuel Daily - who befriends Kipps on his train to Crythin Gifford and who Kipps seeks advice from about Eel Marsh house - as well as the narrator of the story and various other characters Kipps meets along his journey.

At the beginning of the play, they regularly switch from reality into rehearsing 'the play', showing the alternate stories via white and blue lighting. However, towards the second half of the story, The Actor encourages them to rehearse the play continuously without stopping. Although I did enjoy the first part of the story, the switching back and forth between reality and the play, did get slightly irritating. It was understandable as to why they used this technique as it ensured that the audience remembered that they were performing a play within a play, but also to make it slightly more realistic - for example, the day would come to an end, so they'd stop rehearsing the play and come back the next day to continue. However, I found the second half of the play much more enjoyable as it was more continuous for the story and allowed me to get more invested in the story being told.

After the pairing began telling the story, we follow a young Arthur Kipps (aka The Actor) from London, where he receives his assignment, on his journey to Crythin Gifford, and on the horse and trap to Eel Marsh house. This is where Arthur begins seeing the woman in black and hearing creepy noises around the house - the rocking chair with no one in it, the doors slamming and deafening screams. Once this begins he starts unveiling the story of Alice Drablow - the owner of Eel Marsh house up until her recent death, Jennet Humfrye her sister who is the infamous Woman in Black and Jennets son Nathaniel who is adopted by Alice and her husband before his devastating death when he was only 7 years old; and is the sole reason for Jennet becoming the Woman in Black in the first place.

The play entails you to use your imagine quite a lot, the set stays the same throughout the whole play, with the chairs and baskets being used as different props within different scenes. The horse and trap is created by the two baskets, with the actors bobbing up and down and diegetic sound effects of horse hooves. The chairs are used to show Arthur Kipps switching trains for his journey to Crythin Gifford; and the dog that Samuel Daily lends Arthur to keep him company at the house is created by imaginary stroking and patting, along with the actors crouching down to pet the dog and talk to it. I think that all the ways they create these objects is really clever, they do it in such as way that it isn't hard for us to picture the actual objects and fill in the spaces with our imagination; the actors do all the work with their movements and it makes it easy and enjoyable for us to know what they are doing and when. These elements also added humour into the play - although its a tense horror story and for the most part we were sat with our scarves rolled up and covering our faces, the little bit of humour they injected into the play really made a difference. I can't describe how The Actor crouching down and petting an imaginary dog and making a baby face at it is an hilarious combination - but it is. The interaction between The Actor and the real Arthur Kipps whilst they're in the reality element of the play was also hilarious - their personalities just mixing together; David Acton and Matthew Spencer just effortlessly played off each other. Another element that created a lot of laughter from the audience were the very tense moments - where the darkened stage and dragged out silence made everyone believe they were going to get a frightening jump from the Woman in Black and instead a door slammed or there was a loud scream, yet everyone jumped out of their seats anyway - created a huge amount of laughter within the audience, so much so that parts of what were being said on stage were missed.

I would 100% recommend going to see The Woman in Black if you ever gain the opportunity to. It is a wonderfully terrifying show that provides both tension and humour throughout. I'm somebody who has never been a fan of horror films - there is something about this story that I absolutely love. I do remember being a lot more scared when I saw the play the first time but I think that was just because I was much younger. No matter who you are you're guaranteed to jump out of your seat at least once. The lighthearted elements of the play are a nice release to the very tense moments, and the little twists that are injected into the play make it a lot more interesting too - meaning if you have seen the film before it won't even matter as the play is completely different. Although I've already seen the play once, I think if I do ever get the chance to go again, I'd definitely take it. You never entirely remember a play completely and every director is bound to change small elements anyway.

The Woman in Black is currently touring around the UK and playing at the Fortune Theatre in London. To find out more information about the dates and show click here.

"From the start it has been the Theatres business to entertain people...it needs no other business than fun"

Until Next Time,

Alice x

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Matilda The Musical

After booking tickets to spend the weekend in London and deciding Matilda was the West End show me and my best friend, Meg, wanted to see; we arrived in London on Saturday 25th June and after our bus didn't turn up and we initially couldn't figure out which tube line to take, we started to have a bit of a panic and I wondered why we ever thought it was a good idea to come alone to London in the first place. But, after we eventually managed to make it to Shaftesbury avenue, where we seeked out the Cambridge Theatre and went to the Theatre Cafe for lunch, things started to seem a little bit brighter and we both started to actually enjoy ourselves.

Matilda The Musical is based on the children's novel 'Matilda' written by Roald Dahl. It was adapted into a musical by Dennis Kelly (with music and lyrics from Tim Minchin) and although he changed a few things about the story such as writing a part for the librarian who runs the library Matilda visits, and including more of a base story for the history of Miss Honey's mother and father; there were reasons for these changes, he wanted to keep Matilda's love for books in the play - as this is one of the main character values for Matilda - so to do this he changed her love for books into a love of stories, so the play stayed interesting for the new and old audiences and this meant we continue to love the story, in it's new musical form. The most iconic parts of the play were also kept in the musical, these were parts of the story such as Amanda being swung around by her plaits and launched into the air, Matilda's unique gift of moving things with her eyes and Bruce being forced to eat a whole chocolate cake; all the parts of the story that we instantly think of when we think of Matilda were kept, for me, these are the most memorable parts of the story, they show what a horrible character Miss Trunchbull is and the karma that follows these vile acts, comes back to bite Miss Trunchbull on the bum, and helps add comedy to the story; these iconic moments are therefore very important to the story of Matilda as they hold the basis of why the children start playing naughty pranks on their headteacher in the first place.

Matilda is an extraordinarily clever 5 year old girl, with horrid parents, Mr and Mrs Wormwood - who never wanted another child, and a dumb older brother who has been brain washed by the rubbish TV he's watched his whole life, Matilda is a lonely girl who visits the library and reads books as a way of expanding her mind and finding some happiness within her lonely life. Her cleverness completely overthrows her parents and she outwit's them throughout the book and musical , making them look stupid and act silly - which adds further comedy to the story.

Miss Trunchbull is the horrid Headteacher that runs Crunchem Elementary Hall, the mean Aunt of Miss Honey, she gets away with vile acts that no normal headteacher would be allowed to do - the Chokey is one example of a punishment she carries out on the children and her character was always one that scared me when I was younger; with the greasy hair and the largeness of the character - next to that of the tiny children never failed to make me terrified whilst watching the film or reading the book. The children continually carry out pranks on the headmistress and there's always the fear they're going to get caught no matter how well you know the story. Its the fact the children actually carry out these naughty acts, that shows how brave they are and Miss Trunchbull's karma comes from a lot of these naughty pranks.

Miss Honey is Matilda's kind and caring teacher - Miss Honey is blown away by the fact Matilda is so clever when she's only 5 years old and although Mr and Mrs Wormwood and Miss Trunchbull both try and deter Miss Honey from helping Matilda - it doesn't work and Miss Honey becomes the mother that Matilda never had, as well as bonding with her over stories/books. She's the only character in the story that really believes in Matilda and helps her develop her gifts. She protects all the children from Miss Trunchbull - even though she is terrified of her Aunt; and when she meets Matilda she starts to find her bravery to stand up to her - which first comes clear in the song "Pathetic" when Miss Honey - despite being scared - knocks on her Aunt's office door and talks to her about Matilda's extraordinary cleverness.

The Children aka Matilda's school friends are Amanda, Bruce, Lavender, Alice, Eric, Nigel, Tommy and Hortensia - these are the amazing children that help make the play feel realistic, they give Matilda friends, give Miss Honey's class actual students, create mischief like Lavender putting the Newt in Miss Trunchball's water jug, add comedic moments - like Nigel's inability to hold up an exercise mat in Phys-ed, they dance on their desks and get frightened by the older school kids in the school and I think the musical would be a lot duller without these characters being portrayed by actual children; yes adults can play children just as good as actual children can - but there's something about their innocence, cheekiness and fun way of going about life, that I think made the play a lot better by being portrayed by the young actors and I think this decision, made by Dennis Kelly and the director - Matthew Warchus - was the correct one.

Mr and Mrs Wormwood are Matilda's mean parents - at the beginning Mrs Wormwood has no clue she's pregnant and it's straight away obvious neither parent cares about their daughter. With Mr Wormwood constantly calling her a "he" and them both constantly finding Matilda irritating as she disagrees with their crooked ways. These two characters also add a lot of comedy to the play - their stupidity because of their simple lifestyle makes them humorous and as Matilda constantly out wits them throughout the play which adds to the comedy in the story.

I think Mr Wormwood's simple mind, silliness, over-gelled hair and weird green suit made him one of my favourite characters from the show - I found his crazy mannerism's absolutely hilarious and this just made me love his character even more. Strangely, the next morning me and Meg saw a man that looked and spoke exactly like Mr Wormwood, it was really weird how similar they were but also hilarious; because the man probably had no idea that he looked like a well-known character that was purposely styled for comedic reasons.

My favourite songs from the show are "When I grow Up" and "Revolting Children" both of which featured in Act Two of the show. The Swings that were used in When I Grow Up made the scene quite magical to watch. The children and adults effortlessly make all the swings in-sync throughout the scene and I think this just made the whole thing absolutely incredible and it was probably my favourite part of the show to watch as it bought out the big kid in me and had my enraptured throughout the entire thing. Revolting Children was amazing as well  - Bruce began the song and I really love how he gets to show off his outstanding vocals. The high energy in this scene is great - and I think this is one of the things that made me absolutely love it, the characters take what Miss Trunchbull says about them and turn it against her - having fun whilst singing and dancing along to a song that is taking the mick out of the horrible comments that are meant to offend them - they are beating a bully by not letting her untrue comments effect them. I also love how all the children are included in these two scenes and you can tell they're enjoying every moment of it - just as the audience is.

I would hugely recommend going to see Matilda The Musical, it's a fun filled family show and in my opinion it was absolutely incredible, I couldn't rave about it enough. If I had the opportunity to see the show again I would jump at the chance; it's one of those shows that you know you could sit through a hundred times and not get bored; sort of like a good movie or a good book - both of which I've seen/read many times in the case of Matilda. And I can't stop listening to the Matilda soundtrack - the songs are so catchy and they're making me reminisce on a great evening/weekend away with my best friend.

"Just because you're little, doesn't mean you can't do a lot"

To find out more about Matilda The Musical click here to visit the website. 

Until Next Time,

Alice x

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T - Theatre (Hetty Feather Review)

Hetty Feather is a theatre show based on Jacqueline Wilson's bestselling book of the same name. The story is based on a young girl, Hetty Feather who is known for her red-hair and fiery temper. As a baby she is taken to the Foundling Hospital, where her mother abandons her. We follow her story as she is moved to a foster home from the ages of 1-6 and then returns to the Foundling Hospital as a curious and talkative 6 year old, who wants to discover who her real mother is and what she was originally named before becoming Hetty Feather (this is what the whole story is based around and is finally revealed at the end of the story)

The play was created back in 2014 and other than the two musicians who play on-stage instruments, the play only uses 6 actors and one stage set. All of the actors (apart from Phoebe Thomas aka Hetty Feather) play various roles, switching from their main roles of playing Hetty's foster siblings/mother to playing circus characters, staff and children at the foundling hospital as well as many other roles. I think the way they've created the play is very clever and unique. Although you have to use your imagination in some parts, the ways they represented and created different elements of the play was very creative. For example, to represent the characters (such as Hetty and Gideon) as babies they used a blanket as a prop and had the actors follow around where the blanket was passed to - making baby noises such as babbling and crying, it was such a clever way of getting the audience to understand which actor was playing which baby and helped us understand their personalities before they were even old enough to talk and walk.  

The book was released back in 2009 and although I began to read the book, I never actually finished it so watching the play at the beginning of this month, made me only remember small parts and therefore only minor changes that had been made between the book and the play. For example, at the foster home Hetty doesn't find out where the other children are going until she, herself is returned to the Foundling Hospital; however, in the play, her and the other children are quickly made aware that just before they turn 6, they will be returning to the hospital. 

The play is aimed at families and young children but I think it's suitable for all ages as the way they've created and set out the play makes it an interesting and unique story that everyone can enjoy.

To find out more about the show click here!

"Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to" 

Until Monday, 

Alice x 

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