'Institute' - Play review

Last year at roughly this time I went on a school (college…) trip that completely changed my opinion of physical theatre. I am a Drama student, but policy is at Peter Symonds that students can go on trips of other subjects/departments if it isn't filled up by students from its subject. When offered if I wanted to go with the Performance Studies crowd to go and see Gecko's 'Missing' I though "why not?", it was a chance to see another play and broaden my experience and I knew some of the people going so it was a fun thing to do as a group. If my memory were that sharp I would write a review entirely dedicated to last year's 'Missing', but it isn't. A few details I remember were that no two characters spoke the same language, there was excellent use of puppetry and there was an excellent use of lighting effects - and of course, physical acting. But what I took away from the whole experience, though I can't remember individual details after this much time, was 'holy crap'.

Gecko's performances are like a very special type of drug, the experience of the high itself may fade, but the memory of the feeling lasts and makes you want more.

'Frankenstein' - Play review

I'm putting this under the heading of 'Play review' even though I saw it at my local cinema as I can't really classify it as a film review. This was a National Theatre Live production, which made another rounds of the cinema because everybody was so wowed by it the first time, and now catching it just before it closes for the last time I can definitely see why.

Directed by Danny Boyle, the National Theatre's 'Frankenstein' was originally staged in 2011 and (as a brief introductory documentary told us) starred both Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller as both the titular Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. In that, one night Cumberbatch played Frankenstein and Miller would play the Creature, and then the next Miller would play Frankenstein and Cumberbatch would play the Creature.