REVIEW
✭✭✭✭☆ 4/5
Midsummer
By David Greig & Gordon Mcintyre
Mercury Theatre Colchester
7 May – 18 May 24
✭✭✭✭☆ 4/5
Midsummer
By David Greig & Gordon Mcintyre
Mercury Theatre Colchester
7 May – 18 May 24
A funny, lost weekend in Edinburgh
Originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre, Midsummer is a play with live music that covers a Midsummer’s Eve weekend. Two thirty somethings meet in a wine bar, get drunk, lose their inhibitions, and end up spending the night together (that’s what’s called romance nowadays). The next day they go their separate ways with severe hangovers. Then they accidentally meet again. Clad in pink tulle Helena misses her sister’s wedding, throwing up at the church and Bob clutching a Tesco bag filled with money from a shady deal, misses the bank’s opening hours. They then go on a riotous spending spree ending up in a Hell Fire sex club.
The two protagonists, Ross Carswell and Karen Young, brilliantly play this four hander, with two narrators Will Arundell and Laura Andresen Guimardes who describe the couple’s thoughts. Helena is disappointed in a relationship with a married man and Bob is a dead loss, petty criminal described as ‘medium’ in the worst way. The actors enact the reality whilst the narrators wind back the scenes for the couple to say what they really meant and not what they really want to say or think. Additionally, all the cast sing, and play instruments live on stage.
The narrators also morph into the weird characters that the couple meet along the way and in Will Arundell’s case, he runs from one to another in different hats. He’s a brattish child, a security guard, a strange wine seller from Oddbins, a criminal gangster and a penis. I bet he didn’t see that last one coming when he left drama school.
The script is witty, clever, sexy, vulgar and also has pathos. The packed audience of mainly young people loved it. They obviously related to the lifestyle.
The interesting set designed by Libby Todd is a model village of Edinburgh. There were many windows, which lit up, and aspects of it became a bed and even a toilet whilst the actors walked, sat and climbed on it. They even had somewhat unsatisfactory sex on it.
The play is high energy, fast-paced and extremely funny. The couple are sad, poignant, funny, and philosophical, reflecting the modern way of life, for older singles. Written by award-winning playwright, David Greig, with songs by Gordon McIntyre, that express what the couple are feeling, it is an interesting, and enjoyable watch. There are songs about Japanese Rope Bondage, a Hangover Song and the more romantic Love Will Break Your Heart. The director Ryan McBryde has really risen to the challenge with this modern take on a rom-com. Instead of a love affair between two antagonistic people who end by falling for each other, it’s about two lost people who have a lot in common. As the parking meter states, ‘change is possible.’
Review: Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
Box Office 01206573948
Tickets-
£15.00 - £30.50 ((inc. £2 ticket levy)
Duration:
Approx. 2hrs, incl. interval
Age Guidance:
16+, under 18s to be accompanied by an adult
Warnings:
Contains strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and flashing light effects.
https://www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/event/midsummer/
The two protagonists, Ross Carswell and Karen Young, brilliantly play this four hander, with two narrators Will Arundell and Laura Andresen Guimardes who describe the couple’s thoughts. Helena is disappointed in a relationship with a married man and Bob is a dead loss, petty criminal described as ‘medium’ in the worst way. The actors enact the reality whilst the narrators wind back the scenes for the couple to say what they really meant and not what they really want to say or think. Additionally, all the cast sing, and play instruments live on stage.
The narrators also morph into the weird characters that the couple meet along the way and in Will Arundell’s case, he runs from one to another in different hats. He’s a brattish child, a security guard, a strange wine seller from Oddbins, a criminal gangster and a penis. I bet he didn’t see that last one coming when he left drama school.
The script is witty, clever, sexy, vulgar and also has pathos. The packed audience of mainly young people loved it. They obviously related to the lifestyle.
The interesting set designed by Libby Todd is a model village of Edinburgh. There were many windows, which lit up, and aspects of it became a bed and even a toilet whilst the actors walked, sat and climbed on it. They even had somewhat unsatisfactory sex on it.
The play is high energy, fast-paced and extremely funny. The couple are sad, poignant, funny, and philosophical, reflecting the modern way of life, for older singles. Written by award-winning playwright, David Greig, with songs by Gordon McIntyre, that express what the couple are feeling, it is an interesting, and enjoyable watch. There are songs about Japanese Rope Bondage, a Hangover Song and the more romantic Love Will Break Your Heart. The director Ryan McBryde has really risen to the challenge with this modern take on a rom-com. Instead of a love affair between two antagonistic people who end by falling for each other, it’s about two lost people who have a lot in common. As the parking meter states, ‘change is possible.’
Review: Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
Box Office 01206573948
Tickets-
£15.00 - £30.50 ((inc. £2 ticket levy)
Duration:
Approx. 2hrs, incl. interval
Age Guidance:
16+, under 18s to be accompanied by an adult
Warnings:
Contains strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and flashing light effects.
https://www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/event/midsummer/
Photo credits: Pamela Raith