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At Flying Bridge Theatre |
| Flying Bridge , Theatre of Wales , April 16, 2024 |
Flying Bridge is the most travelled of companies. “A Regular Little Houdini” has been seen in Wales, London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Australia, the United States. Productions by Flying Bridge are reviewed below: “Shortlist” 31 August 2023 “Vicky Featherstone wrote of Joyce McMillan: “Hers was the review we all craved”. Joyce McMillan at Flying Bridge: “An hour of perfectly-crafted, deeply intelligent and supremely witty Fringe entertainment.” “The plot follows the hilarious and heated battle between Higgins and Houghton, both vying for the ultimate prize in literature. The Withnail-esque joust between the two is brilliantly written by multiple Fringe First-winning playwright Brian Parks, making for a hilarious war-of-words that’ll leave you in stitches. “The world premiere of this play is directed by Fringe First winner Margarett Perry, and the cast – including Matthew Boston and Daniel Llewelyn-Williams – is nothing short of stellar. Their performances are captivating, with each actor bringing their A-game to the stage.” “Horse Country” 6 April 2023 Those who were there, in the Bally at Gluttony Rymill Park, Adelaide, liked what they saw. “As if Laurel and Hardy performed The Dumb Waiter, on acid”, Horse Country is a brilliantly absurd dark comedy. Bob and Sam, two clowns, shoot the breeze, waiting for… something. Their existence highlights the futility of free will in a system designed to imprison us. “It is like a deep dive into Beckett, Sartre and Kafka. Written by American satirist C.J. Hopkins, it is absurdist, existential, satirical, and deliciously manic with a nod in the direction of Laurel and Hardy. “Most importantly, it is a rivetingly good piece of theatre superbly performed in impeccable American accents by a couple of ace actors from a Welsh theatre company.” A sensationally satisfying dose of transfixing bafflegab.” "Between the Crosses" 16 August 2017 “The man giving the lecture, Will Huggins, is the great-nephew of the soldier, Edgar Huggins, and it’s told using a recording made by the Imperial War Museum of the old man shortly before his death. Snippets from this recording enable Will to effectively “interview” Edgar to get a first hand account, while details from official reports provide an emotionless, and occasionally brutally objective, context. As Will says, both accounts concur on factual detail, but Edgar veers away at crucial junctures as if recoiling from the memory. In some ways, “Between The Crosses” aims to fill the gap of experience in between.” "Not About Heroes" 08 August 2017 “Daniel Llewellyn-William's sardonically cynical Sassoon contrasts brilliantly with the raw enthusiastic energy and excitement of Iestyn Arwel's Owen: shellshocked but never cowed from his clear admiration of his idol. It's well known that MacDonald's play is a classic and leads the audience on a journey, told in part through poetry and letter, with raw pieces of each poet's work read or spoken at moments which, under Tim Baker's fine direction, wrung sorrow, despair and many many tears from the packed auditorium.” "A Regular Little Houdini" 10 March 2017 “Our ten-year-old hero comes from a proud Irish immigrant family living in Newport, Wales. In 1905 his personal hero Harry Houdini tours Newport. However, his beloved grandfather, Gammy, holds a grudge against the world famous escapologist. Llewelyn-Williams interweaves the narrator’s fictional story with real life events from the time. Knowing that he is a Newport native lends a respect and authenticity. Gammy’s grudge results from a real-life publicity stunt where Houdini escaped from Newport Police. Though Gammy prevents our narrator from seeing Houdini perform at the local Lyceum Theatre, he continues to practice his own magic tricks above everything else, even school work.” 10 February 2017 “Since its first tour of Wales “A Regular Little Houdini” has done San Diego and environs. Edinburgh of course is a given. Adelaide is location for the biggest theatre festival in the Southern hemisphere. “Houdini...” is there next month at the city's distinguished Bakehouse Theatre. Off-Broadway beckons before 2017 is out. It is vying with “Playing Burton” for the most global work of Welsh theatre of recent times. It helps that it travels lightly. Since its first production it has acquired a design item that is ingenious and elegant. The action has grown more economical and the visual climax given a faster snap. If it is travelling far and wide it is because it is deserving. It is powerfully of Wales but with none of the encrustations and piousnesses of heritage theatre.” 15 August 2016 “An endearing, charismatic performance lies at the heart of this one-man show. The actor takes us through an Edwardian childhood in Wales, spent idolising Houdini, practising magic tricks – sorry, “amazements” – and craving the attention of an often absent father figure. The story is gripping, taking dramatic and tragic turns that surprise and enthral the audience, and is peppered with delightful little displays of sleight-of hand. But too frequently the connection between Houdini, magic tricks and escapology to the wider narrative is tenuous and inconsistently applied; it builds to a corking, moving climax, but the journey there is not quite up to the standard of Houdini’s spectacle.” 27 January 2017 “Even today the Transporter Bridge remains an iconic Newport landmark. The bridge plays a central part in Llewelyn-Williams’ masterly told tale. There were two major disasters whilst the bridge was being built. The first involved a feisty young man Tom ‘Toya’ Lewis. He dived deep into the mud and rescued his work-mate Fred Bardill who was held down in the chasm by a large wooden girder. Lewis was awarded the Albert Medal for conspicuous bravery for his heroic achievements, and is remembered to this day by a Wetherspoon pub that bears his name. From these facts in his author role, Llewelyn-Williams has created a captivating romance and in his actor role tells it to us with great grace and humour. He takes on to himself the part of a young man, Alan Williams, who may have a touch of Tom ‘Toya’ Lewis about him. Alan was around at the time of Houdini’s first visit to Newport. The actor also retains his own charm to continually delight us.” 15 September 2014 “Daniel Llewelyn-Williams’ solo show naturally comprises dramatic rise and fall. A first dramatic climax simply terrifies, aided by director Josh Richards’ subtle lowering of the lights. Within a performance without interval the author has also fashioned a two-act structure of elegance. He seeds the writing early on with runners so that elements occur late on that refer back. A script becomes a unity via counterpoint and inner echo. He also creates a climax that is both a visual coup and an emotional surprise. This is the point that those who fret over “text-based theatre” rarely get, that decent writing is text-unbased, the word being deployed in subservience to the making of visual image. To reveal too much of the narrative would be to reveal all. Llewelyn-Williams’ character is Alan Williams, born in 1895, animated by the first visit of Houdini to the city’s grandiose Lyceum Theatre. The actor plays the ten-year old boy and leaps across the family group of ten compressed into the tiny grandparents’ house in Pill. Sentiment is avoided with memory of the arrival of the destitute multitudes from famine-gripped Ireland. The Irish are used as free human ballast for the homeward voyage of the coal ships of Wales and the details are harrowing.” 05 December 2013 “There are multiple excitements for a boy growing up in Newport, Gwent in the early years of the Twentieth Century. They are building the biggest dock in the world there. Then there's the amazing transporter bridge which will carry people and vehicles high over the River Usk in a gondola suspended from what seems miles above their heads. But if you are a boy who's interested in magic then one event towers above all others, Houdini will be visiting the Lyceum Theatre. Sadly, in order to get publicity for his extravaganza, the escapologist makes a fool of the local police and, if your grandfather is a local policeman, then you must expect to be forbidden to see the show. Daniel Llewelyn-Williams, who also wrote the script, conveys all the boyish enthusiasm of this world, especially when a plan is hatched in honour of his showman hero.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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