| A Look-back and Guide |
At Lighthouse Theatre |
| Lighthouse Theatre , Theatre of Wales , November 22, 2025 |
Reviews of productions by Lighthouse Theatre: A Christmas Carol – A Live Radio Play: 02 December 2023 “Lighthouse has returned for the third time to a format that has served them well. The Dickens story, one of both high sentiment and harshness, is a performance wrapped within a performance. Joe Landry's adaptation sets it in a 1946 New York City studio. Seven actors perform a live WBFR Playhouse of the Air radio production coast-to-coast for Christmas Eve. The format allows director Joe Harmston and designer Sean Cavanagh to create a production that is strongly visual. To the side of the main players Kieran Bailey's Bert Schulz, also musical director, presides over an array of props to provide live sound effects: partying and jolliness, the winds of winter, the clanking chains of the spirits. When footsteps are required Bailey's hands don shoes that walk in a box of gravel. Mark Henry-Davies as Bradley “Butch” Langley warms up his radio audience with an introduction to the cast and their triumphs on radio and Broadway. Maisie Fogg corrects him on his pronunciation of Susie Lalupe. Adrian Metcalfe plays Harry “Jazbo” Heywood in a suit of startling stripes. Fellow Lighthouse creator Sonia Beck plays Miss Myrtle O'Hara. Miss Maddie Finkelheim is played by Jennifer Ruth-Adams and Scrooge's Dornford Brampton by David Prince.” The Many Lives of Amy Dillwyn: 10 March 2022 “In the buzzing social life she meets Garibaldi and hears Adelina Patti. But a suitor, Llewellyn Thomas, dies peremptorily of smallpox. The young Amy, not expectant of marriage, turns to charitable activity. The Killay of her time is swelling with immigrants from Ireland, the lives of women shadowed by men who drink alcohol to excess. “The last years are played out in what she calls "rational dress". The cigar-smoking figure becomes well-known in Swansea and finds a late-life cause, the emancipation of women. At the end she looks back to the smelting works for metaphor. Under great heat the zinc transmutes. The life has been various. The closeness of love over the decades was not there. "I am what I am" she says. After a warm, absorbing performance Sonia Beck steps out of role to add a few words from the person. Adrian Metcalfe has earlier paid tribute to Government and Arts Council. A beneficiary of the Cultural Recovery Fund Lighthouse has done activities for a camera. Outdoor performances have included a show about Josef Herman, another surprisingly with all on bicycles. But, says Sonia Beck, to be back in a space at Aberystwyth for the first time since 2019 is the real thing.” It's a Wonderful Life : 15 December 2019 “Lighthouse from Mumbles has been quietly up and down Wales this last month, 16 venues from Pwllheli to the Riverside. Director Joe Harmston has fashioned a finely detailed and richly aural production from Joe Landry's adaptation of Frank Capra's ultimate Christmas film. Landry has remoulded the script in form; it is now a live broadcast from the vintage days of radio. “The setting for the production, in association with Pontardawe Arts Centre and Tŷ Cerdd, is a sound stage in a Manhattan radio station. The date is Christmas Eve 1947, the six actors for WBFR's Playhouse of the Air in stripey sleeveless pullovers and flower-patterned dresses. Kieran Bailey sits at keyboard and a table filled with a variety of objects of strangeness. Sean Cavanagh's design is topped by illuminated signs that indicate the times for audience applause and reaction. At the opening, cast member Harry Heywood, (Adrian Metcalfe) tells us we are part of the action for the fictional coast-to-coast radio audience. The Aberystwyth audience responds with an enthusiastic playing of its role. “The voices have an overlapping and busy harmony to them. The action is broken by advertisements for the sponsors, makers of soap and hair tonic. Melangell Dolma, Joanna Lucas and Sonia Beck chirrup together in chorus for the commercials.” Brief Encounters : 18 September 2015: 14 September 2015 “The twenty-five minute long “Mild Oats”, is a two-hander set in the London flat borrowed from the pal of soldier Hugh Lombard (Adrian Metcalfe.) Stage manager Ffion Davies has created the between-the-war milieu in great detail, from Tiffany-inspired light shade to archaic all-silver tea service. “Sonia Beck is his guest, Mary Jevon, enjoying the freedom of the streets in escape from the vigilance of an aunt with whom she lives. She, in black fur coat and multi-fringed flapper dress, passes out after the mildest of whisky and sodas. Director Maxine Evans ensures an atmosphere of diffidence and unease, where the heavy-weighing carapace of social normality invites the conversation to turn to the weather. This coming-together, presented with great conviction, leads to a conclusion of some surprise. “Mild Oats” might be well a truthful account of the recharting of the relationship between the genders that followed the Great War and the first women's suffrage act. This small piece from a youthful Noel Coward might conceivably be a coded encounter akin to the Rattigan of “Separate Tables”. The Chimes: 16 December 2014 “Roger Delves Broughton conveyed Trotty Veck’s simplicity and bewilderment with particular charm – he is bent almost double with subservience and fear at the edge of the stage when he visits Sir Joseph Bowley (Member of Parliament). Adrian Metcalfe is clearly enjoying himself in his trio of roles as the self-important Alderman Cute, the louche Sir Joseph Bowley (Member of Parliament – a phrase gloated over with a delightful grimace to the audience) and Tugby. A particular standout moment for me was when Widow Chickenstalker was recounting to Tugby the sad story of what happened to Richard. These two comic characters are centre stage, but behind them – in one sense offstage and yet the focus of attention was the statue-like Douglas Grey, who played Richard, cloaked in black with only his face and hands on display – a very poignant image of the ghost of what was once a good person.” Reminiscences of Childhood : 02 December 2013 “Lighthouse Theatre returned to the Dylan Thomas Theatre in what is becoming an annual event in the build up to Christmas. Yet again, the company did not disappoint. Using a skilful adaptation of the prose and poetry of Dylan Thomas, Adrian Metcalfe performed an entertaining and a comprehensive study of Dylan's reminiscences of childhood. Metcalfe has the ability not only to portray a range of characters believably, including Mr Weasley, Thomas's Grandfather and cousin Gwilym, but also to make the poetry of Dylan Thomas crystal clear. The staging was minimal but highly effective and the evening was enhanced by the support of Sonia Beck who sang settings by George Martin and Elton John of some of Thomas's words with Rob Marshall at the piano.” Picture: Brief Encounters |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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