FESTIVAL
Express yourself
It’s tough at the Top Ten, as pop picker Ann Donald finds out.
Madonna — pop star. sex pot and now source of inspiration for award—winning writer Gordon Steel who has filched the title of her pre- collagen hit ‘Like A Virgin' for his latest play by the Hull Truck Theatre Company.
Billed as ‘a hilarious romp through the bubble-gum years of teenage life‘ the play focusses on two sixteen-year old- Teeside girls. Angela and Maxine. whose Madonna fixation spurs them on to truant school. form a band. rope in a couple of hairbrushes that double as mics and before you can say ‘touched for the very first time' the girls are well on the way to the adolescent dreamland of Top Ten poptastic success.
As Steel explains. Madonna was the natural choice for the besotted female adolescents. ‘I kept on being told that there weren't enough parts for female actors.‘ explains the lecturer in Drama and Performing Arts. ‘lt was a challenge for me to write about two female characters who idolised "the" female popstar of the 8()s.‘ As he says. the dream syndrome of budding fame
Hull Truck Theatre Company: touched for the very first time
and fortune is at its height in most
people‘s teens. ‘lt‘s like that Billy Liar
thing of dreams being very big. very
real and very passionate.‘
The play however. is far more than a whimsical pop frolic. as becomes clear
when the central character Angela finds . herself re-evaluating her relationship
; with her mother when her father walks out on the family. leaving the play to
‘erupt into a roller coaster of emotions
j tackling sex, driving ambition. despair
.‘ and love.‘
For Caroline Wardle. the effervescent 21-year-old who plays Angela. Like A
that
i i .i x «:Lm‘“ / is . I Trumpets and Raspberries Dario
ITLIS
0 Bolt your lunch and get out there.
Jonathan Trew suggests some shows rth getting indigestion for.
Fo‘s comic masterpiece never fails to amuse. Terminal gogglebox addicts will recognise Andy Gray from Rab C Nesbitt and The Baldy Man.
Trumpets and Raspberries (Fringe) Borderline Theatre C ompany. Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 28 Aug. 2.30pm. £8 (£6.50). 18 and 19. 25
and 26 £9 (£7).
Virgin is something of a life-changer. since only two weeks ago she was working in Lunn Poly. ‘lt's finally happened for me,‘ she enthuses about her role and recent acceptance into drama school. ‘l'm working really hard and I‘m over the moon about it.‘ Her real-life Madonna adoration 1’ ‘Oh yeah. I loved her music!‘ Get into the groovy with Hull Truck.
I Like A Virgin (Fringe) Hull Truck Theatre Company. Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, 22 Aug—2 Sept. 2pm. £7.50 (£6.50); 25—27 Aug £8.50 (£7.50).
FOLDING srurr
Chris Goode’s play has the touch of the visionary about it. Folding Stuff is ostensibly about money and its ability to distort reality, like looking into a warped mirror and seeing a flawless reflection of your desires, perfectly two-dimensional. Such tricks of
perspective make it hard to detect the
capacity of money to suck you into its plastic fantasies.
In the play this narcissistic aspect of 5
money extends to characters who become mere signals of a perverse world. Ian uses money to build a senseless tower as the only way he can be represented objectiver in the world. Ills retarded son Fido (dog names recalling Pavlov) is demented by value and price. His other son Rover, who’s just returned from living on the streets, recalls being picked up and posing nude for money for pornographic photographs. Goodie is saying something about how the merely representational is creating
i reality, becoming the currency of
! power and how this may be weirdly a time of visions.
This is an interesting production but i the cast believed too much in the
, surface of their roles and rarely found 3 the tension of characters inescapably
struggling with their own blankness.
Folding Stuff: loads of visions
(Ronan O'Donnell)
Folding Stuff (Fringe) Cambridge Amateur Dramatic, Adam House Theatre ( Venue 34) 650 8200, 19 Aug, 12.05pm; 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 28ept,
, I Monologue of a Mad Woman Joe
Dolce and Linn Van Hekjoin forces for an exploration of the roles of women
writers through the ages. There‘s songs,
sketches. readings, biographical anecdotes and much in the way of
madness.
Monologue of a Mad Woman (Fringe)
: Difficult Women. Gilded Balloon II.
Stepping Stones Theatre (Venue 5/ ) 226 , 6520. until 2 Sept. 2pm, £5.50 (£4.50).
I To Comfort Ghosts Ever wondered
what constitutes a controversial Fn'nge show? Here’s your chance to be shocked or not depending on your temperament — make up your own mind. This is dance-based physical
theatre that has caused some outrage in
somewhat predictable quarters.
, To Comfort Ghosts (Fringe) National Student Theatre Company. .S‘outhside
Community Centre (Venue 82) 667
7365. until 26 Aug. 2.45pm. £4.50
(£2.50).
‘ I Allld lleikie Bruce Morrison
: energetically performs a dramatisation
: of Robert Fergusson's poem about 18th
century Edinburgh. Set in the
excavated. cobbled streets inside the Tron Kirk. the play is a warm and often ' earthy evocation oftimes past.
Auld Reikie (Fringe) Bruce Morrison. Tron Kirk (Venue 5) 220 1637. until 26 Aug. l.30pm. free with donation to . W.G.H. Leukaemia Research Fund.
I Like A Virgin Teenage obsessions. a
I Madonna fixation and. inevitably,
f problems with the parents - isn‘t
adolescence fun? Perennial Fringe
i hardies The Hull Truck Theatre
Company present this new play from the author of Dead Fish.
Like A Virgin (Fringe) Hull 'l'rur'k
§ Theatre C ompany. Assemny Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428. 22 Aug—2 Sept. ; 2pm. £7.50 (£6.50). 25—27Aug £8.50 , 2.20pm, £4 (£3). 1 '
(£7.50).
The List 18-24 Aug 1995 31