Theatre

In March I went to see the comedy “How do I get up there?” as part of the Magners Comedy Festival in Glasgow. I have always enjoyed going to the theatre and have been involved in a few productions myself, so I didn’t need a second bidding to go along! A quote that sticks in my mind because of my love of theatre is from Oscar Wilde:

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

I think what he says is true because even from going to this comedy performance, I learnt about the characters and about how society is moving on and will always be changing around us, along with peoples changing views.I found the production to be very effective on the audience as there was hardly a time through the whole thing that there wasn’t someone laughing or else left dumbstruck by the hilarious performances of the actors/comedians. Because it was the performers who wrote the piece, they knew exactly how to put it across. I will talk about the venue, set, lighting, costumes, props, and audience reaction to the script to try to get across what the experience was like.

It was performed in the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall. I had heard that it was the oldest surviving music hall in the UK and there is a lot of history behind it. Founded in the mid 19th century, the hall was the most popular place of entertainment and 1500 people would cram in for every show. It was hard to believe that the night we were there as it was an intimate audience of only about 60-70 people. What I couldn’t get over was the atmosphere in the building. The walls were all peeling and we were warned that the ceiling might fall down on us (literally), but the building has real charm and personality, and I think it had the right mood for the piece.

The set and lighting were very basic. The set was left as it is in the Panopticon with decor which showed what it meant to be British. It looked quite old-fashioned and retro which fitted in with the buildings history and there were little union jacks draped around. The stage was empty with no objects, but sometimes chairs were brought on to represent things such as benches or cars. The minimalist set worked very well I thought, as it drew attention to the action and the actors who were entertaining enough in their own rights.

The costumes and props were also kept to a minimum, with the actors wearing black throughout mainly and only bringing on the odd prop or outfit, for example when they first came on they were wearing monks robes which was part of a hilarious sketch about Bucksfast. Some props that were used were bamboo for the pandas, and a bucket of water. I liked the fact that there weren’t too many props in it as it was left to the audience’s imagination and there was a smooth transition between scenes as the actors didn’t have to change their outfits of rummage around for new items.

The script itself was genius I thought and it was aimed at today’s audience. I spoke to the three performers/writers after the show and they said that they weren’t sure how some of the jokes would go down as they are used to performing to largely young audiences and some of the jokes were quite risky, but the standing ovation at the end was surely enough to tell them that they got it spot on.