Theatre Review - BLEAK EXPECTATIONS, PEOPLE'S THEATRE, NEWCASTLE

 

As the title may suggest, Bleak Expectations by Mark Evans is mainly a humorous mash-up of two Charles Dickens’ novels - ‘Bleak House’ and ‘Great Expectations’ - with multiple references to many other classic Dickens’ stories besides. The show follows the optimistic ‘Pip Bin’ as he is thrown from his happy childhood and hurled headlong through various plot points from the aforementioned books. The whole show is very tongue-in-cheek, with plenty of absurdity to keep the audience laughing through even the more serious moments.

Director Steven Wallace saw to it that the audience’s experience of the show was nowhere near bleak. It almost felt like a pantomime of Dickens, minus the audience participation (except through laughter). There was nothing that was not, or couldn’t become, an even funnier joke than before. It was also really nice to see everyone, including stage hands, act like the props were ‘real’ e.g. an anvil was treated as heavy throughout. The simple black-and-white set had an almost cartoonish feel (designed by Kaila Moyers), a blank canvas to highlight the humour. Lighting (designed by Claire Brissenden), set the scenes well and added to the shows’ interpretation. The Wardrobe team, Linda Girling and Heather Allan, had a mammoth task with such a large cast, dressing all of the many characters with exceptional skill. The Props team (led by Sam Sanford), also created some great monotone objects that fitted the overall style and tone of the show perfectly and really added to the show and its humour.

The whole cast had very good comic timing as joke upon joke landed perfectly. The Ensemble (Adam Lowe, Ruariri Reed and Hannah Mitchell), added a great deal of support to other cast members and brought out their own well-timed laughs. Hannah Kisiala was charming as Flora Dies Early.  Emily Jeffery was steamy and yet also sweet as Ripley Fecund. Paul Carding had the audience giggling as the various Hardthrasher Siblings. Sam Burrell was hilarious as Bakewell Havertwitch. I had no idea what the joyful Lauren Alllison would say next as Harry Biscuit, but I felt sure it would involve swans. Steve Robertson was wonderfully different in his two roles of Skinflint Parsimonious and Broadly Fecund. Glen Kingston was endearing as the accident-prone Thomas Bin, while Helen Parker played his wonderfully mad widow, Agnes Bin. Of their children, Erin Thwaites time on the stage was far too short as the delightful and droll Poppy Bin, Ellie Carroll was amusing as the hardworking and innovative Pippa Bin and Thomas Kelly was not just funny but also lovable as the ‘central' character, Pip Bin. Roger Liddle had the whole audience engaged with his tale from the moment he set foot on stage as the narrator of his own life story, Sir Phillip Bin. As his nemesis, Sam Hinton, as Gently Benevolent, clearly had fun as a character who was anything but - his comedy timing was exceptional and a joy to see on the stage.

Harrumble! Bleak Expectations; a suitably silly romp through Literature. Showing at The Peoples Theatre until 22^nd November.