Buzz Magazine August 2014 | Page 32

stage RIME Aberystwyth Arts Centre Sat 16 Aug pic: DAVID PICKENS HAIRSPRAY Memo Arts Centre, Barry Thurs 21-Fri 22 Aug Hairspray, the retro teen-angst musical with big hearts, hair and ideas, will be in Barry, and to be hip, you should be there. The show, adapted from the 1988 film of the same name, was an award-winning hit on Broadway and the West End. It was also remade into a film musical in 2007. It tells the story of ‘pleasantly plump’ teen Tracy Turnblad and the discrimination she faces trying to get on an American Bandstand-type TV programme, in early60s Baltimore. She launches a campaign to help her black friends integrate into the show – all at the same time as trying to cure her mom (played in drag) of agoraphobia, help her best friend (who’s in a budding interracial romance) and find true love with the heartthrob of the dance floor. The musical is packed with punchy songs and silly-named dances that were all the rage. The show is presented in partnership with Superstars In The Making as part of Memo’s outreach and community program. Leading the rebellion will be Laura Phillips (Tracy), a recent Cardiff University graduate and two Star Of Stage winners, Jodi Bird (also a Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist) and Callum Howells. So, watusi on down to see Hairspray, you’ll flip for it! Tickets: £9-£12/£40 group of four. Info: 01446 738622 / www. memoartscentre.co.uk (RLR) BUZZ 32 HAMLET The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: / He cannot choose but hear; / And thus spake on that ancient man, / The bright-eyed Mariner. Have you ever been stopped on the street by someone who wants to give you their life story, and had to listen to their ramblings as you mumble something about an appointment and try to get away? That was the very basic premise of Romantic poet Coleridge’s longest poem: The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner. The main difference being that the one doing the talking isn’t a dull and bitter person ranting about how ‘things aren’t like they used to be’ or an upbeat individual wanting to tell all about the lives of everyone they know, but a sailor recounting his tale of a long and dangerous sea voyage. National Theatre and Square Peg Circus join forces to portray the poem in the open air. As the Mariner narrates his beautiful, terrifying and supernatural story to a groom-to-be (who happens to be on his way to his own wedding), performers will be creating human towers, posing on Chinese poles, rolling down ropes and flipping through the air. The well-respected rhymes of Coleridge are in safe hands with Square Peg who, only running since 2009, have performed for over 40,000 people. Members of the company can also be seen in the little known (joke) Olympic Opening Ceremony and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, as well as having worked with big hitters such as the English National Ballet and the Cairo Opera Ballet Company. Like the poem itself, written in the late 18th century, Rime isn’t brand new, having premiered in 2012. The show, however, was a great success – selling out during its first run and now coming back for another round. With rave reviews abound – and the promise of magic, music and acrobatic muscle – Rime might be a production worth stopping someone in the street to tell about. HEATHER ARNOLD Tickets: £8-£12/£40 group of four. Info: 01970 623232 / www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk Pembrokeshire Castle Tues 5-Fri 8 Aug It really does seem to be the summer of theatre at the moment. Open air is catching on in a big way, and, with their new instalment of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the youthful theatre company Base Tikes (in partnership with the MDCC theatre company) are in the vanguard. Let’s face it, Hamlet is the play, and it’s always interesting to see a new theatre company getting a new take on the hallowed material. How we’re still coming up with stuff 500 years on beats me, but Base Tikes seem to be the group to do it. Their website abounds with phrases like phrases like ‘blow your mind’ and ‘modern’. Previously billed as Shakespeare for the iPhone generation, and the boyband and girlband of the bard, these pioneering players certainly look capable of rocking not just your socks, but your whole damn underwear drawer. That said, new directions are always risky, and it’s not clear whether this group are going to deliver the ground-breaking performance promised or this is just another misguided attempt to make Willy Shakes down with the homebiscuits, but I guess the risk is half the fun. And if you can take it while working on the tan and sipping strawberries in the grounds of Pembrokeshire Castle, why not? Tickets: £7/£5 under-16s. Info: www. pembrokecastle.co.uk (JS) SISTER ACT Aberystwyth Arts Centre Until Sat 30 Aug The ‘divine comedy’ of Sister Act has made its way to Aberystwyth. The stage musical illustrates Deloris Van Cartier, a disco fanatic who is placed in a convent for her own protection after witnessing a murder by her on-again-off-again boyfriend and his gang. The struggling convent is run by a strict Mother Superior who takes an instant disliking to the louder than life Deloris. In order to save the convent Deloris turns the traditional choir into the most popular act in town, but with the success she is faced with the risk od revealing her disguise and sacrificing her saf ]K