Philippa Hammond

Actor * Voice Actor * Presenter *Equity Member * Spotlight * Trainer * Roleplayer

I’m proud of these responses to my work from press and online reviewers, producers, directors and writers.

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Romeo and Juliet [One Fell Swoop Festival]

“One of the finest OFS productions … Philippa Hammond‘s Nurse is well-drawn, uncomprehendingly pragmatic when only empathy will do and prattling with dispatch … Hammond’s Nurse meanwhile isn’t averse to flirtation “all a-quiver” as she responds with a sexual frisson to Mercutio’s sallies, however misogynistic they turn out to be …

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

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Henry V [One Fell Swoop Festival]

“…Bardolph (with Philippa Hammond refusing to take looting seriously) … Hammond is sterling as Westmorland and more uproariously as horse-obsessed Duke of Bourbon where she can again – as with Bardolph – throw out exuberance …”

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

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The Other 1% A storytelling anthology for Brighton Horrorfest

” … Jackanory for naughty Millennials … We’re just brushed with a kiss of ice this evening … Delicacy … has proved a firm favourite with discerning listeners, but makes rather a lot of people lurch out of the room. Philippa Hammond gives a reassuringly consummate performance of a woman on the dark net producing a podcast on extreme cooking … This is the finest story … “

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

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Protect and Survive [Brighton Fringe]

“Hammond’s Director Cat … a perfectly-cast, cast-ingot actor, managing actor panic, sponsorship crises and sexual intrigue with charismatic Theo whom she’s addicted to though married to off-stage Charles. Her exchanges with Ashley are a high-point of naturalistic dialogue and wit… a ‘creative’ Cat exudes quick-witted, sure-footed poise …”

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

“… director Cat – under the guise of briefing her actors – fills us in on exactly how radiation poisoning eats the human body from inside. This has to rank as one of the smartest devices I’ve ever seen at the Fringe, and on the whole it works remarkably well …”

Fringe Guru
Richard Stamp

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The Neverland Singularity

“Philippa Hammond is beautifully priggish … Hammond does a fine job of registering off-hand impatience gradually assaulted by Everchild’s gift of chirpy petulance, nagging and irritating Hammond into losing her temper but not her reason … It’s a perfect ten-minute play”

Sussex Playwrights Reviews
Simon Jenner

“ … extremely good comedy … “

The Argus
Barrie Jerram

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Last Supper

“Mary Wollstonecraft played by Philippa Hammond … to the outrage of Mary, the supervisor reveals that her private diaries have been published by ‘Penguin’. As Mary hears of this unknown evil that is ‘Penguin’ she becomes incensed, creating such sharp humour and wit and joy …”

Fringe Review
Olivia Sewell

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Fanny Hill [Edinburgh Fringe]

“ ***** … That Philippa Hammond, in the role of Fanny, can narrate at the same time as simulating a good back-alley rogering is remarkable … This is a genuinely good production. … Fringe drama doesn’t come any more stimulating than this.”

The List
Ross Holloway

“ … Philippa Hammond is instantly likeable as the much-sought-after Fanny, and brings an unexpected grace and vulnerability to the character … Afterthought Productions have a scorcher of a show on their hands with this one. It’s sure to be a hit with Fringe audiences. Get your ticket now, because Fanny Hill is going to sell out … “

Edinburgh Evening News
Liam Rudden

“ … The play is packed with erotic adventures of all shapes and sizes nailed by a versatile cast which delights in taking many parts, dropping many breeches and lifting many skirts. It’s deliciously naughty and well worth staying up for … “

The Scotsman
Jane-Ann Purdy

“…Philippa Hammond, as Fanny, provides a calm and assured narration of her exploits …”

The Stage
Andrew Aldridge

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Glimpse: An Honorary Man, Turning the Handle, Little Girls Like To Kiss, Backstage Whispers

“ … drama, suspense and genuine laughs. Glimpse is a collection of four one-act plays by Thomas Everchild, all performed by Philippa Hammond … Glimpse is graspable, engrossing and very entertaining; channel-flicking glances at scenes you won’t want to switch over.”

The Argus
Lyndsey Winship

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Glimpse: Turning the Handle

“ … a charming solo turn …”

The Argus
Louise Schweitzer

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Glimpse Part One: An Honorary Man & Turning The Handle [Edinburgh Fringe]

“ **** … Hammond is served well by two three-dimensional, literate and dramatic scripts written by Thomas Everchild and she displays brilliant talent in interpreting them for us. It is spellbinding and entertaining, heart rending and humorous. An hour was all too short … “

The Scotsman
Roderick Graham

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Glimpse Part Two: Little Girls Like To Kiss & Backstage Whispers [Edinburgh Fringe]

“ **** … Glimpse is a collection of four solo shows presented by Philippa Hammond … And very good they are too … understated and impressively controlled … Hammond excels … Glimpse is impressive, and well-named; fleeting moments of subtle theatrical insight … “

The Scotsman
James Kirkup

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The Comedy of Errors [Shoreham Wordfest and Brighton Open Air Theatre]

“Philippa Hammond as quick-change Luce, the more attractive servant, feists away at this as well as a truculent merchant earlier on, and with gravitas, vocal clarity and projection as Aemilia, now abbess …Hammond is superbly-voiced particularly as Aemilia and is one of those who finds all eyes on her when she requires it … a light-footed, thump-fisted, limp-wristed and eye-poppingly uproarious production …”

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

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Protect & Survive: Day Zero + 120

‘Fantastic performance as the Farmer’
Simon Moorhead, producer / director

‘Wonderful burr and her variety of pacing and delivery is a delight’
Simon Jenner, author

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Extraordinary Tales [three audio drama series episodes]

‘A big thank you for all of your work last Sunday. I loved your performances in the various roles across the plays. As always it was a pleasure to work with you.’
Simon Moorhead, producer TBC Audio

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Tales of a Timelord: The World That Shouldn’t Be

‘ You sound SO SO bad ass. You’re defo our scariest chracter to date, You’re scarier than the daleks! … ‘

Invokal, director

“Highly Recommended Show”

One of the finest OFS productions. Its velocity, tumbling comedy and bawdy, tragedy through lightning brawls, rapier-wit foiled in quicksilver, rapiers foiling wit, headlong teen despair, the exaltation of love flown in lyric sonnets and defying stars: it’s all here, principally because of three outstanding actors. The Romeo of newcomer Isabella Leung, who’s never played Shakespeare in her life, the return of Catie Ridewood as Juliet. And the return from that golden season of 2021: David Samson as Mercutio.

Directed and Produced by Joanna Rosenfeld, Supported by and Costumes provided by Gladrags Community Costume Resource. Set pieces provided by IC Theatre Brighton and Duncan Henderson

Music arranged and performed by Katarina Henderson and Cast‘His style is hope, his message is despair’ so wrote Edmund Wilson of Scott Fitzgerald and I sometimes think that’s exactly the tone needed in this play.

So after last week’s The Taming of the Shrew it’s …. Romeo and Juliet.  For the second of three productions of its fourth season, One Fell Swoop alights on St Nicholas Rest.

And this is frankly one of the finest OFS productions I’ve seen. Its velocity, tumbling comedy and bawdy, tragedy through lightning brawls, rapier-wit foiled in quicksilver, rapiers foiling wit, headlong teen despair, the exaltation of love flown in lyric sonnets and defying stars: it’s all here, principally because of three actors. They recall that tone captured supremely by Zeferelli: exuberance, exalted lyricism, comedy plunging to tragedy on a knife-edge.

There’s sterling performances, and solid ones, but the three that tell are outstanding. The Romeo of newcomer Isabella Leung, who’s never played Shakespeare in her life, the return of Catie Ridewood as Juliet. And the return from that golden season of 2021: David Samson as Mercutio.

For those who don’t know OFS: Scripts in hand, the actors have from Thursday night to Saturday to scan lines from a Shakespeare they’ve not been told about, do one rehearsal, then… unlocked. It’s a bit like Read Not Dead at the Globe: but edgier. Here fresh invention’s not yet dry, sticks like greasepaint; and Shakespeare’s still scribbling the last act in the wings.

Today’s director Joanna Rosenfeld developed with Conor Baum – who originated OFS in lockdown zoom – the project of performing all Shakespeare’s plays over several seasons. Here’s Season 4 and No. 17, and there’s well maybe another 23 to go if you include the late Double Falsehood (the ‘recovered’ Cardenio) and Edward III which Shakespeare wrote early on with Kyd.

It’s still brave and necessary; the flavour can be of a workshop in the open air attended by people who are by now up for an experience like no other. There’s ways this will morph to keep its freshness and rationale but today it’s working.

Using the St Nicholas space, this production encircles the audience like a doughnut, as Rosenfeld explained. And we swivel round for the final scene. It’s vivid, up-close, well-blocked, the action swirling round, leaping on graves and monuments. The rationale, provincial Verona with accents to match, is one of the very best I’ve seen in recent years. As we’ll see it gets the dynamic, the flavour of motivation, as metropolitan thinking doesn’t.

This starts well as Charles Church’s Prologue slouches and confides his authoritative, deliberately provincial way with the narration, leaning on a tomb: there’s a lot of that. This slight backwater tang suits Verona as a concept, and works for a setting. The principals have burned that tang off in sheer vocal intensity.

Church has sadly nothing else to do but his fight direction is everywhere and it’s superb. Before the climactic duels, there’s real scrapping in the opening servants’ scenes, gaffer accents on those like Kate Isitt’s Sampson, full of sneer and skirling abuse, with Alexia Broadbent’s Abram, turning the “bite your thumb” a thing of scorn; Moses Azadeh Sedgley’s Gregory. Deidre Rose’s first role as Serving Man is chocked with fleer and taunt; and to add fuel to all, last week’s co-director Alex Louise as fiery Tybalt who’d love to strew the ground with dead Montagues in the way others love sex. Louise’s Tybalt is keen to let swords speak, and in her hands, words are merely the cocking mechanism. She returns as a trembling Apothecary.

Indeed Montague turns up, with Sharon Drain instead of being a grave and sober peacemaker, is here a vicious gangland don. There’s nothing of his rearing Romeo, as Capulet avers, as a “well-governed youth”.  The peace-making Montague cousin – Benvolio – in the consummate Zoe Bouras’ reading, is full of peacemaking and quick, anxious rushes. The tumbling violence is too much though; not even the elders here want to keep peace. It’s part of the unceasing lightning warfare director Rosenfeld wants to emphasize; it comes to a head in the most unexpected way.

Seerché Deveraux’ Prince Escalus (the police helmet’s a bit daft) is good at grave warning, causing the cessation of violence for the time being. Deveraux gets the essential gravitas here and in the aftermath of the fatal duelling scenes. I miss her at the end.

Philippa Hammond‘s Nurse is well-drawn, uncomprehendingly pragmatic when only empathy will do and prattling with dispatch so the audience is never tired even if Susan Manning’s Lady Capulet is. Manning’s a study in alienation, hardened off by grief, not here an abused wife, but a dried-up woman with shafts of warmth, turning to stern rejection. Here there’s no empathy or pity, but a don’s wife following commands. Hammond’s Nurse meanwhile isn’t averse to flirtation “all a-quiver” as she responds with a sexual frisson to Mercutio’s sallies, however misogynistic they turn out to be.

The great ball is beautifully realised, with masks and music curated and performed by Katarina Rosenfeld, an energised set-piece setting off Julien McDowell’s Capulet as a beneficent don wishing to ride out small scraps and avoid brawls, but who increasingly, with (again) his rustic provincial tang, proving hard and uncomprehending at Juliet’s refusals.

One sees here as McDowell fully absorbs Rosenfeld’s vision, a backwater society, again not metropolitan, where everything’s burned in microcosm. It’s an important foil to gangland London, often reached for in London productions. Verona’s small enough for these grandees to matter. With only one authority above them.

It’s here that Isabella Leung’s phenomenal Romeo first shines. Leung inhabits all the speaking verse with clarity but pitched way beyond that to extremes when it matters and a rubato of softer chidings and repertoire of banter with Mercutio when not suffering. But – and this is crucial – Leung reaches the highest points of lyricism speaking love-sonnets to Ridewood, and at the same time can explode howling in her later “Then I defy you stars” and in a growl of rage both to Tybalt and later, Paris. She outshines in this and her headlong, lyrical disastering all recent Romeos I’ve seen.

Ridewood, not notably girlish or sweetly-innocent to begin with (as some are) is more emotionally late-teen. She’s self-conscious, slightly ambushed rather than totally blindsided, when countering her disposition to be married. “It is an honour… I dreamt not of” she says carefully. Ridewood soon launches on a rapt understanding of passion in a way few I’ve seen match recently. There’s been two great Juliets of recent years (one only just finished), and if you’ve seen either you might feel Ridewood could join them in a third production.

But above all it’s the way Leung and Ridewood interact. The outpouring of their sonnet-courting, which instantly dispenses with any flirting: the raw absolute of their love; the soaring of all those famous lines, including Ridewood’s overheard soliloquy, so pointed in its exaltation. Their ecstatic alternation of loving and parting quivers on the top of a gravestone. It does service for Juliet’s balcony and bed, sashaying dream and reality with lark and nightingale, Leung stretched between a raised box and the lower lip of the gravestone, refusing to take leave. You can’t fake such intensity and this duet is the finest I’ve seen at OFS.

The ball’s framed by the brilliance of Samson’s Mercutio scenes before and after. Samson’s Mercutio is full of vaulting unambition, exuberant with truculence. His vocal production is absolute, clarion-voiced, funny with those masks and with the right crescendo of delivery, railing  at Romeo and later, Tybalt. He speaks verse and beat with laughter rippling it. There’s been a disappointing run of Mercutios in mainstream Romeo and Juliets recently, often too slow, and if paced at all lacking his sheer manic self-destructiveness. Samson doesn’t quite wish to suggest a bipolar Mercutio, more the blazing noon that’s over before one.

Samson by contrast attacks Mercutio’s wit and light sneer, the ferocious, almost death-wishing voice-fleer at Alex Louise’s Tybalt. Their passados of verse give way to athletic knife-fights and gangland brawls – a given of all R&Js recently. Here though both throw off an energy neither Bouras’ Benvolio or Leung’s Romeo can dent. His death-scene is fully realised, wit and bitterness writing his epitaph in his own blood.

Duncan Henderson’s Friar Lawrence eschews either the bumbling meddling friar, or the quick-witted one so like Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure, nearly getting it right. Entering with his herb basket he keeps the even tenor of that, refusing tricks or variance, and remains detached: even, infuriatingly superior in his homily to the devastated Capulet family at Juliet’s supposed death.  It explains wanting to make himself scarce when Juliet wakes to disaster.

Incidentally, this is where Rose’s Paris scores beautifully. An unsympathetic character recently, blind to his advances so blatantly unwanted by Juliet (those are abridged here but apparent) this Paris explodes in genuine grief along with the Capulets. Rose’s Romeo-challenging Paris is simply uncomprehending but again Church’s fight-direction provides a knife-fight-scene remarkable for its desperation.

Again too the fifteen-year-old Sedgley’s stepped up in a variety of small roles (Paris’ Page, Nurse’s put-upon servant Peter, as well as Montague servant Gregory and a citizen) and provides variety with a surprising end riven with pathos. Alexia Broadbent, after street-fighting Abram makes an impression as Friar John out of their depth in the letter-fracas, is finally a terrified Watch.

This is a production when the repeated mantra of “stars” between the lovers morphs in an eclipse of fortune and literally star-crossing becomes a vocal star-stabbing. Leung’s “Then I defy you stars” as suggested is an animal howl like I’ve never seen, and truer than any Romeo in this. Leung’s death-throes too are shiveringly visceral. Ridewood matches her in her bewildering terror and iron resolve. Unless Escalus is due to appear, here’s the real end of this play.

There’s an ingenious epilogue. Sharon Drain’s far more brutish-than-normal Montague along with McDowell’s Capulet arrive then dispatch opposing servants/friends (Paris’ Page and Benvolio) instead of reconciling; and Prince Escalus is nowhere to be seen.

It’s a view, but Shakespeare’s is still better – not through over-fidelity to the script, which serves him badly (witness his own alterations to the Hamlet and Lear quartos and Folio); but because of the way this tragedy’s shaped: the arc of its headlong velocity and release above all. The lovers’ tragedy must conquer all too, including realism. You can abridge and end with the lovers dead, as several now do. But to land as tragedy, the death here must tell. It must mean something.

The unceasing violence of gangland can serve as backdrop but it can’t rewrite catharsis. It wrong-foots the audience; as it ends without closure and people clapped raggedly for a while before catching themselves with the enormous power of the leads.

However, Rosenfeld didn’t let her decision clutter the integrity of the lovers’ end. Happily Leung and Ridewood burn through memory so much, that footnotes clear themselves away as actors rise. Rosenfeld must feel as exalted as the company to have drawn together such players and let them blaze.

Published August 28, 2023 by Simon Jenner

Fringe Review

“Exciting Work”

Henry V, like last year’s Hamlet, is divided, again like Caesar’s Gaul, into three parts. So invading France in the person of a trinity has classical precedent. The word-tossing chorus shared by the 18-strong company proclaim a fleet, sleeked-down version. The action stays where it is. No swivels to a new forest, but containing energy in a leafy-ringed O. This works admirably – pent-up testosterone, even development of steely diplomacy and central war panels all cry on containment.

A satisfying seasonal finale: a clear, engaging, visceral production with nothing vital lost. It’s as straight-down-the-martial line as outdoor productions of Henry V need to be.

Produced by Joanna Rosenfeld who co-directs with Richard Waring, Supported by and Costumes provided by Gladrags Community Costume Resource. Set pieces provided by IC Theatre Brighton and Duncan Henderson

Music arranged by Katarina Rosenfeld and performed by Kristoff Imre.And this final week of The One Fell Swoop Project at St Nicholas Rest, is – Henry V.

It was always going to be a big finish. Photographs of cast shoreline excursions suggested the Channel, more beguilingly Pericles, itself mostly set by the sea. Another time.

After last week’s marvellous Romeo and Juliet we’re less centred on three outstanding character performances as three performances of one character. The eponymous Henry V, like last year’s Hamlet, is divided, again like Caesar’s Gaul, into three parts. So invading France in the person of a trinity has classical precedent.

For those who don’t know OFS: Scripts in hand, actors have from Thursday to Saturday to scan lines from a Shakespeare, do one rehearsal, then… unlocked. It’s like Read Not Dead at the Globe: but edgier. Here fresh invention’s not yet dry, sticks like greasepaint; Shakespeare’s still scribbling the last act in the wings.

Co-director and OFS actor Richard Waring joins Joanna Rosenfeld, who developed with Conor Baum – who originated OFS in lockdown zoom – the project of performing all Shakespeare’s plays over several seasons. Here’s the end of Season 4 and No. 18, and there’s just maybe another 22 to go if you include the late Double Falsehood (the ‘recovered’ Cardenio) and Edward III which Shakespeare wrote early on with Kyd.

There’s warpaint (applied to all!). Kristof Imre, resident musician under Katarina Rosenfeld’s musical direction provides a fine battery of war-drumming through an awning that accompanies well-blocked battles, engaging us with freeze-frames and sticks, like demented Morris-dancers. It only needs even more drumming and sonic mayhem.

The word-tossing chorus shared by the 18-strong company proclaim a fleet, sleeked-down version. Not just making brief work of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Julian McDowell, excellent in this and as chorus) but in blocking, the panoramic sweep around the far end of St Nicholas Rest, scolloping an audience horseshoe.

The action stays where it is. No swivels to a new forest, but containing energy in a leafy-ringed O. This works admirably – pent-up testosterone, even development of steely diplomacy and central war panels all cry on containment.

So we don’t have the vaulting intimacies of last week Little is intimate, not Harry in the night or so-called wooing at the end.

Rosenfeld’s is a refreshingly straight take; it pays dividends. No darkening Henry into a casual psychopath, or Adrian Lester’s Henry (as I was reminded by Richard Crane) in the wake of the Iraq War. More recently, in the long-withdrawing roar of Brexit – there’s been depictions of unwarranted aggression or cheap isolationism. It’s a three-piece-suite of clarion action.

So Sharon Drain, Sascha Cooper, Miles Mlambo take up the gauge flung down by Rosenfeld, as Henry. Drain’s the sinewy politic Henry. Her thorny crown (worn by each) nods preparations and rationales McDowell’s Archbishop obligingly lays before her.

The first tableau is executing three traitors (Alexia Broadbent, Robert Cohen, Sam Chittenden as Cambridge, Grey and Scroop respectively). After the Richard III-like swivel on the trio, they kneel, are lopped remotely. This memorable scene repeats in the mass prisoner-execution later.

Drain’s climactic speech is Harfleur where she brings a ringing iron. This is silvery politic Henry. Drain could have excelled in some later scenes too.

Cooper is clarion personified. She brings terrific voice, vocally rounded; like Drain speaks verse with a force of her own. She also delights in more humour, ideal for the night scenes before battle where she twits Sam Chittenden’s Michael Williams and (here) Alex Louise’s excellent, bullish Pistol.

Both Drain and Cooper bring great clarity to their role; the striding-out of Cooper, puckish edges recalling the ghost of Hal past, is infectious. I confess to wanting more Cooper.

Mlambo’s come a long way since the 2021 season, and his performance comes as a revelation. Not only is his rationale equal to his predecessors, but with weight and – like them – expressive variation – he presents a Henry able to think in the moment. His voice rings with martial strength and cut-through.

Mlambo brings presence too and a believable Henry both to war and wooing – without gimmick or shadow of sexual assault. There’s a gleam of humour, if not latent comedy of Cooper, but a palpably-moulded captain you believe in. He picks up Cooper’s gauntlet towards Chittenden’s truculent, but courageous Williams too with a nice pause, enjoying discomfort and outrage.

Chittenden as McMorris enjoys sparring moments with Zoe Bouras’s Fluellen who knows how to point and sharpen Shakespearean blank verse, as well as accent. Both here and in all her reports to Henry, Bouras stiffens the joints and sinews of this production. Not least in her trouncing of Pistol.

Louise’s Pistol is well-founded, truculent too but more sympathetic, even when thrashed with a leek by Bouras’ Fluellen. Indeed you never quite believe that Pistol’s much worse than luckless Alexia Broadbent’s numb sulk-laden Nym, and Bardolph (with Philippa Hammond refusing to take looting seriously).

Hammond is sterling as Westmorland and more uproariously as horse-obsessed Duke of Bourbon where she can again – as with Bardolph – throw out exuberance. In this she’s joined by Broadbent’s Duke of Burgundy in similar vein, allowing Broadbent more scope than the sober, sad Gloucester, Nym or Cambridge roles.

Against them Alissandra Henderson’s Boy, as well as French lady-in-waiting Alice and latterly French ensign Mountjoy, cuts an assured youthful figure with a gift for stillness. It’s good to see her again.

Good to see Robert Cohen enter OFS too. Though he takes small roles like traitor Gray, comically terrified French soldier taken by Pistol, soldier John Bates and Sir Thomas Erpingham and carves vignettes of all, he brings gravitas to the King of France.

Cohen, known (like Sam Chittenden and Duncan Henderson) as a dramatist around Shakespeare is skilled in blank-verse. His sober, equivocal, pragmatic France manages dignity in abjection.

Because OFS offers rotational opportunities, Duncan Henderson this week has less to do: a joust of a role as the Duc d’Orléans which he moulds well; more as the able Captain Jamy. It matters less this week, surprisingly, that we have less Henderson, but experienced voices are still at a premium.

Nevertheless we were in for a revelation. Wendy Hemmings-Quelch (replacing Seerche Devereux, sadly ill) came late to the cast but was strong as the fighting Duke of Bedford, the supplicating Governor of Harfleur, and finally a precious, preening Dauphin, rubbing Cohen’s King up the wrong way. A vigorous debut, someone who speaks the verse with power and cut-through.

Isabella Leung, last week’s magnificent Romeo, ably takes on the serpentine Bishop of Ely, pushing Henry willingly to war. As well as  Fluellen’s actively-voiced second, Captain Gower, Monsieur le Fer the luckless French negotiator, and Lord Rambures.

Deidre Rose, who impressed as last week’s Paris, manages to scramble dignity as the French Ambassador and some pathos as Mistress Quickly in the pre-embarkation scene with the post-Falstaffian trio, reporting too the old knight’s death.

Ava Dodsworth, prancing as Duke of Brittany (those horses), and Lord Grandpré takes on that most difficult wooed scene in Shakespeare. Her Katherine floats wittily around Alissandra Henderson’s Alice; against Mlambo’s Henry she manages mute dignity.

The wooing isn’t as brusque as some. In her interactions with Cohen’s King, Dodsworth shows less fear. Chemistry with Mlambo suggests this Katherine knows she can draw out her tiny moment of deferral, size up being propositioned at least by a flourishing man wooing for himself; not a pewling nine-year-old.

Sophie Methuen Turner has less to do but ably dispatches politic Warwick, commending Henry’s maturity to Ely; the Constable of France in all their hauteur, and another fighting Earl, Salisbury.

Finally Moses Sedgley, still 15, goes from strength to sober power as ill-fated Duke of York, Henry’s brother, plain-speaking Alexander Court and rampant Duke of Exeter.

It’s a satisfying seasonal finale: a clear, engaging, visceral production with nothing vital lost. It’s as straight-down-the-martial line as outdoor productions of Henry V need to be. And though there’s 22 plays to go, we’re reminded by Rosenfeld OFS can only aspire to be here next year. Those who’ve kept faith over four seasons hope they will.

Published September 4, 2023 by Simon Jenner

Fringe Review

“Highly Recommended Show”

From Simon Moorhead’s The Other 1% five new stories, three already recorded, are directed by Sorcha Brooks with Moorhead as technical supervisor, in Sweetwerks 2. Props are minimal. A lamp, a table: Jackanory for naughty Millennials.

This is the tip one might say of the Titanic’s iceberg. What lurks beneath is infinitely vaster and its creators would say, darker. We’re just brushed with a kiss of ice this evening.

Simon Moorhead’s had a remarkable career as an award-winning producer in film and TV. When he created a radio podcast company, he set himself the task of producing an original radio podcast every Friday. He first drew upon TV writers he knew, then a range of new talent centred around, but not exclusive to Brighton. Both communities stream in stories, both recorded and here acted. Some are filmed too. Look up The Other 1%.

It’s about the 1% of phenomena that can’t be explained, after all the hoaxes, hallucinations, phenomena that can be quantified and false memory are cleared away. There’s a lot of that, 99% in fact. But that hard core of 1% is where we’re headed.

As creator and curator of The Other 1% Live Moorhead was due to host a set a year ago, though illness intervened. Back here five new stories, three already recorded, are directed by Sorcha Brooks with Moorhead as technical supervisor, in Sweetwerks 2. Props are minimal. A lamp, a table: Jackanory for naughty Millennials. And we are showered with sweets.

A Joel Gray from the dark side, Jon Campling ‘The Velvet Duke’ more than presides around each story, or throws sweets. His long-face demeanour his cackling on the side of burlesque and his own recited verses from memory set a jocular uneasiness throughout. It’s no disrespect to the excellent readers to say he’s the consummate star of this production. And he does make you sing what you might not want to….

Mr Gunn by Gareth Strachan

Eva Savage read the first, whose clear narrative from the naïve point of a gun, as it were is grippingly faux tale of a poor gun taken from his cardboard and glass display heaven and having little guns loaded into his barely-belly as Strachan expresses it, and wants to discharge these irritants. The ink man who discharges them isn’t to his taste either. But help can be triggered.. There’s a podcast. Go to it. Savage read with appropriate, wide-eyed childish malevolence.

Angel Islington by Laura Lockington and Grant Gillespie

This is a new piece by the writing team who als produce the alst story. Russell Shaw inhabits the tube driver with his dayglo jacket to perfection. A man in front of, under his tube. But he saw him pushed. There’s a slow build to this, an incremental mass of details, though like the next story it’s related to police officers. And they have doubts.

The More Loved by Neil Noon

Read by the renowned actor Shirley Jaffe, this is a tale of another kind of curator, a lobbing one telling the police by roundabout routes how a famous artist dies collapsing down stairs. And why did she detroy his only figurative paintigns no-one ever saw? And in what state was his dead wife when she modelled for them. Did she even know, and what are the consequences? Why did this stalwart and occasional lover feel she had to protect both painter and wife? And will anyone believe what she saw happen?

Garbage Man by Vladimir Moriozov and Gareth Strachan

THre’s mutations, as read by Matt Beaumont gives a gaunt, thoroughly convincing portrayal of a man living on plastic and aluminium. And he’s not alone. Strachan returns collaborating with one of his Russian writing students to bring forth a take out of Putin’s Russian where infected dogs and a novel way of cleaning up has unexpected consequences. It’s a brief evocative snapshot of St Petersburg too. Hopefully Strachan will produce more from this source.

Delicacy by Laura Lockington and Grant Gillespie

This has proved a firm favourite with discerning listeners, but makes rather a lot of people lurch out of the room. Philippa Hammond gives a reassuringly consummate performance of a woman on the dark net producing a podcast on extreme cooking. If you follow he guidelines on some dangerous means you’ll survive. But the various animals certainly won’t. Orang-utans fried with just a hint of orange in palm oil, various sucking pigs pulled from their sow and roasted, milk adding just a piquant flavour. There’s other animals still alive dropped into vats. And this means songbirds chirping…. But there’s something else this woman’s finally venturing on. Anyone know Swift’s A Modest Proposal? This exceeds it, in a very different way.

This is the finest story, and the preceding is as concise and evocative. Together with Mr Gunn, which doesn’t seem too much longer, their concision scores in punch and surprise over length. But all are worth hearing again.

Don’t worry if you’ve missed this. The stories are up, or will be. Not for those of – oh go and listen!

Published October 18, 2019 by Simon Jenner

Fringe Review

“If you remember the Eighties, you probably remember Protect and Survive – a notoriously grim government pamphlet telling citizens what to expect during a nuclear war. This intelligently-constructed play recreates some of that Cold War terror, and reminds us of a truth we seem in danger of forgetting: that there are still weapons against which we cannot protect, and wars which we cannot survive.

The horror of the hydrogen bomb would be impossible to recreate on stage, and Protect and Survive is wise enough not to try. Instead, very cleverly, we see the recording of a radio play; unashamedly modelled on genuine TV dramas like The War Game and Threads, the story surrounds the collapse of civilisation in the aftermath of nuclear war. As the actors gather round microphones, they rehearse selected scenes from their performance scripts – a gambit which offers playwright Jonathan Williamson the perfect licence to skip to the darkest moments in his plot.

It also provides an excellent excuse for some shameless exposition, as director Cat – under the guise of briefing her actors – fills us in on exactly how radiation poisoning eats the human body from inside. This has to rank as one of the smartest devices I’ve ever seen at the Fringe, and on the whole it works remarkably well …

The scenes we see are uncompromising, and powerfully delivered by a uniformly compelling cast. Even though this is notionally a radio play, there’s enough physicality to maintain our interest, and to capture the increasing brutality as society degenerates from brutal martial law to unrestrained feral disorder. It’s all interspersed with genuine quotes from the original Protect and Survive public information films – a periodic warning that what we’re seeing is not a fanciful horror story, but a realistic scenario our country once prepared for.

So it’s surprising to note that Protect and Survive is also a witty, enjoyable show. The key to that lies again in the clever concept: because we’re watching a play being recorded, we get to see the actors bantering, squabbling, and occasionally snogging between scenes. The observations and the thespian in-jokes are very sharp indeed, and the (real) actors all draw their (fictional) characters with enough detail to make us care. It all adds up to a counterpoint to the bleakness, a continual reminder of the flawed but vibrant world a nuclear war would destroy.

A year ago, you might have questioned the value of resurrecting this distant slice of Cold War history; but with bellicose rhetoric increasing across the Atlantic, it doesn’t feel so distant any more. Referring to Threads, Neil Kinnock once said that the story of a post-nuclear society needs to be told time and time again. This particular telling is a worthy response to that still-relevant call.”

Fringe Guru
Richard Stamp

Brighton Festival Fringe
Writer: Jonathan Williamson
Producer: Simon Moorhead (TBC Audio)
Director: Thomas Everchild
Cast: Tigger Blaize, Philippa Hammond, Justin K Hayward, Jack Kristiansen, Penny Scott-Andrews, Amy Sutton

“Recommended Show”

“Imagine it’s three minutes to midnight before a nuclear winter. And that’s slipped on January 26th this year to two-and-a-half. Jonathan Williamson’s created a laconic take on the old 1970s-80s nuclear holocaust warnings directed by Thomas Everchild under the auspices of TBC Audio and Simon Moorhead’s production – who also supply the radio studio set with some fine lighting effects.

Protect and Survive re-imagines the period re-enacted in a 2017 Brighton studio with actors recreating the feel and scare of the times – including digitalized re-tracings we’re told on old C90 tape and back again which produces the acronym DAD. It’s almost nostalgic, then a little bit not. The scenario as presented before arrival suggests real events take over. That doesn’t happen which is a pity.

St Andrews is a generous venue, and the set’s convincingly constructed. Sound engineer Ashley (Amy Sutton) encourages the audience to produce sound effects of screams and cries of ‘food’ and ‘give us some food’ recording all in bytes before racing off to the mixing cabin. It’s an excellent participation gambit and ought to be repeated. Throughout this, Sutton’s acting as the unflappable precise laid-back sound engineer who sees everything is one of the production’s chief delights.

Six actors re-create… actors and managers. Pippa Hammond’s Director Cat is like Sutton a perfectly-cast, cast-ingot actor, managing actor panic, sponsorship crises and sexual intrigue with charismatic Theo whom she’s addicted to though married to off-stage Charles. Her exchanges with Ashley are a high-point of naturalistic dialogue and wit.

Ashley’s a quietly loyal enabler, often stingingly accurate in assessing everyone including a light-touch critique of Cat’s fixation on Theo: she doesn’t trust him, hinting she’s discovered an inadvertent recording of their lovemaking. Given adults themes are highlighted I half-expected this to burst on us at an inopportune moment in the recording process. Perhaps it should. There’s an Ayckbournesque potential in this narrative that isn’t quite tapped.

Like Ashley a ‘creative’ Cat exudes quick-witted, sure-footed poise tip-toeing emotional holes and catty Saffron’s barbs aimed at everyone, particularly Julia and Peter and hints at Cat’s affair. Even Theo’s trips to the toilet (coke?) are spun as STD. Penny Scott-Andrews’s Saffron exudes an edgy nastiness contrasting with in-character vulnerability of a child-like order.

Tigger Blaize playing Julia portrays a less glamorous right-on type born of a Greenham Common mother. Despite Saffron’s attempts to suggest Peter might be her father (being an old CND type) Blaize creates a niche of jobbing actor with the inverse of Saffron’s pretensions.

Justin K Hayward’s previous life included being lance-carrier for Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet. ‘He never called for me again: too much competition.’ Theo-besotted Cat demotes Peter from one role but leaves him as old-style BBC announcer. His deadpan punctuations under spectral lighting renders him a kind of spectral visitor, studding the performance. Shadowy vulnerability is etched on his bow tie and formal garb.

Jack Kristiansen’s Theo promises well, though doesn’t get the opportunity to deliver the danger his character’s set up to. The plot envelope of jobbing actors creating a radio programme is an extremely promising one not fully realized here, given the six characters are well-delineated with actors well-equipped to portray them.

The various scenarios presented, progressive horrors facing dying and endangered survivors of nuclear fall-out, are well wrapped as Cat and Ashley co-ordinate, cajole and occasionally re-take scenes: a progressive falling-apart of humanity over several months, detailing physical decay, ending in death by septicemia, rape and delivery of a child on a women-led commune.

One highlight arrives as those very cries we enacted for the boom are fed together in a scene where the army captain (Theo) directs his men to fire tear gas canisters directly into the crowd killing some, to prevent their reaching army-hoarded food. They’re trampled. Superb as this scene is, especially in this generous acoustic, characters’ dialogue is lost. Overall, though, this conveys a densely informed, terrible topic in a potentially ideal format: the bustle of studio-acting politics. Such a non-preachy manner needs more narrative to bounce off. Alistair Beaton’s recent Fracked! subverts untreated info by guying it or edging into the mouths of characters from both sides who develop half-lives of their own. Williamson’s clearly inspired by similar instincts and needs to give himself permission.

On the opening night some technical issues only slightly delayed the performance. The ‘recording’ sign stayed stubbornly on throughout. Everchild knows his business and the whole piece moves seamlessly with no longueurs at all.

This is still a work-in-progress, needing more time to unfold – at least another ten-to-fifteen minutes – so characters’ sub-plot can breathe. The conclusion’s an aptly abrupt dismissal. The rest of the cast show their backs, as the dead, an unnerving bit of theatre business designed to occlude the baldness of the ending.

See this work for its outlined imagination, facts, most production values and acting. Just as nuclear bombs suck out the air from everywhere around it, this intriguing, often beautifully produced and certainly consummately-acted work just needs to breathe back some of that air.”

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

Last Supper formed part of the A Pro of Nothing anthology of short plays, written by Andrew Allen and directed by Andrew Allen and Michelle Donkin for the Hove Grown new drama festival.

“Recommended Show”

“From beginning to end Cast Iron’s A Pro of Nothing delights, intrigues and shocks. The evening consists of six short plays performed back to back by local actors. The writing was bold as were some of the performances. We are taken effortlessly into new worlds with each new play. This evening was one of pure delight and the packed audience howled with laughter and brimmed with anticipation, eagerness and readiness for the comic and tragic bombshells to hit…

…The second piece was called ‘Last Supper’ directed by Andrew Allen and Michelle Donkin. This piece transcends reality as we arrive at a dinner party set in the afterlife. We are met with Ghandi, incongruously and comically played by Alice Hiller, Mary Wollstonecraft played by Philippa Hammond and a self-deprecating Boots supervisor played by Barbara Halsey. It is the Boots supervisor’s ideal dinner party come to fruition according to Ghandi and the news that she is in fact dead slightly mortifies her, although more could have been made of this moment. To the outrage of Mary, the supervisor reveals that her private diaries have been published by ‘Penguin’. As Mary hears of this unknown evil that is ‘Penguin’ she becomes incensed creating such sharp humour and wit and joy to the audience.  We find out that Mary is no stranger to these dinner parties and frequents many, she informs her friends that she is no stranger to modern lingo and contemporary developments, philosophies and ideas as she has learnt from Freud as well as his partiality for pastries. This unique piece has us filled with wonder …

… Overall it was a highly entertaining evening of clever, innovative writing covering many genres, worlds, characters and stories and one of which its audience enjoyed tremendously … constantly shocked with its many twists and turns in both comedy and tragedy and so I award it the rating of ‘recommended’. Indeed some of the performances deserve a special accolade and the writing itself too. I left with a smile on my face, feeling attached to each of the characters and the unique narratives and having experienced a wonderfully intimate evening of such variety.”

Fringe Review
Olivia Sewell

Brighton Shakespeare Company at Brighton Open Air Theatre

“Highly Recommended Show“

“Directed by Mark Brailsford and with costumes designed by Sean Chapman this family-oriented production is segmented by a music system directed by Brailsford. The set’s by ‘Ethel Mermen’. The production’s in (Ancient Greek) period: with crisp white and bright shades. There’s a seductive backdrop panel of blue sky and Mediterranean turquoise sea, with two white Ionic columns bedecked with leaves resembling musical notes. The BOAT team supply standard facilities and lighting.

Brighton’s Open Air Theatre is hotting up with the weather. We’ve already had a thirsty slake of Shakespeare. There’s often either short-run experimental comedy productions or returning companies like The Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s Tempest during the Festival; and here the Brighton Shakespeare Company’s The Comedy of Errors.

Those who saw their A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year will know their style: Mark Brailsford’s company combine an opulent look (here Sean Chapman’s work courtesy of Gladrags) with a brisk sometimes headlong style beautifully paced for loping shadows in a June evening.

The set’s by ‘Ethel Mermen’. Right. Why not Sappho? The production’s certainly in (Ancient Greek) period, which our south-coast Mediterranean moment fits perfectly: lots of crisp white and bright shades. There’s a seductive backdrop panel of blue sky and Mediterranean turquoise sea, with two white Ionic columns going nowhere just for show, bedecked with leaves resembling musical notes.

The Comedy of Errors is the shortest and once thought earliest Shakespeare play. It’s not that early, dating from 1594. Though modelled on Plautus – with the classical twenty-four-hour action observed – it’s a fantastically compressed plot. There’s economical idiocies, an attitude towards women close to The Taming of a Shrew, violent slave-abuse and a finale of double-takes. No wonder it’s so popular. Well, perhaps for other reasons.

Poor merchant Aegeon of Syracuse has washed up on Ephesus and Paul Moriarty’s regal Solinus, Duke of Ephesus has to remind him that because of an anti-treaty he’s to die. Aegeon is permitted to relate his story: he lost a wife Aemilia and identical twin son at sea, together with a twin servant – twins bought and placed in service to the twin sons. Both merchant sons are called Antipholus – to help identification (groan); both servant twins, Dromio (and yes there were mutters of ‘wherefore art thou, Dromio?’ amongst seated thespians). One each remained to Aegeon but they went off seven years since to Corinth to seek out their twins, and haven’t been heard of. In fact they’ve just arrived here and because they came over from Corinth, not Syracuse, they’re safe. Andrew Crouch plays Antipholus of Syracuse as he’s known, and his Dromio’s Brailsford himself.

This is a quick-witted almost family production. There’s a few sexy but not really sexual references. In many productions the danger of a wife unwittingly enjoying a puzzled brother whilst he husband sulkily goes off the rails isn’t brought out, nor the wife’s importuning sexual attempts to bring her husband home. A little’s cut from the Courtesan’s role but the plot’s clear, the language for the most part projected and the fabulously bright costumes a delight. Very few props are needed. There’s sound system that blasts seraphic music every time a holy character’s about to walk on. A doorframe and bench, otherwise the ripe greenery of Adriana’s dress, Lucia’s blue, the white togas of the young masters and the servile friar brown of the servants contrast with the fantastical red-piped white goldsmith garb and a similar pink confection for Balthazar (one of Nathan Ariss’ several roles, here fruity and enormous fun).

And the other two? Here from birth. The merchant’s other son Antipholus (now) of Ephesus (Duncan Drury) has been in service to the Duke seven years, the length the other brother’s been in Corinth. His Dromio’s the puckish and sprightly Stewart Barham. No-one knows who they really are, or the fact that the other pair have washed up. Added to which Antipholus of Ephesus has married Adriana (Kerren Garner) who has an unmarried sister Luciana (Sophia Behn, expressive of wifely duty but suddenly falling for the ‘husband’) who enjoys eloquence and constantly chides her jealous splenetic sister, enjoining her to submit to her lord. Adriana has answers to that. Like get some experience first.

Behn edges from the smugness of her role to a bewildered fragility only held in check by her wit and eloquence. Garner progressively warms to her role with a vocal grounding by the end which matches her husband’s, and can yank him from a courtesan’s cheeky gaze.

Naturally everything goes wrong, the servants and masters mistake each other, a wife mistakes the wrong twin and takes him to her upper room (this is often sexually played out, but not here) whereas the real master and servant are refused entry, or even to be seen being judged imposters. Added to which there’s Brandon Jewell’s uproarious camp Goldsmith who gives an ordered necklace to the wrong brother and arrests the right one for not giving him the money, and so on.

The plot’s pithy, endlessly abusive of servants in the old Plautan way and we laugh heartily as he’s beaten up by each brother for getting as hopelessly confused as they, without of course anyone guessing why. Added to which when Antipholus of Ephesus doesn’t get his home oats he repairs to Sophie Flack the courtesan, gets a ring off her and we presume enjoys her company as his wife’s unwittingly entertaining his brother. Dromio of Ephesus too is being pursued by the offstage household’s spherical maid with country matters on her mind. Philippa Hammond as quick-change Luce the more attractive servant feists way at this as well as a truculent merchant earlier on and with gravitas vocal clarity and projection as… Aemilia, now abbess. Yes she’s been here all along too. By the time one set f twins lodge with her yet appear outside where the entire populace from the Duke down are assembled… Come and see.

Drury and Crouch enjoy a twin clarity, rationale, vocal projection timing and even look that make their respective acts treasurable. Their timbres are similar, though Drury the one with military experience is believable as one who ahs authority and a wife. Crouch plays his Antipholus as an assured adventurer but not one who has the assurance of a landed man. It’s a subtle distinction.

They ground the production in a believable cascade of errors. Barham, the Ephesus Dromio (indentured to Drury) enjoys a complete identification wit this kind of role: whether whining, flinching farting or floundering under a kick of instance, Barham’s facial expressions and physical contortions ar remarkable. He made an indelible impression last year ad doe so again. Brailsford keeping every part of this moving gets better and better as he Syracuse Dromio and he starts very well. He’s not as nimble or bendy as Barham who seems born to this but produces a perfect comic voice and a running-gag language that’s hugely enjoyable and subtly different.

Hammond is superbly-voiced particularly as Aemilia and is one of those who finds all eyes on her when she requires it. Flack’s winning and snake-hipped as Courtesan which helps as she comes wrapped with a snake. Her slinky voice revs up the part for laughs.

Ariss can’t be heard as the unfortunate condemned merchant Aegeon, except in snatches: his beard might have something to do with it. Released as Balthazar or Dr Pinch the Welsh quack he’s a revelation as a parodically-voiced bon-viveur or fire-breathing zealot.

Jewell is a discovery. Though his CV states he looks twelve (like Owen Jones) his frantic campery (it calms down) makes a so-so part a wild routine. He can already project with clarity and comic edge, turn a word into a flounce, an exit into ritual. One director muttered ‘see him at …’ and he’s that good. Katy Matthews levels well as officer and jailer.

Moriarty naturally as either a merchant or particularly the Duke is sovereign. His voice carries like a command through the incipient twilight, he conveys the essential kindness of a ruler who can’t reverse a decree yet wriggles everything to happiness when give half a chance. His costume’s a fitting statement in scarlet and white. Assistant director Sarah Mann (a superb lady Macbeth) this time doesn’t act which I hope marks merely a break.

This is a light-footed, thump-fisted, limp-wristed and eye-poppingly uproarious production. It eschews some of the darker sexual undercurrents and the madness is restricted to a few swordfights and two trussed men. Long may this company tie up our attention of a summer evening.”

Fringe Review
Simon Jenner

Short Play Night at The Barn Theatre, Shoreham
Writer/Director: Thomas Everchild
Performers: Philippa Hammond, Thomas Everchild

…Appearing in The Neverland Singularity [which he also wrote], Thomas Everchild played a taxi driver taking a scientist to a conference . Stuck in a traffic jam he tried to engage his fare in conversation which ranged from evolution and the existence of God to physics. With Philippa Hammond as his hapless passenger they provided extremely good comedy.”

The Argus
Barrie Jerram

Sussex Playwrights Short Play Night
Writer/Director: Thomas Everchild
Performers: Philippa Hammond, Thomas Everchild

“You know I had that Bertrand Russell in the back of my cab once, and I asked him well what’s it all about, and you know he couldn’t tell me.’ Maybe it’s urban myth out of stand-up; it probably happened.

There’s a couple of 2005 radio plays by poet Sean O’Brien exploring that perennial British fantasy: a working cabby or labourer confronted with a philosopher who then doesn’t just out-argue them, but shows a thorough knowledge and grounding in their works.

Whilst the mythical cabby pops the question our common sense wants to ask of inductive reasoning, and trounce it, O’Brien takes his cues from historical events. Everchild delights in that perennial the cabby bit does something else again: brings a sexual dynamic: man-in-the-street put-down meets chat-up.

Philippa Hammond is beautifully priggish, asking directions to the conference. Everchild works this out, the science one. He begins questioning Hammond simply, and Hammond does a fine job of registering off-hand impatience gradually assaulted by Everchild’s gift of chirpy petulance, nagging and irritating Hammond into losing her temper but not her reason: she can’t shut down the cabby’s maddening rationality. Each question builds up questions of stellar singularities and astro-physics, which Everchild increasingly shows he understands well in outline. Hammond’s character drops hauteur for mild outrage, but is hooked; her training, initially dismissive of stupid questions, can’t cope with left-field informed ones. This sparring reaches a catharsis and an unexpected (hoped-for) conclusion.

It’s a perfect ten-minute play, ideal for radio like Lancefield’s. Lighter by far in tone, it’s packed with clever interrogatives and leaves us a bit more enlightened on astral physics as well as cultural sexual politics.”

Sussex Playwrights Reviews
Simon Jenner