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Tasha Dhanraj despairs of ever looking cool

Today, I have a wardrobe that is heaving. Problem is, all of the cardigans and dresses and trousers loudly shout one fact that most people spend their whole life trying to hide about themselves: I am totally uncool.
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“I hope your ten years were better than mine”, muttered Texan Pearson, referencing when his former band, Lift To Experience, last played here. Indeed, his band split up, he got married, then divorced and his recording output slowed considerably. This bleakness seeped into his skilful country sound with the odd classical guitar flourish and sprawling dirges with titles like ‘Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell’. Tempered by a drawling, self-deprecating humour, the end result was incredible: indulgent, miserable songs soared thanks to Pearson’s flawless performance and soulful charisma. The highlight of the weekend, surely, and possibly best-ever Great Escape show.

Pavilion Theatre, Brighton Dome, 13 May
Rating:
Nick Aldwinckle

First commissioned for the 2007 Brighton Festival, this amalgamation of five of Pinter’s later, overtly political plays takes place as a promenade performance in Brighton Town Hall.

Clever as it is to set these plays of conflict, power and oppression, in a government building, and the company say they want more for their audience than to sit in the dark and watch, this was nevertheless at its best in sections where one WAS able to sit and watch intently. Notably Pinter’s 1984 play ‘One For The Road’, set in a private committee room. “One has to be so scrupulous about language”, Nicolas, the interrogator says, and it is precisely Pinter’s attention to the exactness of language which can get lost in other parts of the production. Master of the theatrical pause, Pinter always allows space for the audience to think for themselves and at time at times this production seemed to fill all that space for us.

Did all five pieces work together as a whole? Not entirely. Is it worth seeing? Certainly, particularly for the wonderful Hugh Ross as Minister/Nicolas.

Brighton Town Hall, 11 May (until 29 May)
Rating:
Candy MacNamara

Five performances for an audience of five. It’s intimate, really intimate and it’s about intimacy too. Not for everyone perhaps but I loved this confrontational group of works that will no doubt court controversy in the weeks to come. To talk of the content would be to destroy the work on every level. What I will say is that the intellectual content far outweighs the visual. 5×5 is a cohesive group of ideas that works well enough, but I did crave some more visual poetry. Last year’s one-on-one Basement experience was visually more satisfying but only Adrian Howell’s Foot Washing back then had the depth of this years work. All that said, I enjoyed a great deal of this, the harmony singing, the humour and the brazen cheek and I left feeling charged and stimulated.

The Basement, 10 May
Rating:
Andrew Kay