So where were you in the wee hours of this morning? In bed? Oh dear. All the cool kids were at the theatre. The Midnight Matinee is pretty self explanatory: a scratch night that kicks off at midnight and promises a mixed bill of new work, work-in-progress and general experiment. Last night’s installment featured some glorious music, some frankly alarming singing, some bloodletting, some belly laughs and just a few stifled yawns.
Finger In the Pie’s eponymous tale of Sweeney Todd is a grotesque, fearless and jaunty imagining of the youth of the celebrated serial killer. Macabre shadow puppets and psychotically folksy music lend an air of homemade menace to this funny, frightening story. A taut, traumatised, childlike Sweeney stumbles between appalling misadventures, toddling inevitably towards his epiphanic betrayal by the tart with bee-stung lips he gives his heart to. The different devised bits of this piece don’t yet run together as seamlessly as they might, but the ensemble’s energy and gallows humour is infectious, and there’s a memorable song about the virtues of gin that’s like having your brain torn to pieces by alley cats.
Angel by Matt Grinter, which follows, explores the familiar scenario of hostage and captor conversing at unlikely and unnecessary length. The real interest of the piece lies in Sam Donovan’s fine performance as a disintegrating cowboy, with credible horror in his eyes. His body’s all angles and odd contractions, and the dance of his creeping self-loathing is executed with finesse and chilling precision.
The last play of the night, The Muse by Matt Roberts, is a shouty, sprawly story about the collapse of ideals, and relationships falling apart. The depressingly predictable outcome doesn’t get any less predictable for being shoved to the beginning of the piece. But there’s a beautifully choreographed sequence of remembering, which fuses music and dialogue in a psychedelic montage with real style, fluidity and wit. And I’m not sure how or why (it was getting pretty late by this point) but Amy Nostbakken temporarily stole the show with a heartrending, hysterical song about a lost cat.
So, all in all, a night of mixed pleasures. But the Midnight Matinee is a great excuse to stay up late, have a few drinks and enjoy a few surprises, with the possibility of catching a theatrical gem in the making. That’s got to be worth a fiver of anyone’s money.
