Lew's Reviews

Photo credit: Michael Zwiauer
"The Three Sisters" is a hugely ambitious project for an EUTC lunchtime - with a runtime of over 2 hours, and a stage transforming set, this production bears all the marks of a high budget mainterm.

"The Three Sisters" is a hugely personal show, mostly down to the fact that it's a Chekov. This means that some people will love it, some will hate it, and some will be largely indifferent.

I was somewhere between indifferent, and love. This was because I just felt that this is exactly what Bedlam needs, more quirky theatre. The vast majority of shows are modernly written political pieces or comedies, and this production made a nice change, even if some of the creative decisions didn't sit with me too well.

With a huge cast of 14 to go with a huge show, each of them had a moment to shine. Judith Gottesman in particular shone as Masha, along with Patrick Haworth as Alexander, rounded off by an ensemble that managed to steal the scene ev…

Design Credit: Jasmin Geissen
Bedlam Festival tends to be very hit and miss, with way more misses than hits. This manages to be both, for very good reasons.

As a concept, the play "I Am Woman" is absolutely fantastic: interview women and get their answers to questions including ones such as "what's your favourite thing about being a woman?" and "what song makes you feel empowered?", then dramatising the answers given, as well as the occasional prerecorded interjection from the interviews.

One of my favourite sequences was one of the questions mentioned above, where the actors danced to songs which the interviewees had picked. All five actors lead a song each, and then; they lead another song each. This is where I realised my main problem with the show: there was twice as much of everything as there needed to be. Where a section felt fresh for five minutes, it went on for another five. This show needed to be half an hour long, and if it was it would easi…