Our latest reviews:

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

by Pat Ashworth - The Stage

 

Oddsocks must be one of the cheeriest companies in Britain, a band of strolling players who have fun with their audience even in the interval. Their stage is a lumbering old wagon with flaps lowered on rope pulleys for scene changes and they have no amplification or technical wizardry whatsoever. What ensues after the shout of, "Turn the cart", is a performance in itself.

A scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Thoresby Hall, Nottinghamshire
It’s an ad-libbing knockabout, exaggerated in every possible way to reach to the back of a large and picnicking audience. Six actors divide all the parts among them, with the biggest demand perhaps on Carrie Hill as a fireball Hermia and a mouthy, streetwise Puck, a punk in all but dress. She tosses on a dummy to lie in the forest and reappears as Puck in an impossibly short time. There must be a lot of Velcro being ripped in that tent behind the cart.

Andy Barrow capers in the grossest of beer bellies as Bottom, Andrew McGillan plays Oberon as a comically self-promoting cult figure, a leader of the pack, and Louise Hamer manages beautifully to delineate Hippolyta, Helena and Titania. The mechanicals are glorious, not least Kevin Kemp as a nerdy Peter Quince and Lawrence Kemp as a tottering, tight-skirted Thisbe.

As for the fairy band, they’re beyond New Age, a collection of weird and wonderful festival-goers. They couldn’t have ordered the full orange moon that slid into view in a twilight sky at just the right moment. Altogether daft and absolutely magical.

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

By Zena Hawley - Derby Evening Telegraph

 

SHAKESPEARE would definitely have approved of this version of the perennial seasonal play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

And the Oddsocks theatre company certainly knows how to tickle a funny bone or two.

Laugh? I laughed until I cried at this absolutely fantastic rendition of Will's classic at Derby Theatre last night.

 

The Derby-based company really throw themselves into their performances and the six-strong cast worked their "odd socks" off to portray 16 characters.
It is the classic tale of four lovers running off to the countryside to find mysterious woodland creatures playing tricks on them.

When a troupe of amateur actors decides to rehearse in the woods, the fairies' intervention leads to bizarre and outrageous comedy.

Oddsocks use an Elizabethan pageant wagon to carry out the action and by careful manoeuvring it becomes either the background for Athens or the woodland scenes.
Live music, exhilarating circus skills and wonderfully executed pregnant pauses and comic interludes proliferate the play.

This is not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. Truth be known, I was not looking forward to seeing it yet again.

But I am so pleased I did, as Oddsocks made the plot so accessible to everyone.
That's probably why the audience was largely made up of youngsters who are studying the play at school.

Oddsocks will have made the play come to life for them in a way that very few theatre companies manage to do.

It would unfair to single out individual performances because all of the cast worked so well together.

At times I felt I was watching something that was a heady mix of Monty Python and Little Britain, with maybe just a hint of Justin Lee Collins thrown in for good measure.

But the Shakespearean dialogue stayed intact despite the comedy.
A nice touch is the presence of the actors in the audience ahead of the performance and during the play.

But beware sitting too near the front though or you might find yourself more than a little involved and end up as part of the play – or wet.
This is one not to miss and recommended for a really good night out. So get your tickets now.

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

from The Leamington Courier

 

Enchanted by show full of outrageous comedy

When I first arrived at Warwick Castle last Thursday night to watch an open-air performance of a Shakespearian comedy, I was immediately enchanted. It was the first time I’d ever seen an outdoor production in England. I got cosy on my rug and other people sat on their deck chairs drinking wine and eating grapes and cheese.

I was about to watch Oddsocks for the first time and I started to laugh almost as soon as a number of weird and wonderful characters materialised from behind a wagon- a prop which was used to set different scenes throughout the evening. I have seen and studied a lot of Shakespeare but never really paid much attention to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I can’t compare this production with any other.

It was clear however that the acting was superb and the energy levels of the cast were infallible. The colourful costumes kept the children entertained and the jokes captured the adults’ imaginations too. There was live music, circus skills, a huge donkey head and magic water pistols.

The laugh-out-loud production, directed by Andy barrow and produced by Elli Mackenzie, followed the fortunes of four lovers who ran off to the countryside where mysterious woodland creatures played tricks on them with hilarious results.

The fairies’ intervention led to bizarre scenes and outrageous comedy when a troupe of amateur actors decided to rehearse their own play in the woods. The six actors who took on many different roles in the play were very impressive. I was particularly fascinated by how fast Carrie Hill got changed to play different characters.

This highly professional and cleverly executed performance seemed to be delivered with ease, but I would imagine it demanded a lot of hard work from the cast in reality.

 

 

Reviews of our last tour:

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

By Eden Carter Wood - Pink Paper Magazine

 
What’s great about this production is that, while sticking pretty closely to Shakespeare’s 400-year-old text, it transforms the story into something fresh. In this Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues run a pizza parlour and the Capulets a pasta restaurant. Romeo rides a red delivery scooter and ‘Fryer’ Laurence is a southern evangelist with a chapel out the back of his deli. The acting/comedy is uniformly fantastic, the set is simple but effective and there are so many funny moments - Juliet vigorously digging food out from between her teeth while Romeo woos her from beneath her window, Tybalt having his face repeatedly slapped, Juliet’s rather prolonged death scene (Tanya Huq is a world-class gurner), a car chase, Mr Capulet’s reentrance through the balcony window, an amusing nod to the fish tank scene in Baz Luhrmann’s film – it’s hard to single any out for particular praise. Instead, I’ll simply suggest you head down to the Arts Theatre in the West End and see it for yourselves.
 
Oddsocks will be working their magic on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet: The Comedy in the near future. Check out oddsocks.co.uk for more information.

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

By Angus Templeton for EXTRA! EXTRA!

 

I’m not a fan of Romeo and Juliet, I’ve seen it too many times. Too much time spent at high school, university, and with ex girlfriends in movie theatres watching various versions to be really sold on it as a play anymore. So when I tell you that Oddsocks’ Romeo and Juliet is worth watching, you can believe that I’m stating the truth.

 

Oddsocks is an interesting company. Since the late eighties they’ve pantomized (to perform a pantomime version thereof) various productions of Shakespeare as well as other classic writers – Victor Hugo, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Dickens to name a few. This is an excellent way for newcomers to get to grips with some of our culture’s classic heavy stories, and for those of us in the know, it’s a light parody of a tale we’re already familiar with.

 

This version of Romeo and Juliet is set between two competing Italian restaurants, one catering to pizza (and looking a lot like Pizza Hut) and the other selling pasta. In the middle of this, Romeo and Juliet attend a costume party where, through the help of a giant fish tank (sound familiar?) they fall in love and are subsequently married by Fryer Laurence. For those who’ve never seen Romeo and Juliet before, I won’t spoil the ending. I’ll just let you know that normally it isn’t a comedy.

 

Despite the heavy punning, irreverence to source material and occasional musical numbers, by far the most impressive part of this show was the physical comedy performed by each character. Special props go out to William Finkenrath (playing Capulet) for ascending Juliet’s balcony through a fiat. And also to Andrew McGillan (playing Mercutio to Finkenrath’s Tybalt) for the musical ‘sword’ fight. There are hundreds of moments throughout the performance which showcases the actors’ comedic talents, but it would take far too long and be redundant to list them all here. Suffice to say, if you enjoy comedy, this show is for you.

 

The set was rather versatile, reflecting Oddsocks experience in performing from the back of an Elizabethan wagon. While it was created mainly of canvas and wood, there were elaborate backdrops of Verona: a deli, pizza place, pasta restaurant, and pre filmed and projected entrances and exits for characters arriving from ‘outside’. (I shudder to think how long that must have taken to set up.) With all this, there was still room for a car and motorbike to engage in a street fight in the middle of the stage – you have to see it to believe it.

 

While the characterization for the most part was brilliant, the actors sometimes got lost in their outrageous Italian accents. This was a purposefully stylized choice on their behalf, but which led to some scenes being hard to understand, especially given the difficulty in projecting a foreign voice. The actors slipped in and out of modern English as well, gleefully breaking the fourth wall, and pandering to the audience as much as possible, which we all absolutely loved. And while the accents did sometimes get in the way, when so much of the action and comedy is based on physical theatre, it wasn’t nearly so much of an issue as in a more serious production.

 

The overall problem in merging two such dissimilar styles in one show is that of pacing. Pantomime by default is action packed, fast paced, and with only a few long expositions to break apart the physical comedy and audience interaction. Shakespeare is the opposite – one or two fight scenes per show (unless you’re performing Titus Andronicus) with lots of plot and exposition in between. Commingling the two into one is jarring, and while Andy Barrow has done a magnificent job in this adaptation, there are still scenes throughout which, slow the production down when you’re expecting it to speed up.

 

Some people think Shakespeare should be performed precisely as he intended it, and this isn’t a production which those people would enjoy. But thinking that is missing the entire point of what Shakespeare was doing – his plays were the crowd pleasers of the day, and Oddsocks has simply expanded on that tradition. So if you like light relief, physical comedy and food fights, then go and see Romeo and Juliet. Even if you don’t (which beggars belief) it’s a good modern adaption in its own right, and serves as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare for those who are too young, or were too well educated to know how much fun he can be.

 

If you miss R&J for some reason, Oddsocks is also producing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet: The Comedy in the later portions of the year.

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

by Chris Jones - Derby Telegraph

 

EVER been watching Shakespeare down at your local theatre when all of a sudden a car chase breaks out on stage?

  

Or someone parks their bike where the sun doesn’t shine? Or someone necks some poison and starts breakdancing? No? Then perhaps you need to get yourself a dose of Oddsocks theatre company.

  

They specialise in taking beloved classics and liberally dousing them in their own unique comic flavour. That means plenty of slapstick, dance routines and general mayhem.

 

This latest work takes the well-thumbed pages of Romeo and Juliet and transports the tale of doomed lovers to small-town Italy where two warring restaurant owners, cooking pizza and pasta, are embroiled in furious competition.

 

The story is well known and Oddsocks clearly have a love of Shakespeare’s verse; almost all the original dialogue is intact. But what the company revel in is engaging the audience with the play through sheer visual panache.

  

Each scene is an opportunity for mischief which is rarely missed. Thus we get a Friar Tuck reborn as a Gospel minister; a sword fight where the weapon of choice is a pizza cutter and one actor playing two characters engaged in a fight.

  

And of course there is that car chase, a spectacular piece of stage management.

 

Oddsocks make inventive use of scenery and stage, bolstered by some beautifully timed pieces involving a digital backdrop.

  

Another shining element is the quality of physical comedy. Whether dancing, squeezing a big behind through small windows or generally pulling stupid faces, all the actors excel in filling the stage and drawing the laughs, with particular mention to a leering, greasy rendition of bad guy Tybalt.

 

Perhaps at times the audience participation seems overworked, but overall the mood is one of escalating mirth. This is Shakespeare how he would want to have been seen; live, loud and lewd, and uproariously entertaining.

 

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

by Anthony Dearle - Jersey Evening Post

 

Grabbing a pizza the Action with the Bard

 

Anyone watching Oddsocks interpretation of Romeo and Juliet last night who did not previously know anything about the Shakespeare classic could easily have left the arts centre under the illusion that it was a comedy, not a tragedy.

 

This was despite the fact that it stuck – mostly – to the original script and therefore the two leading characters still ended up dead.

 

Being one of the few people on the island who had not previously witnessed an Oddsocks production, I was not sure what to expect. ‘Random’ would probably be the best word to describe the experience – although definitely in a good way. Without doubt the performance was among the best productions that I have seen locally and it provided one of the funniest nights of entertainment that I have enjoyed for a long time.

 

The five-strong cast had the audience enthralled from the opening lines and they did not lose our attention until the show came to its dramatic end some two hours twenty minutes later. While keeping the essence of Shakespeare tale, the company brought the story up to date with the Capulets and Monatgues becoming warring Italian restaurants.

 

Similarly while the majority of the original text was adhered to, certain words were emphasized to give them a new meaning, while modern references and one liners (as well as mobile phones) were scattered throughout.

 

Despite being an Oddsocks virgin, one thing that I had come prepared for was a lot of slapstick and silliness and I was not disappointed. One scene contained no dialogue whatever, just a lot of silly dancing. Yet this didn’t seem to matter: it just added to the overall hilarity of the production.

 

Crowd interaction played a large part in the performance with the cast serenading, mocking and even kissing members of the audience. Crowd participation was also required with one half of the audience having to shout  ‘Pizza’ whenever anyone on stage said ‘Montague’ and the other half shouting ‘Pasta’ whenever they heard ‘Capulet’.

 

The majority of the actors played two characters each in the play and every one of them brought something unique to their parts. Fryer Lawrence was presented as an evangelical American preacher, while Juliet was portrayed as a bit of a chav (carrying her Primarni’ bag and adding ‘innit’ to the end of many of her Shakespearean lines).

 

All of the actors delivered fantastic performances, but special mention must go to Andy McGillan, whose facial expressions were hilarious, and Elli Mackenzie, whose comical portrayal of the nurse would not have looked out of place in a Carry On film.

 

 

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

by Hannah Boylin of leftlion.co.uk

 

Take two restaurant owning families, a pinch of passionate rivalry and a whole lot of Italian sauce. Throw in a pizza slice, a clapped-out Fiat and your favourite pair of star-crossed lovers; and you have the perfect recipe for Oddsocks’ 2009 winter tour.

 

This is a refreshing interpretation of what is arguably Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy; reworked with the typically light-hearted Oddsocks treatment and beaten with a slapstick straight into the 21st century. Easy-going, side-achingly funny and wonderfully accessible to all ages and tastes: especially if you like a bit of pasta.

 

The use of media is highly effective, with a DVD operated backdrop adding an extra dimension to each scene and providing a platform for even more amusement: most particularly the delicious parody of the infamous fish tank scene in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaptation; as well as the background for a high-speed ‘Italian Job’ car chase and the TV kitchen of Juliet’s intended husband, ‘Gourmet Paris’ (played from behind-the-video-camera by the lovely Kee Ramsorrun).

 

Granted, the technology was a little rough around the edges in parts, but any teething problems were handled by the cast with professionalism and panache, adding to the overall charm of the show. Oddsocks clearly enjoy what they do, their on-stage enthusiasm and chemistry has you suckered in before you can even think to yawn.

 

Tanya Huq’s portrayal of Juliet is superb: a brash and sassy fox who wraps Romeo around her little finger with all the ease of an experienced mistress and the innocence of a naïve schoolgirl. The fiery Juliet is juxtaposed perfectly against Neal Craig’s Romeo, who, although trying to play ‘the lad’ and obviously harbouring all the hormones of a teenage boy, is in fact a bit of a sweetheart: eager to please, pander and gratify; the sort of fella you’d take home to meet your mum if, of course, he wasn’t the "only son of your great enemy". In fact, Huq and Craig’s portraits are so true to the capricious teenagers intended by Shakespeare that they effectively illustrate his subtle questioning of the validity of such youthful love. C’mon, we have all scoffed at how quickly this pair fall for each other, even if we do hope that true love conquers all.

 

The further three members of the Oddsocks clan – Elli McKenzie, Andy McGillan and William Finkenrath – succeed in handling the rest of the play’s characters with skill, flair and well aimed wit. The humour is raucous and a little bit lairy; achieving a fine balance between the delightfully obvious and the unpredictably wry. At the same time, the tragedy of the story is handled with care: albeit rather tongue in cheek (Romeo’s exit is a particularly slobbery one) the calamity does not distract from the sadness that is due. Although in all, it's a bloody scream.

 

Even though most often read as a tragedy, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is inherently comic. The Oddsocks team capture this brilliantly; not only do they do the age-old classic justice, they show us a mirth laden side to the story often lost amongst the tears and woe.

 

Romeo and Juliet performed by Oddsocks at Thoresby Hall Nottinghamshire from November 24 to November 28 2009.

 

Reviews of our last tour:

 

Richard III

Published Wednesday 8 July 2009 at 11:50 by Kevin Berry of The Stage.

Shakespeare’s piece of Tudor propaganda is given the Oddsocks treatment and what enormous, epic fun it is.

Wit, banter, physical ingenuity, clowning and comic inventiveness are everywhere. The young princes in the tower are in an upright bed, on the back wall, so their murders are played as if the audience is looking down on their bedroom. Quite a task for their assassin, Neal Craig, to get the perspective right, but he does - hilariously. Edward Day’s Clarence is drowned on stage. He is a big chap and he is gradually forced into quite a small barrel before our very eyes.

For the battle of Bosworth the company’s magnificent Tudor play cart is turned around and opened out to show a vista of tents, towers and banners. Then come the principal protagonists, helmeted and prancing on pro-jumps. It is a stirring sight and then the fun continues.

Andy Barrow’s Richard III is a simpering, camp villain with a fascinating snozzle. His seduction of Lady Anne, played by Harriet Rose, is gloriously over the top.

The actors are kept busy playing many characters at brisk pace and they rarely look flustered. Harriet Rose, with eight parts and three musical instruments, typifies their exuberance and dedication. They involve the audience in so many memorable ways.

Middleton Park is a regular venue on the Oddsocks tour calendar. This performance is always paid for by the Friends of Middleton Park and admission is free. A laudable gesture appreciated by many families.

 

Richard III

 

Richard III presented by Oddsocks on the Cathedral Green, Derby

ODDSOCKS stage Shakespeare as they believe it was originally meant to be.

But far from a stuffy, sober theatrical experience, theirs is an outrageous, energetic and freewheeling approach to the Bard.

Fat suits, silly voices and slapstick imbue the rich historical tale of Richard, Duke of York's bloody quest to gain the throne of England at any cost.

The sparkling new vista of Cathedral Green was the venue for the play and offered an intimate, yet novel stage set-up.

There were many creative set-pieces, including a joyous use of a freshly decapitated head, a surprising on-stage drowning and a wonderful top-down bedroom scene.

Performances were boisterous but never overran the quality of Shakespeare's verse and the small group did well to portray the large cast of characters with impressive individuality.

There were some missed opportunities. One gag involved the increasing length of Richard's nose throughout the play in line with the rising body count. It started well but got forgotten and that childish part of me wishes they had gone wild with the idea – a two-foot nose would have been brilliant.

I also enjoyed the moments where the players brought the world around them briefly into their lines. During one self-pitying lament an ambulance went screaming past and Richard stopped and looked at the audience before adding: "See? Even ambulances start wailing when I turn up."

But again, more could have been made of this, especially with the outdoor setting being so generous in providing unexpected focal points.

Overall, though, Oddsocks struck a balanced line between telling the story and making the audience laugh. The players were not afraid to look endearingly confused through some of the play's more florid language and regularly used their regional accents and body movement to add colour to some of the longer passages.

If the approach was to make Shakespeare fun again, to present it simply as a great story with colourful characters and create a fun night out, then Oddsocks succeeded.

Never confusing and regularly hilarious this was one tragedy that turned out anything but.

Richard III can be seen at Queen's Park, Chesterfield, on July 14 at 7.30pm (01246 345222) and at Nottingham Castle on July 29-30 at 7.30pm ( 01159 895555).

Chris Jones  DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH

 

Reviews from previous summer productions:

 

The Comedy of Errors

This is Shakespeare for the groundlings, a lunatic production delivered with reckless intent by a bunch of six actors with a bandwagon in the open air. It is delicious. There are shameless borrowings from panto in the song, In Old Ephesus, and in gags featuring myopic merchants and mad minstrels. Bawdy business with a rope end is wickedly done and wholly without offence. They have instant rapport with the audience and the ad-libbing is unabashed. A more rumbustious take on Comedy of Errors would be hard to find. Yet the crucial elements of this complicated tale are all there, and given that two actors play a set of twins each, the story is surprisingly easy to follow. Robert Laughlin gives an outrageous performance as Antipholus times two and Kee Ramsorrun is inexhaustible as both Dromios. The reunion of all four characters is masterly. The sides of the bandwagon drop down and get hauled back up to create an Ephesus with a Turkish flavour that extends to a ridiculous camel. Aemilia (Kerry Steed) in the guise of a scary nun repels boarders at the Priory by hanging on to the lintel and kicking out with her feet. Polly Banwell is a firebrand of an Adriana, Mark Peachey milks every opportunity as two Merchants and Andrew McGillan manages to keep a straight face as Angelo the Goldsmith. They turn strolling minstrel in the interval, play through the rain and need no amplification. What a troupe - and how Shakespeare would have loved them.

 

The Comedy of Errors

 

The summer of 2007 will be remembered for many things: the rainiest summer in living memory, the subsequent floods that engulfed great swathes of our local countryside and the year that Oddsocks came to Whitbourne Hall.
Bathed in the late afternoon sunshine and glorious backdrop of the Hall, Oddsocks set to work to gladden the gloomiest of dampened hearts with their slapstick style and pantomime humour. Set in Ephesus (pronounced so that it needs a ‘Bless you’ with every mention), two twin merchants named Antipholus, each with their respective twin servants, Dromio, were separated at birth. Many years later they become entangled in each other’s lives and loves, with hilarious consequences. A jealous wife, a law officer with a pristling over-pronounced moustachio, a 6 foot camel and a Northern-accented wheel barrowed snake charmer (always on the lookout for his errant snakes) complete with thick round glasses and stumbling across various dubious scenes resulted in much mirth. Plenty of ad-libbing ‘Spy the almighty rock’ as the boat that was carrying both the Dromios and Anthipolus’ sank, led to a burst of song that brought smiles aplenty. This is Shakespeare as it was intended-entertainment in its purest form.
These actors were acrobats one second, comedians and musicians the next, relentless in their energy: truly talented and multi-faceted jewels.
One gentleman remarked, ‘If laughing makes you younger, then I am 10 years younger than I was on Saturday morning’. Another: ‘The best performance I have ever seen’.
‘Splendid, splendid’, one elderly lady volunteered. Hear, hear-a splendid venue, a splendid performance, a splendid troupe-which date are they coming next year?