DIRTYPROTEST
What the press say
Last Christmas
*****
The Scotsman
Tom is having a crap day. It’s Christmas Eve and he’s going to miss the London to Swansea train. Clingy girlfriend Nat is following him into the loo. He can’t remember where he put the gifts she organised him into wrapping back in the summer…
So begins Matthew Bulgo’s one-man show which, while set at Christmas, is a tale for all seasons – and nothing to do with Wham!. Performed with such passion by Sion Pritchard that I assumed it was his own story, it held a full house rapt for its entire hour.
Pritchard is waiting on stage as the audience arrives, looking around, pensively. I took it that here was a nervous performer. Not so, this is a brilliant, assured actor; an expert in voice, movement and making a connection with the audience, setting up his character even before the monologue begins. There’s no scenery, there are no props, it’s just Pritchard standing before us, telling Tom’s story. He looks frazzled, his eyes evoke a trapped animal.
Tom is the everyman having a crisis of the soul, and Pritchard makes him utterly real. Not that this is an hour of angst – Bulgo gives us plenty of laughs, especially in a sequence around Tom’s office party. Probably most of us know a middle management wannabe such as Suze, or a would-be cool kid like Jamie, and their dealings with Tom – a film studies graduate who’d rather be directing movies – make for great comedy.
As the drama – directed with economy and assurance by Kate Wasserberg – goes on, though, things become more intimate. Pritchard draws us in beside him so that when the denouement comes, it’s a moment of catharsis for the entire audience.
There’s a real humanity to Last Christmas, a truth in the writing and playing that makes it one of the best things on the Fringe this year. Don’t miss it.
Last Christmas
****
Nouse
Despite a slightly sombre plot outline, Last Christmas was surprisingly witty, and its captivating script had the audience both welling up and laughing all the way through. Pritchard commanded the stage and for the only actor in the play, he held my attention throughout, a true testament to the quality of the script, the direction and the acting. The play builds into a dynamic conclusion, and creates a balance between humour and plot progression
Last Christmas
****
The Public Reviews
Pritchard gives an assuredly accomplished performance as a man whose world-weariness borders on misanthropy, blending gloriously cynical diatribes about the world and mankind with heartbreaking reflections on the experience of losing his father. He remains virtually on the spot for the duration of the monologue, yet holds the audience’s attention with a tremendous ease and grace that belies any suggestion that a drama needs set, costumes or effects to really make an impact.
Matthew Bulgo’s beautifully detailed observations about the horror of workplace Christmas parties, the banalities of modern relationships, and the reconnection with long-estranged school friends, feel authentic and original, and the blending of humour and pathos is managed with such sensitivity that it never becomes mawkish or feels false. Best of all are the character’s rants at all manner of inane aspects of modern life, delivered in furiously funny turns of phrase, and spewed out with an impotent anger that invites us to laugh even as we recognise the futile truth of what he is describing.
Perfectly constructed, simply staged and impeccably performed, don’t be put off by the unseasonal title of this powerful study of man and family.
Last Christmas
***
The Guardian
Make way for Matthew Bulgo's low-key but acutely written story about an ordinary bloke facing up to grief and fatherhood. Despite the title, Dirty Protest's production is definitely no turkey; more of a little cracker.
Parallel Lines
****
Western Mail
What happens when a teenage girl makes an accusation against her teacher?
This compelling and intense drama explores just that and highlights the disastrous consequences for all those involved, regardless of position, class or age.
Parallel Lines
British Theatre Guide
Parallel Lines is a significant production in the history of Welsh theatre....The characters, then, are not unfamiliar to us, but they are effective authorial pawns rather than lifeless ciphers. Chandler’s play depicts a world in which adults let down the children who are in their charge through fecklessness and selfishness, infecting them with their cynicism and low expectations.
My impression is that the number of competition-winning plays which actually receive successful productions is rather small. Angry, funny and moving, Parallel Lines fully deserves to buck that trend.
Parallel Lines
Young Critics
Dirty Protest have got their filthy (but ever-so-skilful) hands on Katherine Chandler’s fearlessly written and deeply felt play, Parallel Lines, which won the inaugural Wales Drama Award last year. And, as is the case whenever Dirty Protest put on something, it’s brimming with ferocious intensity and unflinching controversy. Directed with daring nerve by Catherine Paskell, this is a play with a wicked sting in its tail.
This is yet another triumph for Dirty Protest. It is comforting to be in the knowledge that theatre so courageous and yet so authentic is being made right now. Here is a theatre company whose consistence trumps any I know of working in Britain today, and Parallel Lines is another gleaming badge for their already glittering lapel.
Parallel Lines
Wales Arts Review
Chandler has created a type of protagonist rarely seen on stage, a young woman who has been subject to sexual violence but who refuses to play the victim and seeks justice on her own terms. Redford rises to the challenge of portraying Steph’s strength and guile, and at the climax of the play endows the character with considerable force.