Last night was the Theatre at the Mill in Newtownabbey and Michael Cameron’s latest theatrical offering and it is good, quite a different type of play with music, plenty of laughs, excellent acting, music that fits each character’s storyline be it a cabaret number or a tender love song. It’s the tale of Hoffmans store, At The Top Of The Town and the difficulties of running such a business in the Troubles of 1972 Belfast. It’s Christmas and there’s trouble on the floor of the store. Can the spirit of Christmas come to the rescue? The show runs until 31st December, tickets are £21 and you can get more details at theatreatthemill.com or phone 0300 123 7788.
At the Lyric it was just like any other day, grandmother (Christina Nelson) is checking the roses that grow all round her terrace and below on the town pavement. Gerda (Calla Hughes Nic Aoidh) is bobbing around with the boys and girls, singing and dancing and waiting for her special friend Kai (Ben McGarvey) to arrive with the daily delivery of roses from the local flower shop. It’s roses all the way, the most loved bloom of grandmother, a woman with a secret. So it began like any other day but it wasn’t to last and a mystery begins. A sudden chill in the air, bitter cold, frozen fountain and snow. The Snow Queen (Ruby Campbell) is on her way, Kai is spirited away, Gerda goes looking for him travelling to the palace in Finnmark; on the way she meets some strange and colourful people including her great aunts who have special powers but this doesn’t worry Gerda because she is even more of a sorceress than they are. There is magic in the air.
I couldn’t imagine how this famous Hans Christian Anderson story would adapt for stage but writer and director Paul Boyd has given his audience an enormously impressive couple of hours, a production you’d think is basically for children but the adults in the Lyric on opening afternoon were totally enthralled as were the younger theatre goers. My escort was 14 year old Charlie Hailes from Lisburn and his review was interesting: “I thought the show was unique and well thought out, the technical side of the show was creative and the acting and singing were spot on.”
A small cast of seven including Christopher Finn, Darren Franklin, Aaron Halliwell, the entire stage management team, the set designer Stuart Marshall. lighting Mary Tumelty and costumes Gillian Lennox, are all outstanding. And as for the reindeer, if he wasn’t working I think Father Christmas would sign him up to help deliver presents!
For me the outstanding moment was when we first met the Snow Queen sitting on her throne in the ice palace. This is where the lighting affect is at its most effective, a stunning image.
Like all fairy stories there are lessons to be learned and everyone goes home happy.
My one big disappointment in both theatres was the fact there is no programme available – we’re directed to a stand in the foyer and told – just scan the QR code on your phone – an electronic device which contains all the show information, cast, storyline, pictures. But not everyone has a phone with them, even if they have only the technically minded will know how to avail themselves of this invention. If you do manage, the print is so small it’s difficult to read and, for children, adults and reviewers, it’s a nightmare to use. Saving money is one thing but having no tangible memento of a wonderful show is another. Surely as we pay for programmes there’s no problem, and they don’t need to be elaborate and expensive to produce. Last night at The Mill, on the way to the car park we were all talking about the show and a man said to me: “That was brilliant for an amateur company”. What? These were only the best actors we have and he had no idea who they were because he had no reference to the production or the company, who was the author, who wrote the music, who were the actors. He hadn’t a clue and that must have been the case for many others. If I was a member of the company I’d be up in arms. Having your credit taken away from you is like loosing your birthright.
The Snow Queen Runs until 31 December 2022 with details at www.lyrictheatre.co.uk `
The Shop At The Top runs until 31st December 2022. More detail at theatreatthemill.com or by ringing 0300 123 7788
TELL IT LIKE IT IS
After his tremendous win a couple of weekends ago, someone commented to me that Mark Allen must have had the rub of the green. I don’t agree, this 36 year old has guts and determination, he’s come through a lot of trauma to end up winning the UK Snooker Championship at the Barbican Centre in York. The Antrim man lost five stone in a short time and has got his life back in order and after me almost giving up on the TV coverage, he came back later in the day to blitz his opponent and walk away with the trophy. But what is the rub of the green? It started me thinking.
I always thought it was the advantage of the pile of the green baize on the snooker table or on the golf green which helped the ball along into the pocket or the hole. But having looked it up, it’s a very old expression dating back to the 16th century and the game of lawn bowls. ‘Rub’ is an old English word that means problem or impediment and dates back to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the well known passage – To Be or not To Be which continues: ‘To die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream, ay there’s the rub.’. Today an expression used mostly in a sporting context but has little to do with its origin.
All families have their little good luck charms. Every time any of us children got a new blazer or coat my auntie Joan would lick a finger and place it on the collar to wish us health to wear. At exam time my mother put a poker in the fire for good luck – didn’t work for me but did for my brainy brothers. Even today where there’s trouble in the family I’ll light a candle, I like to think it concentrates my prayers for a good outcome. We’ll never put shoes on the table in our house, if someone does they have to be put the shoes on the floor, step over them and give a whistle. That’s because when men put their hobnailed boots on the table after a long day’s work and the result was a scratched table!
Cross Your Fingers On The 13th
So many of these little habits are based on religion. Friday 13th is supposed to be unlucky and is a bad day for shops with people choosing not to leave the house in case of accident; often lifts in multi-storey hotels don’t show an unlucky 13th floor although in our family it’s the opposite because after the war my father sailed away from India on Friday 13th so it was a fortunate day for us. In general 13 is considered unlucky and 13 round a table is to be avoided as it signifies a death based on the Last Supper when Jesus and his disciples sat round the table before He was crucified. The cross itself has contributed to superstition, when you cross your fingers for hope of a good outcome or a protection against evil it’s based on the holiness of the cross as is knock on wood.
When I was growing up if I didn’t toe the line I’d be told unless I’d behave there’d be wigs in the green which I now know is Irish in origin referring to two duelling men of substance who would meet in a field with pistols or fisticuffs to fight for their, or often a woman’s, honour. Before their brawl they’d take off their powdered wigs and place them on the green grass!
Not My Favourite Person
I have to admit I fell foul of I’m a Celebrity having sworn I’d never watch. It all started with Matt Hancock and my wish to see him chucked out on day one – not to be. What an unpleasant character, my opinion of course. To me he’s insincere to his fingertips and how he lasted I’ll never know although his social media supporters have a lot to answer for. The only positive for me is the fact that I’m not quite so scared of the spiders in our house, huge but nothing compared to those in the jungle, the one on Boy George’s head almost covered his scalp, mine are babies compared to that so I don’t risk bad luck by annihilating them!
The thick thatched roofs in cottages housed creepy crawlies that fell to the floor and onto the bed! So posts were erected and a sheet hung between and so the four poster canopy came into existence. Intriguing stuff.
Just Like The Jungle
In those old days, the woman cooked in the kitchen with a big pot hung over the open fire. Every day she’d lite the fire and add to the pot, most often vegetables as meat was hard to come by although when visitors came they’d buy some bacon, ‘bringing home the bacon’ was a sign of wealth. They would cut off a little to share with guests and then later sit around and ‘chew the fat’. Bread also was divided according to status, workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the ‘upper crust’. Baths were taken in a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the nice clean water, then came the sons, followed by the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By which time the water was so dirty you could actually lose a little one in it, hence the saying, ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water!”
It’s fascinating and I’m sure you have lots of examples of family sayings and superstitions, write them down before they are lost in the mists of time, good game round the Christmas table. Incidentally, You Tube have a terrible eight and a half minute list of Irish sayings delivered by an android with an English accent – I gave up at ‘Experience is the comb that life gives a bald man’!