The Young and Hungry Fest­iv­al of New Theatre is on at BATS Theatre. (Happy 19th birth­day Y&H!)  It’s an excit­ing fest­iv­al that sup­ports young per­formers and crew in gain­ing exper­i­ence in theatre. This year the three plays are…

 

Dragon­lore. Writ­ten by Nic Sampson; dir­ec­ted by Richard Dey.

Alan, Loren, Dena and Chris are gath­er­ing togeth­er on their friend Jack’s par­ents farm to take part in an epic LARP­ing tour­na­ment. Alan has to drag along his little broth­er Frank (cause his Mum told him to) but he’s pretty con­fid­ent it’s going to be a great week­end. Jack is run­ning the tour­na­ment aided by farm­hand Robert. How­ever, they haven’t played as a team for a while and people have changed…

A funny explor­a­tion of friend­ship, rivalry, and iden­tity set in the world of Live Action Role Play­ing.  There’s plenty of phys­ic­al action which is well executed. The cast are sup­por­ted by the design team. The set by Lauren Stew­art has 3‑d geo­met­ric  inter­pret­a­tions of pixel­lated clouds and trees. My favour­ite show on the night.

 

Atlas/Mountains/Dead But­ter­flies. Writ­ten by Joseph Harp­er; dir­ec­ted by Ral­ph Upton.

Atlas is strug­gling under the weight of the world. He’s hop­ing to find some way to keep it sup­por­ted after he’s gone. Rhys and Phoebe live in a house with a drip­ping tap. The plumb­er is called in. Mean­while, a rep­res­ent­at­ive from the Green party and a man on the street have their own stor­ies to tell…

A sur­real med­it­a­tion on act­iv­ism, the envir­on­ment, and social pres­sure. I par­tic­u­larly liked the sound­scape in this one. I felt that all the act­ors were really groun­ded in their roles.  Spe­cial men­tion to Ash James who brought lots of energy to her role. Of the three plays, this one will stay with me the longest.

 

Trash­bag. Writ­ten by Geor­gina Titheridge; dir­ec­ted by Alis­on Walls.

Maddy is throw­ing a party. Her flat­mate Otto is help­ing (sort of) to get the flat present­able. Her boy­friend Chris shows up early, but not to help. Plus he’s invited Eric – who she really doesn’t want to see again. As the night wears on, and people come and go, Maddy has to deal with a num­ber of dra­mas.

This is the one I con­nec­ted with the least. The cast all had moments where they shone but some of the trans­itions weren’t as smooth as they could have been. They may have relaxed into the per­form­ance as the sea­son pro­gresses.