Arts

Big time ahead

Big names, big sounds, big performances come to the Lakeside Theatre in the forthcoming season.

The line-up includes winners of the Total Theatre wildcard award at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. The Precarious Theatre Company present Druthers on 6 May. Manager at the Lakeside Theatre, Pasco Q Kevlin caught their performance at Edinburgh last year and was hooked: ‘It was an amazing show and was my pick from the Edinburgh Fringe, so it was gratifying when they won an award.’

The Precarious Theatre Company will present Druthers on 6 May

The season also includes an impressive jazz collection and lunchtime concerts.

The Angell Trio take over the theatre on 23 April featuring classical music in the first half of the concert and compositions from local students in the second half.

Continuing an action-packed week Tom Dale brings his hypnotic dance production Rise to the Lakeside Theatre on 24 April and a flamenco evening stamps into action on 25 April.

Wivenhoe poet Martin Newell leads a poetry evening on 10 May and classical music comes to the lunchtime concert on 13 May with a performance from Dell Anima.

For tickets telephone: 01206 873261 or e-mail: arts@essex.ac.uk.

Gallery guests

Tonight, 21 April, sees the opening of Yours Mine Ours, a new exhibition in the University Gallery, curated by MA Gallery Studies and Critical Curating students.

Using photographs, film stills, newspaper cuttings and historical artworks, the exhibition explores the use of appropriated imagery by established and emerging artists, including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Christian Holstad and Graham Dolphin.

Student Nikki Arnold said: ‘We are responsible for managing the budget, contacting galleries and artists, arranging transportation for the artworks and insuring them as well as creating educational workshops, events and designing and installing the exhibition.’

A lively events programme will run parallel to the exhibition. These include lunchtime gallery talks with curators from 1-2pm every Thursday and a series of free lectures and film screenings on Thursday evenings, in collaboration with the Art Film Society.

Sexual strife

Review of East 15 students performing Round Round at The Space, London
By Victoria Bartholomew

Third-year BA Contemporary Theatre students at East 15 Acting School staged a dramatic updated re-telling of Arthur Schnitzler’s cautionary drama, La Ronde.

Action from Round Round. Picture courtesy of Theo Wood

Round Round allowed the students to explore the consequences of modern lifestyles and casual sexual encounters across the population. Parts undertaken ranged from sleazy politician, unfaithful wife, young prostitute, sinister writer and drug-addicted actress, all linked by their past misdemeanours which have forced them to visit a sexual health clinic.

Particularly strong performances were by Emma Vickery as a young backpacker looking for fun and Darrell Jackson, playing the older businessman who happens to be seated next to her on the flight home.

Round Round also made excellent use of The Space on the Isle of Dogs. The intimate performance venue enabled the audience to get up close and personal with a production that was both compelling and disturbing.