A Pretty Sh*tty Love by Katherine Chandler – 12th July 2022 – Theatr Clwyd

"Hayley and Carl. Carl and Hayley. Finding love in the heart of the pretty shitty city. Hayley wanted to fall in love - that was the goal - to find her prince. Because life's about love. Only love. She never found it though, she never looked in the right place. Then along came Carl."

Katherine Chandler’s latest play is not for the faint hearted. Based on a real-life event which shook Wales, the play is about dreaming of love, living in fear and ultimately finding the strength to pull yourself out of the abyss. Whilst the play contains strong language and descriptions of physical, mental, sexual and drug abuse, it is actually a wonderful piece of theatre taking you through the highs and lows of Hayley’s life.

Set in Swansea, South Wales in 2016, the play runs for about an hour with no interval. It is split into five sections which run fluidly from buried, monologues, letters, strikes and back around to buried.

Hayley (Danielle Bird) is a 30-something waitress who just wants a bit of fun in life, so when Carl (Daniel Hawksford) walks into the café one day, she can’t help but innocently flirt with him. He was the guy they all fancied at school, and here he is, Carl Pearce, large as life in her café! Of course it takes him time to recognise Hayley, and that’s only because she was at school with his brother – looked out for him, was the one who would take him to her mam’s for something to eat. The flirting results in a date, Hayley is swept off her feet, she can’t believe how lucky she is. She is totally besotted with Carl.

A Pretty Shitty Love is based on the horrific and shocking events which led to Stacey Gwilliam becoming headline news around the world. In July 2015, Stacey Gwilliam was strangled and left for dead on the coastal path between Bracelet Bay and Langland Bay by her fiancé Keith Hughes. She had woken up trapped beneath a pile of dirt after Hughes had thought he’d killed her and dumped her body in a shallow grave. When Hughes was arrested, he confidently told police “You’ll never find her”, but he was shocked to find out Stacey was still alive and had used her fingernails to scratch and dig herself out of the dirt. This attack left Stacey in an induced coma for 14 days, battling sepsis and multiple organ failure; her body too fragile to be moved to a specialist hospital.

In a TV interview, the 34-year-old Stacey said: “I came round and there were branches and shrubs put on top of me. I could hear my heart beating and I could hear the sound of the sea in the background. It was like everything was in slow motion. All I could see were blurs of green and brown. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. It was like I was paralysed. It was awful really. Trying to get your head together to work out what was going on around you. I tried to get up but couldn’t. I had to use my nails to get out of where I was. That was all I could do. I tried to push but I didn’t have the upper strength.”

Hughes was jailed for life later that year at Swansea Crown Court, and Gwilliam, who had spent time with the playwright Katherine Chandler to help with research and development of the play, sadly did not see the play into production. She died in 2022 following health complications aged just 40.

I scrape at the soil beneath me

Dig my nails into the dirt

I work out what’s going on

The play sounds like it could be a very bleak 70 minutes of theatre, but Katherine Chandler has written a multi-level play, injecting plenty of moments of pure joy and laughter as Hayley and Carl start their relationship. The dialogue is natural and sounds as though the words are being spoken for the first time. The audience is captivated as the fourth wall is broken and becomes gripped to their seats as they watch Hayley’s world start to unravel.

Boeing Boeing by Marc Camoletti – 26th May 2022 – Theatr Clwyd

Set in Paris in 1962, Marc Camoletti’s play Boeing Boeing is a magnificently funny tale about how Bernard, (John Dorney), a successful architect, juggles his complicated love-life, whilst not really caring that he is dragging both his maid and old friend into the chaos against their will.

Bernard has three fiancées, Gloria, Gabriella and Gretchen. All three work as flight-attendants for different airlines, and with the help of his long-suffering housekeeper Bertha, he has so far managed to keep each woman unaware of the other’s existence due his carefully scheduled routine. 

Bachelor Bernard thinks settling down with one person would be too much of a challenge, therefore why not have the best that life can throw at you? Two partners would be a bit boring, four partners too much juggling required, but three? Three is perfect…or so it seems. As careful as Bernard’s calculations are, he can’t stop technology and the launch of a new super-speed jet is about to throw all his high-precision plans into disarray; that and the odd storm and a bit of bad luck. This is one day in Bernard’s life he is never going to forget.

Celebrated Virgins: A Story of the Ladies of Llangollen by Katie Elin-Salt – 24th May 2022 – Theatr Clwyd

Thanks to the TV series Gentleman Jack, many people now know the life story of Anne Lister, (3 April 1791 – 22 September 1840) but hers was not the singular tale of an 18th century lesbian. By the time of her death in 1829, Eleanor Butler had been living with Sarah Ponsonby in Plas Newydd, Llangollen, for half a century. Cast out by society and forced to leave their homes in Kilkenny, Ireland, Eleanor and Sarah assumed residence in the Welsh town of Llangollen where they became minor celebrities.

What is known about the Ladies of Llangollen is that they were two Irish women who met in 1768 who absconded from their hometown with their maid, Mary Caryll. They ended up in Plas Newydd, Llangollen, where they lived together for 50 years entertaining various visitors of Georgian society, including the Duke of Wellington, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron. Whilst their story may not be known outside of the area, those from around Llangollen tell the story with pride. These were two ladies who were cast out by their own society, were welcomed and accepted by the people in Llangollen to live a private, peaceful life. The two ladies became minor celebrities, seeing their lives written about by those that visited but who could never understand the nature of their relationship. This play allows them to tell their story on their terms.

Celebrated Virgins maps out the relationship between Lady Eleanor and Sarah from their first unarticulated feelings for each other, to their tender relationship towards the end of their days spent quietly among the beautiful rose gardens they created. This new play has been developed based on the true story of Lady Eleanor Butler and her former student Miss Sarah Ponsonby, and whilst it is based on real events, it is written from the perspective of a 2022 audience, therefore it is a reimagining of their lives rather than a documentary.

Catch Me If You Can by Jack Weinstock & Willie Gilbert – 28th March 2022 – Theatr Clwyd

As a kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I can’t say I watched that much TV. In fact, I don’t think we got a colour TV until the end of the 80’s. I think I was the only child in school not to know what colour Posh Paws was on The Multi-coloured Swap Shop, and who understood what Ted Lowe meant when he uttered his immortal phrase about “the pink is next to the green” on a live snooker commentary.  

Whilst I’d hear all the hoo ha about Dallas and Dynasty in the school playground (and of course that major news story, who shot JR Ewing) I never watched either show; as a family we didn’t watch soap operas, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t intrigued to watch TV legends Patrick Duffy, Bobby Ewing in Dallas, and Linda Purl, Homeland, if they were appearing on a stage near me!

Now, before we start with the review, let’s make something clear, this Catch Me If You Can is NOT a stage production of the 2002 Leonardo DiCaprio film, this is a very different beast of a story! The play is based on a French play, Trap for a Lonely Man, by Robert Thomas, however, this adaptation written by Jack Weinstock & Willie Gilbert is a thriller which made its debut on Broadway in 1965.

Newly married Daniel Corban (Patrick Duffy) is at a remote lodge in the Catskill mountains; his wife has been missing for a few days, and the local police believe it is nothing more than a lover’s tiff. The cleric, Father Kelleher, visits Corban with the welcome news that Elizabeth has been found and reunites the couple. The only fly in the ointment is that Daniel is insistent that this woman is not his wife Elizabeth, whilst she is equally insistent that she is…and so opens this intriguing thriller in which a baffling train of events in which no-one is who they appear to be and nothing is what it seems to be.

Washington Irving’s - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Phillip Meeks – 8th March 2022 – name of theatre

I love, love, love the comic book effect programme for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but that’s pretty much where my love for this production began to run out.

“Don’t pass by. Stay forever.” Beseeches the sign outside of Sleepy Hollow, but this is not a place you are likely to linger. The show is loosely adapted from Washington Irving’s short story, and unlike Tim Burton’s film starring Johnny Depp, it remains true to the original in that it follows the arrival of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane (Sam Jackson) to the superstitious hamlet of Sleepy Hollow.

The Headless Horseman represents a past that never dies, but always haunts the living.

Journalist and biographer Washington Irving, born in 1783, created arguably the earliest of the American-made horror creatures…The Headless Horseman. Ichabod Crane, a young man from the city of Boston, arrives in the backwater of Sleepy Hollow to open a school, but in reality he has a darker motive for coming to this small hamlet. Irving was obsessed with early American history, the folklore surrounding the Headless Horseman maintained that the Horseman was a Hessian trooper during the American Revoltunary War and killed during the battle of White Plains in 1776. The legend stated that he lost his head by an American cannonball, and whilst his body was collected, his shattered head remained on the battlefield. He was buried in the cemetery at Sleepy Hollow from where he was said to rise as a malevolent ghost, seeking his head, or a replacement from someone else.

The Da Vinci Code, from the novel by Dan Brown – 15th February 2022 – Theatr Clwyd

I’ve read Dan Brown’s thriller regarding Catholic conspiracy and murderous Opus Dei monks, I’ve watched Ron Howard’s film adaptation, and now here I am watching Luke Sheppard’s theatre adaptation. You would be forgiven for thinking I am a mega-fan of Dan Brown, but you’d be wrong – much like the Harry Potter books, I only read the Dan Brown novels because I didn’t want to miss out on what everyone else was raving about. I was intrigued to see how all the complex plot twists and turns would be negotiated on the stage, (plus Danny John-Jules, best known for Red Dwarf, was due to tread the Theatr Clwyd boards!)

The curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris, Jacques Sauniere, has been brutally murdered. At the side of his body are a series of baffling codes, and more importantly, a message to the police to find the symbologist Prof. Robert Langdon. Nigel Harmon (Eastenders) played the role of Robert Langdon, the professor and symbolist, and Hannah Rose Caton played his fellow fugitive and police cryptologist Sophie Neveu who join forces to solve the complex puzzles. Their quest leads them to the works of Leonardo da Vinci and into the depths of history to solve both the murder and break a labyrinthine code so that a historical secret is not lost forever.

Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade – 8th February 2022 – Theatr Clwyd (Anthony Hopkins Theatre)

1951, and a chance encounter in a Californian hotel leads to more than just a passionate one-night stand. George and Doris are two happily married people…the problem is, they’re not married to each other. This chance encounter is the start of something, and as the title of the play makes clear, the couple agree to meet up once a year, in the same place, for a no-strings-attached fun and frivolous fling. And so begins a love affair that will continue for 25 years. 

The opening scene perfectly conveys the awkward embarrassment of George, a New Jersey accountant, and Doris, a bored housewife, as they wake up and realisation dawns on them that they have committed adultery three times in one night. George can’t even get Doris’s name right! You can’t help but laugh and squirm in your seat as George and Doris, played by Kieran Buckeridge and Sarah Kempton realise they have thrown their marriage vows into the wind for a night of drunken debauchery. Or have they? They don’t feel guilty, and vow that they will not keep in touch with other, but they will make a pact to meet “Same Time, Next Year.” 

We rejoin this pair of star-crossed lovers five years later in the same guest cottage of the country inn in Northern California where they first met. Both were surprised that the other turned up on the first anniversary, but five years later, the two realise their initial spark can’t be dampened. 

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

It’s not that often that I opt to read teenage fiction, but when this gorgeous book cover dropped in my inbox, I couldn’t resist giving this short but engaging book a chance.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea (Due for publication 22nd February 2022 by Feiwel & Friends) is a magical feminist retelling of the classic Korean legend of Shim Cheong, the Devoted Daughter:

The myth states that Shim Cheong’s mother died when she was born, and her father was blind and unable to work. One day her father was crossing a bridge when he fell into a river, a passing monk saw the man drowning and jumped into the river and saved him. The monk told the blind man that if he offered Buddha three hundred seoks of rice, he would regain his eyesight.

The blind man could not afford to buy so much rice, but when he told his daughter, she knew what she had to do. She had heard that some sailors would pay good money for a girl as an offering to the Sea-God. Rather than tell her father the truth, she told him a family had agreed to adopt her and she left with the sailors. Shim Cheong jumped into the roaring sea as a sacrifice. When she awoke, she was unaware where she was, but a voice told her she was in the Sea King’s palace, and he was so moved by her tale that he had ordered she be returned to the land of her birth.

Shim Cheong was returned to the sea in a lotus blossom where she was found by the sailors. They presented the lotus blossom to their king and when he touched it Shin Cheong walked out. The King fell in love with Shin Cheong and they were married, but he couldn’t help notice her sadness. She told the king her story and so he threw a party for all the blind people in the country in the hope of finding her father. Her father was still blind, despite his offering to Buddha, so he arrived at the party and was reunited with his daughter and they all lived happily ever after.

Deadly storms. An ancient curse. Will her sacrifice save them all?

Axie Oh has taken the basis of Korea’s famous legend and given the tale a new protagonist, Mina. For generations, deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. To appease him, each year they choose a young woman to be thrown into the sea, in the hopes that one day the ‘true bride’ of the Sea King will be chosen and his love and affection for his new bride will bring an end to the suffering.

The people have chosen Shim Cheong to be the legendary true bride, but she and Mina’s beloved elder brother Joon are already in love. On the night Cheong is to be sacrificed to the Sea God, Joon follows her out to sea, despite knowing that to interfere with the sacrifice carries a death sentence. Mina loves her brother a great deal and cannot bear to witness how sad her brother is, so she follows her brother, and when the times comes for Shin Cheong to be sacrificed, Mina throws herself into the waves instead.

Mina is swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts. Here she finds the Sea God, trapped in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man and a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits, Mina, who remains in human form, sets out to wake him and bring an end to the storms once and for all. The clock is ticking…a human cannot live long in the land of the spirits and there are many in the Spirit Realm who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…

“The myths of my people say only a true bride of the Sea God can bring an end to his insatiable wrath. When the otherworldly storms rise from the East Sea, lightning breaking the sky and waters ripping up the shore, a bride is chosen and given to the Sea God.

Or sacrificed, depending on the measure of your faith.

Every year the storms begin and every year a girl is brought to the sea. I can’t help wondering if Shim Cheong believes in the myth of the Sea God’s Bride. If she’ll find comfort in it before the end.

Or perhaps she sees it as a beginning. There are many pathways destiny can take.

For instance, there’s my own path—the literal path before me, stretching narrowly through the waterlogged rice fields. If I follow this path, it’ll eventually lead me to the beach. If I turn around, the path will take me back to the village.

Which destiny belongs to me? Which destiny will I grasp onto with both hands?

Even if it were up to choice, it wouldn’t really be mine to make. For though a large part of me longs for the safety of home, the pull of my heart is infinitely stronger. It tugs me toward the open sea and to the one person I love beyond destiny.

My brother, Joon”

 

I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed I this book. The plot was engaging, as were the characters, and the book was never overly sentimental. Mina was a compassionate character who cared a lot about her family and her people. Entering the realm of the Sea God allowed Mina to face some harsh truths and secrets, but with the help of the friends she made on the way she was able to come to terms with the realities of life.

Shin, who she first meets in the palace of the Sea King is equally compassionate, and as their lives begin to intertwine, he offers his own wisdom of the world to Mina. Shin’s arc is an interesting one. You never know whether Mina would be safer with or without him, and this relationship is intrinsic to the storyline, so it’s important that the author has balanced the storyline so well between them.

 

He lifts his gaze and his eyes are like the deepest part of the sea, cold and unknowable. I realize, his eyes do more to hide his thoughts than his mask does to hide his face.

“But I can explain it to you,” he continues. “Your people suffer not because of any great will of the gods, but because of their own violent acts. They wage the wars that burn the forests and fields. They spill the blood that pollutes the rivers and streams. To blame the gods is to blame the land itself. Look upon your reflection to find your enemy.”

His words ring out across the hall with a bone-chilling truth

 

Whilst the story is set in a fictional fantasy land, the morals held within the tale are an honest reflection on the world in which we live, and it gives food for thought.

 

My elder brother, Sung, says trust is earned, that to give someone your trust is to give them the knife to wound you. But Joon would counter that trust is faith, that to trust someone is to believe in the goodness of people and in the world that shapes them

 

I gave great reflection to the above passage. As I’ve grown older I’ve met many people. Some have gone onto be trusted friends, others have shown their true colours and no longer form part of my life. That is to be human. People have asked if I have any regrets, do I miss those people and I say no. People entered my life, I trusted them, I had some good times, they betrayed that faith and now they are gone from my social sphere. If I hadn’t allowed myself to trust them into my life, then I wouldn’t have some amazing happy memories to look back upon. But people change, groups do inevitably splinter; perhaps nowadays more quickly than ever, but that isn’t a good enough reason to not put your faith in a person. The world doesn’t revolve around people, they are just a tiny part of it, and this books allows us to question ourselves, our morality, and how we can change for the better.

 

“But it’s supposed to be a circle, isn’t it? The gods protect the humans and the humans pray and honor the gods.”

“That’s just like a human to think the world revolves around you, to think the rivers are for you, the sky, the sea is for you. You are just one of many parts of the world, and in my opinion, the one that blights them all.”

 

 This is a book which surpassed my expectations, which is always a delight. Had it not been for the beautifully illustrated cover, I doubt I would have given this short novel a second glance. It is a book which magically weaves poetry and proverbs into a tale which isn’t stuck in the past but is relevant for today’s society. In fact, it probably comes at just the right time as the themes of kindness and looking out for one another are needed now more than ever. As daily news briefings show societies rebelling against Covid rules, this book serves as a reminder that we should look out for others not always ourselves, and that by doing what is right, gives you more strength and ultimately benefits you in the end. Whilst the book is aimed at young adults, that shouldn’t scare anyone getting lot in the adventures of Mina, Shin, Namgi, Kirin, Mask, Dai and Miki.

 

Thank you to Hatchett UK for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Romance

Publishing Date: 22nd February 2022

No. of Pages: 336

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