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Rolling With Laughter
By Natasha Wood & Beverley Saunders
Directed by Cameron Watson
New End Theatre
New End, London NW3 1JD
Call +44 (0) 870 033 2733 Tickets £11 - £13
Tues – Sat 7.30pm; Sat & Sun Mat 3.30pm
Running time 1 hour with no intermission
Through 20 October 2007
It’s OK to Laugh
Arriving on stage under the power of her wheelchair, Natasha Wood’s own energy ignited a warm response from her audience at the New End Theatre on Wednesday night. This is a sophisticated audience, well accustomed to the best in theatrical fare, and it is testament to Miss Wood that from the first moment till the last she was received simply as a performer in her own right, with no allowance made for disability. She would have it no other way.
Miss Woods’ material of course is the hand life has dealt her, and how she plays it. The level that her Spinal Muscular Atrophy dictates how she lives has not impaired the accuracy of the precision guided missiles of humour that she loosed off at the people and situations her life has collided with.
Having performed some years ago with the distinguished Graeae Theatre Company, one of the first theatrical troupes to be made up of actors with one disability or another, and since as a solo performer, Miss Wood now nails her colours to the mast and describes her piece as ‘a one-woman play’. Devised by her, co-written with Beverley Sanders, and directed by Cameron Watson, it nevertheless succeeds most fully when not thought of as a play, but as an hour’s autobiographical entertainment.
In her story she recalls how she was told when studying drama that fear, love, anger and joy were the four emotions she would have to master in order to become an actor. Nobody needed to tell her that a wicked sense of humour would be the currency she would trade in, though, and with her accurate recognition of the funny moments life and people can provide, the anecdotes and characterisations roll off her naturally witty tongue.
There may be some way to go before the blending of the art of ‘stand-up’ comedy and theatre is fully realised, but one cannot but admire and warm to this force of nature, all heart, and brimming with daring, the desire to entertain, and the love of life.
Recommended
Saul Reichlin
London Correspondent
www.ChicagoCritic.com
Talk Theatre in Chicago Podcast
Wednesday 3 October 2007
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