BroadwayWorld UK Awards 2017: Charlie Wilks' Nominations
By: Charlie Wilks Sep. 23, 2017
I initially thought it would be an easy task to pick out my favourite shows from the year. The pieces that come to mind first are surely the best, right? Wrong! After looking in the diary I am reminded of how much brilliance I've had the pleasure of watching in the past year.
I've been to see a variety of plays, musicals, concerts, drag, puppetry, circus and cabaret, to name a few. Whilst writing this I kept saying to myself, "Ooh that was a good one as well... Oh, and that!" There's just so many to pick from. However, I've whittled it down, and below are some of my highlights.
At this year's VAULT Festival I caught Cicada Studios' superb Blood & Bone - a political satire, blended with sexualised humour, with a sprinkle of fertiliser-addicted plants that just want to have fun with their mates. What more could I have asked for on a Wednesday night?
A plant puppet ejaculated onto my leg whilst undergoing a prickly sexual act with a Spanish rose. And this wasn't the weirdest thing that happened during the show. I came out wondering what on earth I'd just watched. I still don't really know to be honest.
Did the jokes ever go too far? No. The show certainly had the potential to offend, but isn't that what great comedy is - the danger of teetering on the line between offence and hilarity? Blood & Bone get my vote in the Best Acting Ensemble category.
A breathtaking narrative of uncontrollable desire, Cordelia O'Neill's No Place For A Woman at Theatre503 showed how the power of dance could be a catalyst for life-altering decisions to be made. The story follows a commandant who plans to hold a party for his wife. She desires Champagne, but what she gets instead is a ballet dancer from the nearby concentration camp.
The cellist, Elliot Rennie, provided a score that was not only harrowing to listen to, but visceral in the way that it painted pictures of horror and distress in the mind. Put this alongside a script that pulls right at the heartstrings and you got a compelling 75-minute story.
Without doubt the best touring show has to be Theresa Heskin's production of Around the World in 80 Days. Travelling from 16 venues in five months, I caught it at Cadogan Hall and was blown away by the high level of imagination from all involved.
Eight actors played 109 characters, and the cast only had 25 days to create the show. There was so much going on, but it was never overwhelming. Exciting choreography from Beverley Norris Edmunds and gorgeous set design from Lis Evans delivered a real flavour of the world's cultural diversity.
After receiving wonderful reviews from its previous outing, the redeveloped and refined The Quentin Dentin Show came to the Tristan Bates Theatre. A show that blended science fiction with musical theatre, it's a crazy interstellar roller coaster from the first beat.
The show's lead, Luke Lane, wins my Best Actor vote. His Quentin Dentin was a mixture of game show host and cabaret queen. Lane's impressive vocal capability made him a perfect choice for the part, and he deserves recognition for his impressive performance.
I went to my first Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, and it was a 48-hour whirlwind full of colour, flyers, music and organised chaos. I saw 11 shows, the first being Mad Like Roar's Alan We Think You Should Get A Dog. The company's enthusiasm for their work was contagious, and they were able to collaboratively devise a playful and delicate show that packed a real punch.
One of my favourite Edinburgh shows was WAGGO, produced by students from Queen Mary University. It made no sense, however that was the point of it. It had real Breakfast Club vibes, but instead of breakfast everybody had a pill. It's not often you see a university production so well devised, but these students hit it right out of the park.
I'm a huge fan of anything physical, queer or circus-esque, so while in Edinburgh I popped down to see Svalbard's All Genius All Idiot. This banquet of performance had three main courses: a dynamic onslaught of contemporary music, a sultry serenading from a transvestite moose, and of course, a pummelling smash of jaw-dropping circus tricks.
Conor Hunt's play The F Word was a moving story that explored the uniqueness of the teenage experience. Focusing on a young boy's cancer diagnosis, Hunt's writing provided a sensitive insight into how we should remain positive when all the odds are stacked against us. Following its Festival run, the play transfers to the Drayton Arms in November, and I would highly recommend it.
I could keep writing, but I'd go on forever and then we'd be too busy reading, instead of seeing! All that there is left to say is a huge thank you to all of the artists who have shared their work with the world - it's incredibly enriching and inspiring.
Vote for your Edinburgh Fringe Festival favourites here
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