Lost Hellfire

'Lost Hellfire' is two new episodes of Luke Milton's brilliant series 'Across Hellfire'. They are showing at the Midland Town Hall - which is the spectacular building on the main road through Midland.

These episodes are what should have been episodes four and seven of the eight show series.

It opened to a full house of 380 people on the Friday night and a quite respectble number on the Saturday. A superb 8-sided programme brought people up to date with the series, who is who and what has happened previously - just in case they hadn't seen any shows before. However I could hear people around me asking 'what is this about?' as they were probably going to read their programmes at home later. So a live brief resume of the plot would have helped before the show.

Claire Hooper replaced Renee as Aimee, capably taking over a very well established part.

There were two episodes, the first, to quote Luke was a silly Halloween type scene. I found it the weakest of the 8 shows. There was one character who was Elvis's twin brother, good script, good story line - beautifully acted by Adam Mitchell, but I feel acted in the wrong persona. As most of the characters are as usual 'over the top', with this extra mad character the show became manic with all of the cast being on 'speed'. Had Elvis been a cool dude, as he was in real life and gradually changing towards the end, then I feel this episode would have been a lot better. Sorry Luke.

The second 'lost' episode, had guest appearances by Stuart Packham and Nisha Rivett and was back to the normal standard. Brilliant story line and very well portaryed by the whole cast.

Both shows well worth the extensive journey to the east! and at $10 full price who can miss it?

Gordon

What; Lost Hellfire, directed by Luke Milton
Where; Midland Town Hall
When; Sat 8th Nov

I saw Lost Hellfire on Saturday night at the Midland Town Hall, and I loved it and recommend that everyone make the not-too-distant schlep out to Midland very soon, this gem is only on till the end of the week.

It is very weird to watch a set you remember so well and characters you developed a real affection for move from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Blue Room to a cavernous 300 seat Town Hall with ceilings that disappear off into the clouds. The first thing I wondered, when the curtains opened, how well the cramped feeling so necessary for the play would survive.

The answer was beautifully, after some initial struggles with the acoustics of the place, the actors settled right in to their new space. I have to say I think the Blue Room is better suited to the show but the fact that I forgot I was sitting in such a huge space probably means it doesn't matter that much anyway.

The second thing I wondered was how Claire Hooper would go filling the shoes left by Renee Newman-Storen. Again, the answer was beautifully. Claire is a different Amelia than Renee was, but the character remained distinctive and recognisable. The all important dynamic between the four main characters established so well by the last run of Episodes maintained it's integrity despite the recasting, which is probably a testament to Claire and to the director. It couldn't have been easy taking over a character someone else has created, but she did it with confidence and aplomb.

I did see the last lots of Across Hellfire episodes so I'm not really in a position to say wether or not the new Eps were confusing for people who were not failure with the story so far. I can say though that I brought with me a friend who had not seen the other episodes and she claims not to have had any trouble following these ones. I am also told that the format has been slightly modified since I saw it so you get a Phantom-esque introduction at the beginning now, which should take care of any niggling confusions of the un-Hellfire-initiated.

It must be said that Episode One, while still being piss-funny and beautifully performed did suffer on the night I saw it (which, it must be remembered was only the second night) from a slightly laboured appearance of Elvis Presley's identical twin brother Jesse, recently arrived in the house from the future. It is my understanding that Artrage, who produced the show, insisted on the inclusion in some way of Elvis (who features in the Urban Edge publicity material). No mean feat when you are writing a play set present day about four people who lock themselves in a house and cut themself off from the rest of the world. The premise doesn't really naturally lend itself to the inclusion of The King.

But Adam Mitchell, who played Jesse, does so with enough flair to pull the role off and the writing remains at it's usual high standard which saves the Episode. Try to think of it, as the program and Gordon The Optom both said, as a sort of Halloween special.

Episode Two was definitely a return to the Hellfire of old. There is nothing funnier than a large-inexplicable-crate-in-the-middle-of-the-stage-that-wasn't-there-before gag. I don't want to say too much about the actual story content of the Episode without giving too much away, but I will say it's now firmly entrenched as one of my favourites. The young guy who played Stella has to be one of my favourite "Guest Stars" and this Episode elevates the Wheeler character to "And Damon Lockwood as Wheeler" status.

To conclude, I laughed and laughed. Which was embarrassing because the hall is very big and was only about a third full. It should be much fuller. The show is only on for the next three nights (I think), so get out East. The show starts at 8:30 so you have time to have a nice dinner and some swan valley whites at the Olive Farm (who have a killer wine list) or Padbury's in Guildford (try the chicken breast roulade) and you'll be home again before 11.

One comment I forgot to make in my review of Lost Hellfire below; the tickets are only about ten bucks. You can't BEAT that value!

Leah M

It strikes me as VERY strange that the "Midland Contemporary Arts Festival" should choose images of Elvis Presley as its underlying icon....although stepping into the Midland Town Hall theatre did automatically transport me back at least 40 years.

So it was with a slight sense of sheepish apology that Luke Milton introduced these 'lost' episodes, explaining not only a brief background to the series, but that the Artrage Festival had commissioned the work...so long as Elvis somehow 'entered the building'.

Given that each episode with special guest cameos was always slightly contrived anyway, in order to justify new characters in a boarded-up house, I think Luke solved this imposition in a highly inventive way; although as others have mentioned, it is probably the weakest story device because it is such an obvious contrivance, and I think I would've preferred to see a story more in line with the previous episodes.
Nevertheless, while the overarching plot went on a bit of a tangent, individual scenes and dialogue were still fresh, biting and hilariously manic.

The 'ghost twin-brother of Elvis' story has been used a few times before on both stage and screen, and on one hand I was a little disappointed that, if you're going to go to the effort of a full jumpsuit-and-sideburns look, the rest has got to match....accent, hip swagger, sneer, songs, etc. Adam Mitchell played an exuberant characterisation, but it was far too much of a stretch for me to believe that the housemates could be taken in by him, no matter how much gravy powder they'd been surviving on.
But on the other hand, there are SO many bad Elvis impersonators out there (I just found a website with a band from Chicago called "Jesse Garon Presley and the Percolators") that I guess that even slightly near enough is more than good enough in many cases, so why not here? And the fact that Adam's 'Jesse' turned out to be not quite who he seemed kind of helped me re-sustain my disbelief.
I still found the overall story rather confusing (a lost character from the past, yet coming back from the future..?...and how did he know enough to incriminate Wheeler, so to maintain his story..?) but I guess we were forewarned that it was a 'Halloween TV special'-type anomaly, and in the best tradition of all Scooby-Doo style disguises, both the confusingly contrived and the glaringly obvious can be ignored. In this way, at least, Luke is again pretty spot-on when he parodies a genre.

The second lost episode, featuring Stuart Packham and Nisha Rivett, was indeed closer to the lines I had been expecting. Again manic, black, obscene and insane, with a lot of really good hard laughs but also the odd poignant moment right when you don't expect it. Jarrod, you'll be wanting to go along just to review Nisha's costume, but her speech to Amelia is one of those moments...so are some of the relationship insights between Devlin & Amelia, Anwar & Wheeler, and where Stella fits in to the picture. Damon, Paul, Claire and Tye all do marvellously as far as carrying it all too far and then bringing it right back again...it's watching these four characters inter-react that has been the success of the series.

When I reviewed the first episodes in April, I thought straight away it would translate very well into television, albeit with a rather specific audience. It seems that ArtRage agreed, and is assisting the series to be taped and screened next year...a terrific achievement for a local new work.


PS: Loved the detail, illustrations and humour injected into the programme....but who the hell are Richard and Philip..?


Cheers,
Craig

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Oh and how could I not have mentioned....Damon Lockwood portraying one of the Uncanny X-Men with chopsticks and a salad fork....!!!


crg

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