TWO WEEKS WITH THE QUEEN

TWO WEEKS WITH THE QUEEN by Mary Morris, adapted from the Morris Gleitzman novel. WA Youth Theatre Co, Subiaco Arts Centre Main Auditorium Highly impressed by tonight's opening of Two Weeks With The Queen, performed by the WA Youth Theatre Co & directed by Phil Thompson. Terrific ensemble work, a large cast working seamlessly to fully flesh out every scene with layers and layers of interesting characters. I saw the original touring production with a cast of 6, and this is one of those adaptations which has really benefitted by making it a larger cast (18). There are no token roles, everyone finds a way to contribute, and the teamwork and focus were brilliant. I'd often look around at someone in the background and think 'wow, that's terrific' yet there was never any upstaging...rather than distracting me from the main action, it always supported and added to the story being told. Part of this was the fluidity of the scene changes...a fascinating choreography to watch all by itself. Francis Italiano's set design is simple but extremely effective, and it's great fun to watch the scene transitions. There are a LOT of scene changes in this play, and I usually hate watching a play where the scene ends and time is taken to rearrange the set before the next scene starts...this time the scene changes took on a character that became the 19th member of the ensemble: slick, expressive, and integral to the feel of the show; assisted by Kingsley Reeve's dynamic soundtrack. While it really was a combined cast effort with everyone making a noticeable contribution, there were a few performances worth highlighting. Alex McArthur does a great job in the lead role of Colin, onstage almost the whole play and giving a great energy and naive exhuberance. Amy Walsh showed touching emotion as the mum with a boy dying of cancer. Ben Pascoe and Sarah Young were wonderful as the quirky English uncle & aunt, and Thomas Vowles kept getting funnier as the soppy English cousin. And Patrick Downes played an excellent dual role as Colin's dad, and then as the gay Welshman Colin befriends in London. The whole cast had many moments of great comic timing, but these actors took on roles that also allowed them to express a touching emotional quality, which they all handled beautifully. Katja Vella's costume design was really interesting; at first I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary, but it gradually dawned on me that every costume had a hand-drawn cartoon aspect, which was fresh and fun. The only thing that was slightly disappointing was the abruptness of the end. I wasn't ready to stop watching, and I think I'd have liked to see slightly more in the script to resolve the main characters. Apart from wanting to see more, it was a terrific debut by Phil Thompson as the new Artistic Director of WAYTCo, and yet another high quality entertaining show by the company. On until the 28th. I urge you to take your families along to see it. Cheers, Craig