REVIEW: JB Shorts25 plays at the 53two venue in Manchester all this week.
JB Shorts is celebrating its 25th set of performances this week in a series of shows spanning the last 15 years providing totally unique and entirely new theatre.
Offering six new playlets of fabulous fringe fare, the productions are all penned by established TV and theatre writers. It has proved so popular that the once annual event is now produced twice a year.
While each short play can be enjoyed in its own right, the showcase also provides an opportunity for writers to test the water for future productions or television episodes in front of a live audience.
Plus, in the case of the latest offering, it even provides the chance to try out some new stand-up material.
Stepping out to bring each vignette to life over the years have been a mixture of established, familiar names from the world of stage and screen, rubbing shoulders with all new talent, fresh from acting school with many from our region having appeared in the ‘JB Shorts’.
For audiences the appeal is being able to sit back and soak up six theatrical jewels covering a vast array of topics.
This time those topics span murder, mystery and intrigue, the history behind the women’s Greenham Common campaign, to more light-hearted fare in the form of ‘Hens’ - which joyfully turns out to be exactly what it says on the tin!
Manchester writer Zoe Iqbal serves up a sexually explicit stand-up routine (well this is adult-only theatre) although a disturbing ‘dummy’ sketch it has to be said steals the show for this reviewer and is worth the entrance fee alone. But more on that story later.
Such diversity always proves thought-provoking, as well as being hugely entertaining.
Plus, if you don’t particularly enjoy one of the offerings there’s no need to worry, as you are safe in the knowledge that you can quickly slip into another story just ten or 15 minutes down the line.
That model has been playing out at 53two in Manchester all this week and continues until Saturday, with appropriately, the first offering called ‘Railway Sleepers’.
Heading down the track from Stockport to Euston on a very important job are familiar faces from our TV screens Will Travis, Sue McCardle, Emma Grace Arends alongside recent Manchester Arden graduate Rosa Brooks.
Emma is first class as ‘travel manager’ Siobhan in true Little Britain-style on a train trip with an unexpected ending, penned by highly experienced TV script writer Peter Kerry. When did you see it coming? Book your ticket to find out.
TEXT THE JOB: Frank (Will Travis) thinks he has just the ticket for a new job in London in Railway Sleepers. But does he?
Nothing is as it seems either in ‘The Exact Spot’, a tale of mystery and intrigue from the mind of playwright Trevor Suthers, based on the true story of the last witch burned in Ireland.
Bewitching, suspenseful and laced with Irish humour, it is brought to life long after the horror by John Joyce-O’Keeffe, Stephanie Wallace and Northern Irish actor Brandon McCaffrey. Of course, another twist in the tale awaits.
The first half reaches its climax with Mancunian writer and actor Zoe Iqbal’s ‘Erotic Novel Gone Wrong’. At the launch of the novel, Zoe explores a holiday conquest that doesn’t quite stand up to expectations, but provides plenty of laughs none-the-less in a play that works as a stand-up routine.
The second half starts off in altogether more serious style with ‘You Can’t Kill the Spirit’, tracing the history behind the first women to march on Greenham Common to halt nuclear weapons being based there in the Cold War era. Expertly produced, it is told in sometimes Brechtian-style with powerful song and movement by the talented trio Chantal Amber Rose, Megan Hickie and Michelle Ashton.
This comes from the pen of Rebekah Harrison and surely must become a theatre play in its own right.
The night finishes in hilarious style in total contrast again with ‘Who’s the Dummy’ and ‘Hens’.
The dummy in this case is Corrie and Emmerdale’s Vicky Binns who plays the part of a ‘real’ dummy called Sunny so exquisitely and with such expert comic timing that it’s a joy to behold.
That’s to take nothing away from the human half of her act Daniel Brennan and his long-suffering wife Yemisi Oyinloye.
You may feel like you’ve been here before as you absorb this very funny and also disturbing chiller, but Dave Simpson’s pen is so sharp and the acting so crisp you’d genuinely be a dummy to miss this.
HOLIDAY FROM HELL: The hilarious Hens.
Last, but by no means least, this year’s JB Shorts bows out in resplendent style with the offering ‘Hens’.
Think Bouncers or Shakers meets Benidorm - only they had to go to Barcelona instead - this tale of a hen party descending from bad to worse is again pure comic genius told with (hand)bags of energy and pace by actors Jo Dakin, Verity Henry, Kirssi Bohn and Haylie Jones who are all incredibly hilarious.
Written by Diane Whitley and Lindsay Williams it is a fitting finale to send everyone home happy, but also with plenty to think about after another highly successful and entertaining JB Shorts.
If you are lucky enough to get tickets for what is often a sell-out run - then snap them up, you won’t be disappointed.
JB Shorts is produced by Dave Simpson, Trevor Suthers, Peter Kerry, James Quinn, Dianne Whitley and Lindsay Williams in association with Paris Rogers.
For ticket availability visit the JB Shorts Facebook page or see https://www.jbshorts.co.uk/
Review by Nigel Skinner
Pictures courtesy JB Shorts
