CityLife

A Dog Called Redemption

CONCERNED that some of the wonderful theatre you can see on Manchester’s thriving fringe/independent theatre scene,  might not get the wider audience it deserved, the Library Theatre last year collected some of the most exciting pieces over previous months.

These had previously been seen in venues like Studio Salford and Taurus as well as at the 24:7 Theatre Festival,

Dubbed Re:Play, the fortnight was a great success, prompting a new version this year. It certainly got off to a cracking start with...

A Dog Called Redemption

MATTHEW Landers’ brilliantly thought-provoking play won last year’s M.E.N. Theatre Award as Best New Play.

It tells the moving and funny story of two unnamed, very different  down-and-outs who meet by chance on a busy city street.

The younger one (played by Landers himself) is young and confident, prepared to do almost anything to feed his drug habit and blank out the reality of his situation.

The other, older vagrant (played by Graham Elwell) seems much quieter and more retiring.

His disturbed background has left him barely capable of dealing with the world around him, only able to make sense of it through his love of words and by writing everyting down in a battered notebook.

But over a night in a disused chip-shop, they find out more than they’d bargained for about each other, the nature of survival and hope. It’s powerful stuff and is, once again, highly recommended.

Shot In The Dark’s Lost/Found

THIS is a very different piece of work, although no less effective.

Written and performed by Tom Barry, Lowri Evans, Fiona Maddocks, Ben Moores, Niven Ganner and Matt Rothwell, it originally premiered at Contact Theatre.

It's a constantly surprising fusion of puppetry, physical theatre, masks and mayhem set in what I can only describe – even though it unjustly and inaccurately makes the production sound pretentious –as some sort of Lost Property office of the imagination.

Touching on all manner of topics, including domestic violence, found photographs, and lonely childhoods, and closing with a live performace from a full-fledged rock band band who’ve hitherto remained hidden, it’s enormously ambitious, not a little challenging and performed with impressive enthusiasm.
 

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