My Mix(ed-Up) Tape review – fury on the dancefloor at fiery Welsh wedding
📖 Full Retelling
<p><strong>Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot<br></strong>A reluctant return to the valleys brings a reckoning with a violent past and problematic present in Katie Payne’s vivid and raw monologue </p><p>Playwright Katie Payne’s vivid, pacy play may be a monologue, but in its taut 70-minute running time, it sketches out an entire social landscape. Payne plays Phoebe, who has returned from London to the Welsh valleys, where she grew up, for her cousin’s weddin
Entity Intersection Graph
No entity connections available yet for this article.
Original Source
Review My Mix(ed-Up) Tape review – fury on the dancefloor at fiery Welsh wedding Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot A reluctant return to the valleys brings a reckoning with a violent past and problematic present in Katie Payne’s vivid and raw monologue P laywright Katie Payne’s vivid, pacy play may be a monologue, but in its taut 70-minute running time, it sketches out an entire social landscape. Payne plays Phoebe, who has returned from London to the Welsh valleys, where she grew up, for her cousin’s wedding in a Working Men’s Club. Does she want to be here? Not at all. But the more time she spends in the venue, brushing shoulders with the community that shaped her, the harder it becomes to ignore the fury pulsing beneath her skin. In a production directed with fire by Stef O’Driscoll, Phoebe leads us through both the wedding party and her past. We meet her best friend, Alex, who she hasn’t spoken to for two years, and the teenage “neck-licking” crush that came between them. On the dancefloor, she collides with her parents and straight-talking aunty and does her best to avoid being escorted out by the bouncer for the second time. London might be her home now, but the valleys know the messy, attention-grabbing person Phoebe really is. And with a DJ set (provided by DJ Onai) soundtracking the night, it feels like Phoebe will have to dance her way through this blast of history. Payne moves at breakneck speed, zipping between one character and the next – each with a wildly distinct physicality and voice. When difficult conversations arise, Phoebe does her best to avoid them, launching herself into erratic moments or retreating to the toilets or smoking area. The script touches on weighty themes: feeling left behind, like a failure, and the nagging sense that you may have made the wrong choices. Phoebe’s propensity for violence is traced back to her teenage years. O’Driscoll returns to scenes in which Phoebe is the butt of the joke, repeating them and ramping up the ...
Read full article at source