About A Girl Who... / 1% Inspiration: Lansdown

Wednesday 17th June 2009

This is a Crackerjack review of About A Girl Who.../1% Inspiration: Lansdown. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 7 / 10.

Work, drink and sexual tension: no, not your average office night out in Bristol but what's offered up in a neat rendition of a Stephen Vagg play, coupled with some arch quips on self-expression in a frenetic brand new work.

This double bill at Upstairs at the Lansdown, a venue once again coming up trumps with another well-crafted production, opens with a left-field look at vanishing career aspirations, self-esteem and human yearnings spiked with too much alcohol in About a Girl Who...

Pearl Mackie is empathetic as Cristina, whose ineptitude in the world of conveyancing leads joyfully to rediscovering her freedom. Her nemesis, Ainsley, played by Hannah Edwards, revels in barely-concealed hysteria that provides a neat foil to the two male characters.

They're all a mite archetypal - but, then, hasn't getting fired been a universal misfortune even before the advent of Sir Alan Sugar? And Laura Colgan does a brilliant job of directing in such a small space.

Lars Harald Gathe directs his own play, 1% Inspiration, with an aplomb which pulls his characters through a disastrous re-working of Ibsen's Ghosts into an unperformable, thankfully never realised, buffet-studded musical-come-ballet.

Everyone's a quick thumbnail sketch but it doesn't much matter. Bungling assistants, aesthetically-pleasing drama queens - watch out for Jack Holden, who is surely set to decorate a period drama soon -  and a work-phobic director move things along at a lick.

Brownie points go to Jane Horn, as Mrs Alving, who turns melancholy into four, suddenly funny, words.

These two snappy little numbers each benefit from an intimate setting that sharpens some lively performances from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School students. Catch them before they go stellar.

Sophie Lomax

This is a Crackerjack review of About A Girl Who.../1% Inspiration: Lansdown. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.