By Cal
Link: Living
Newspaper: Edition 2 On Demand - Royal Court (cogplayer.com) £10
Available until: Sunday 27th
December 4pm
Living Newspaper is a great idea and it’s a very impressive
undertaking. The writers and actors have so little time in which to do their
jobs and the fact that they’re producing a new and really quite long film every
week is remarkable.
There are several items of news,
taking us through the pages of the newspaper and around the Royal Court
Theatre. Most use the spoken word but there is also a lot of music and dancing.
It is lovely to see the different parts of the theatre and there is some very good acting and writing on display but Living Newspaper does tend to assume we know about all the news items already. When I did know what they were talking about, I found the writing incisive and clever but when it was about something I wasn’t familiar with, I didn’t really find that Living Newspaper helped me to understand it.
There is a lot to enjoy, though, even
for an ignoramus like me. ‘The Front Page’, a rap by Ryan Calais Cameron, is
beautifully staged and shot. Ryan also wrote ‘The Blank Space’ which is in the
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs and made fantastic use of movement and lighting.
Mark Ravenhill’s ‘Cartoon (of the
week)’ is a series of signs with words written on them – words which are
relevant to the situations we are currently in (though I was slightly disturbed
by the amount of toilet paper they seemed to have – is that legal?). ‘The Long
Look & Listen’ by Yasmin Joseph presented various pieces of news and I
loved the irony in the segment on gender.
Ruby Thomas’ ‘The Weather Room’ tells
the story of a protest which doesn’t go as the protagonist hopes – a really
vividly-told story that makes it easy to imagine what is being described. ‘Obituaries’
by Emteaz Hussain tells a gripping story about a refuge which is both
heart-breaking and heartening. Tom Wells’ ‘Royal Court-ing’ tells the story of
a couple who are meant to have a date but things don’t go as planned. The two
people in the drama are strongly-characterised and they connect in an unusual
way which I really enjoyed.
Living Newspaper is a brilliant idea and if I did get a bit
lost this week, that is my fault for not keeping a better eye on the news!
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