'Swan Song' is a professional theatre production, which was the closing show to The Liverpool Theatre Festival, which has the organised by the producer and artistic director of the whole event, Bill Elms. The whole festival has been an amazing successs with sell out shows and putting on an incredible array of various shows.
'Swan Song', as indeed the entire festival, was performed in the very beautiful, St. Luke’s Bombed Out Church, which is totally Covid secure with safety precautions firmly in place. Limited audience attendees, social distancing measures all in operation and the guests' temperatures taken on arrival.
Produced in association with Bill Elms Productions and Quarry Street, they did an excellent job getting the show on to the stage and their production values were excellent with all the lightning and sound techniques. Noreen Kershaw (Broken, Scott & Bailey, Moving On, Our Girl, Call The Midwife, Coronation Street) directed with a good eye for detail. Her passion and techniques were demonstrated throughout this one-man show with precision and perfection.
Jonathon Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Call The Midwife, Coronation Street) wrote Swan Song with a wonderful vision of a certain period in the characters life. His writing was an excellent standard as always. I particularly liked how he incorporated a lot of humour and comedy, which he scattered throughout the writing of the show. His writing of all Dave’s interactions with his fellow colleagues felt believable and how he described the other characters were done brilliantly.
Andrew Lancel (The Bill, Coronation Street, Cilla, The Musical) played the character of Dave Titswell, a socialist, gay teacher working in a local comprehensive school in Liverpool. 'Swan Song' was set in 1997, where Dave was experiencing changes in his professional life. He was starting to lose patience with certain colleagues at the school. Dave really loved his job in the education sector and wanted to make a difference to children’s lives. He had a deep respect for the education system and had an understanding of what the children in his school wanted. He cared deeply for them and helped them, where he could whether it was therapy or just a conservation. The school trip to The Lakes prove to be a turning point in his life, as many changes were about to happen at the school...!
The running themes in Swan Song were society issues, loneliness and working relationships. The narrative conveyed a lot of conflict, friction and drama which was having an effect on Dave’s professional life. He appeared to be extremely lonely as he devoted his life to the education system and didn’t seem to have a partner. His only contact of seeing people seemed to be his fellow colleagues and children at his school.
'Swan Song' was The Liverpool Theatre Festival's swan song tonight and what a show to end this spectular event on. I really hope the festival returns to Liverpool next year, hopefully theatre is in a much better positon then.
Reviewer - Mark Cooper
on - 20/9/20
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