Born2Perform are a local theatre school based in Armley,
Leeds, who, alongside the Interplay Theatre, have grown from a small class of
5, to nearly 30 kids ranging from ages 5 and up, all from the local community.
The Interplay Theatre are an arts organisation celebrating
50 years engaging people nationally using the arts. Working across film, music
and theatre, engaging thousands of people each year in high quality arts
experiences, developing them as individuals and inspiring them to achieve their
full potential. Their inspiration comes from a belief that every young person
has a story to tell and they continue to empower them and give them the tools
to tell their stories.
More important work that they do involves reaching out to
young people with profound multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) through
touring theatre productions, to give them new and transformative experiences in
theatre and education. They also put on Sensory Theatre productions at their theatre in Armley.
Onto tonight’s performance, by the Born2Perfom stage school,
who took on the mighty challenge that is Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the Roald
Dahl classic, Matilda. This was the shortened schools' version, Matilda Jr.
which somewhat skims the surface of the show, but you still very much get the
jist of what is going on and the main plot lines are all covered.
Matilda JR opens
with enthusiastic school children (and their equally enthusiastic parents)
singing their own praises…except Matilda (Evie). According to her parents, she
is nothing but a nuisance. At Matilda's home, her father, Mr. Wormwood
(Daniel), reveals his scheme to sell old automobiles as brand-new luxury cars
to Russian businessmen. Matilda then visits a library to pick up some books and tells the librarian, (Annie-May), the first part of the acrobat and escapologist's woeful endeavours.
Following that, we have the first day at school and our
first major obstacle, Tim Minchin’s brilliantly wordy ‘School Song’. The cast
did a great job fighting their way through this tough passage in the libretto,
along side that, holding up their alphabet dice as each letter was emphasised
in the lyrics. We meet the sweet Miss Honey, (Maisy). The terrifying unibrowed
Headmistress, Miss Trunchbull (Lola), and the rest of Matilda’s class. The rest
of the story goes on as you would expect, we see Bruce Bogtrotter (Aibhlinn), scoff an enormous cake, Mrs Wormwood (Mia), and Rodolpho (Kaydee), practicing for
a dance competition, although I’m not sure that is mentioned in this version of
the script, so they are just dancing in the family home. Matilda finishes
telling the tale to the librarian, and then Matilda eventually takes down
Trunchbull.
There was a lot going on in this performance, as you can
probably tell, and it was so pleasing to see so many young people having the
time of their lives on stage, dancing, singing their hearts out, mostly
remembering their lines, and telling us this story. From a group compiled of
children who mostly have never performed on stage before, the staff at
Born2Perform stage school have every right to be hugely proud of the cast’s
efforts tonight. And I hope when the rest of the performances happen, they are
equally as good.
There were some minor slip ups through the show, but nothing
that detracted from the performance too much, and there was an amount of
charming moments, such as Michael Wormwood, (Isaac), wondering around the stage
looking for his portable television, then settling down, just as the scene
ends, and Evie, who played, Matilda mouthing the whole script throughout the
show. These moments just made the performance very sweet to watch, and the
whole evening was a lot of fun. Some of these children are very funny, and I
hope they all carry on with this journey in theatre, as they could go on to do
wonderful things.
From a production point of view, there was a very minimal amount of set, mostly
just a few props which came on and off between scenes such as school tables and
a sofa, (not forgetting Isaac’s portable TV!!) and the scenery was all
projected onto the wall. There was a minimal amount of lighting, and the sound
was all from the MTI provided backing tracks, which at times was a smidge too
loud and drowned out the individual solos from the cast.
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