unseen theatre company: feet of clay

unseen theatre company: feet of clay
It seems like the latest Unseen Theatre Company production of Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay features a number of actors from the 2015 Adelaide Fringe production Inconceivable.

Mike Shaw who was both the director and starred as Westley plays Sir Samuel Grimes, Belinda Spangenberg (Buttercup) takes on a number of smaller roles including the vampire Dragon King of Arms, and Josh Mitchell (Count Rugen) plays both the titular golem(s) and the Dragon King's flunky. I knew I knew their faces, but I thought it was just from previous Discworld shows.

Shaw is impressive as Vimes, who I've always had a soft spot for, but the show is really stolen by both Kahlia Tutty who plays the City Watch's resident werewolf Angua and returning cast member Alycia Rabig as the Watch's newest recruit Cheery Littlebottom who goes through some changes.

Tutty really nails Angua's fierce yet sensual aspect and is very believable in those moments when Angua taps into her inner "bitch" (as she puts it in the show). And Rabig really plays up the comedy of Cheery's transformation from the outer dwarf to the inner dwarf without going over the top (the costume changes help).

And both Natalie Haigh and Aimee Ford who featured in Wee Free Men earlier this year as "No' as Big as Medium Sized Jock But Bigger Than Wee Jock Jock" and Wentworth respectively return with great comedy performances... Haigh in various roles including a gender swapping turn as Head of the Thieves Guild and Ford most notably as the Watchman who is more monkey than man, Nobby Nobbs. I also think that Hugh O'Connor is pretty much a perfect choice for the "perfect policeman" Captain Carrot... especially with that booming voice.

The set is also one of the more complex that I've seen from Unseen... including a pair of raised platforms, one for Lord Vetinari's (played by Danny Sag) palace office, the other for Vimes office, and between them a pair of doors. This also gives the opportunity for perhaps a wider variety of comings and going for characters, including coming out from under the palace office platform.

Often a lot of the setting is left to the viewer's imagination in Unseen productions, so it was nice to have a little more detail.

Likewise the costumes had some nice details, especially the aforementioned transformations for Cheery and Mitchell's orange foam golem costume (especially the head which had a lot of business to do and, I'm guessing, next to no visibility), but also Angua's gladiatrix-inspired look and Vetinari's robes.

As for the story, Feet of Clay isn't one where the original book really sticks in my mind, so while I know that they have, understandably, had to cut down a lot of the extraneous plot (although to be honest, the Wikipedia synopsis sounds pretty much spot on for the version we saw). But there were a couple of spots where if you weren't paying attention you may have missed a plot point here or there.

Overall though this was one of the better produced Unseen productions, if not one of the more memorable stories.

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