'Where's Your Mama Gone?'

New End Theatre, Hampstead, 3/5

(Marie Fortune and Oliver Ashworth)

Originally part of a community driven project in West Yorkshire complemented by an exhibition, Brian Daniel’s Where ‘s Your Mama Gone? is a piece of passionate polemic, highlighting the importance of childhood care, overcoming trauma and social responsibility. It feels particularly resonant at a time when ignoring the plight of the young has had dramatic social repercussions.

The play is inspired by Richard McCann’s novel Just a Boy. Richard’s mother Wilma McCann was Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe’s first recorded murder victim in 1975. This traumatic event is used as a thematic reference point, and is the basis for this fictional story of twins, Stephen (Oliver Ashworth) and Carol (Marie Fortune) who face a childhood in institutional care after their mother is murdered by a serial killer. Blending everyday humour and scenes of poignancy, the play paints intimate portraits of these children and their violent heritage. It delves into the psychological impact of childhood trauma and explores the possibility of achieving catharsis and release.

The production opens with Stephen and Carol as children, standing back-to-back on the stage. They are isolated but mutually supportive of one another. Later we see them transform into adults via an on-stage costume change to the strains of Chumba Wumba. Their lager-guzzling adult selves are still lovingly connected to one another but in a way that is also self-destructive. The intensity of their bond is a little overdone, lacking the unspoken subtlety of a realistic sibling relationship. Stephen’s emotional progress provides the driving force of the drama. He supports his sister as she suffers mental health problems; suffocating in stasis, she seems doomed to repeat the mistakes of her mother.

The stage is bare, the space compact, but such stark proximity between audience and performer made the piece more engaging than it might have been. Disturbing scenes, such as the mother’s murder, were presented in shocking close-up. The frequency of these intense, emotionally charged scenes made for a harrowing production that was often hard work.

This was an actor-driven production with a cast of five, some playing multiple characters. Alexa Christopher-Daniels’ direction focuses on using physicality to project the psychological landscape of the characters. The most successful scene was the culmination of Stephen’s attempt to reconcile his memories as he engages in a kind of posthumous therapy session with the spirit of his mother.

Displaced from its original cultural context as part of a project aiming to heal the West Yorkshire community, there seems important narrative and conceptual gaps. Consequently, the piece takes time to find its way. Yet what power it loses in this way, it makes up for in dedication to its cause. The strong performances from the two lead cast members create something that, while flawed, is also persuasive and provocative.

Super 8

Co-Produced by Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abram’s rambunctious Super 8 relives the classic summer blockbuster, but its heady Goonies nostalgia confuses cliché for pastiche 

                    Young Love: Alice (Elle Fanning) and Joe (Joel Courtney) 

Perhaps testament to his reputation for dazzling visuals and trademark ‘lens flares,’ J.J. Abrams has created a film of kaleidoscopic refraction; majestically blending spectacle and suspense, humour and poignancy, intimacy and Hollywood hyperbole. It combines Abram’s childhood memories of making movies on a Eumig super 8 camera, with a modern CGI-ridden disaster movie. It is E.T. meets Cloverfield. The nauseating chaos of overblown special effects sequences barely disguises a loving interest in childhood friendship and overcoming personal bereavement.

The film is a school’s out summer story of Joe, an isolated pre-teen whose mother has recently died and who remains numbly distanced from his straight-laced cop father. His group of friends, obsessed with making their super 8 movie, accidently witness and record a disastrous train crash. As mysterious disappearances and violent occurrences invade the town, Joe and his friends must uncover the truth. In the process, of course, he will overcome his grief, grow up and learn to reconnect with his father. Add in some Romeo and Juliet teen romance and Super 8 delivers a typical Spielbergian coming of age story circa late seventies, early eighties.

In fact it recreates it too well. Against a fun soundtrack of Chic, the Commodores and Blondie, Super 8 eagerly presents a perfect suburban topography of small town America in the early eighties. You could turn on the film at points and think you were watching The Goonies. While this kind of nostalgic pastiche speaks of simple, old-fashioned story-telling, the film rarely divulges its own voice preferring loyal replication of Spielberg aestheticism and themes.

The disaster movie aspect delivers frantic and furious explosions, fragmented by dizzying camera sweeps and switches. Such tiring scenes could easily be regurgitated from a host of recent disaster film franchises - War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, Transformers etc.

Young pretenders:  Martin, (Gabriel Basso), Cary (Ryan Lee), Joe (Joel Courtney) and Charles (Riley Griffiths) 

Much depends on its young actors. Solid and subtle performances mean the film is a cut above most Hollywood Blockbusters. Elle fanning (sister of Dakota) emanates star quality with a natural and eye-grabbing mesmerism.

The E.T. inspired nostalgia that fuelled Abrams’ auteuristic vision, spews out a film with genuine heart. Yet what dominates is cliché, without the emotional complexity and heart-wrenching realism of Eliot’s absent father. One too many bowl cuts J.J.