Spooky mansion is setting for Goth

10:37am Thursday 2nd October 2008

REVIEW DRAMARAMA Youth Theatre staged a co-ordinated takeover of Woodchester Mansion with their spectacular all-singing and dancing production GOTH over two weekends.

A cast of what seemed thousands brought us a complex multi-layered exploration of the many faces and human histories wrapped up in this most mysterious and atmospheric Gothic mansion near Stroud, abandoned by its builders in the 1870s. From the troubled family story of owner William Leigh, to romantic adventures imagined when platoons of GIs arrived to set local girls’ and evacuees’ aflutter in the months before D-Day, the production filled every corner of the mansion as the audience moved between scenes and settings, up and down stairways from cellar to attic, seeing the building as never before.

Craftily written by Dramarama artistic director Rachel Thomas from stories devised by the cast, and cunningly directed by Stroud-based theatre director Rosie Mason, the cast of children of all ages, from energetic and engaging infant bats to moving performances of the Leigh family by Patrick Beames, Tom Heathfield and Ioni Lyster, brought the mansion’s shadows to life in a sequence of sell-out evening performances. The stonemasons themselves, the architect Benjamin Bucknall (Ben Crane) and the domestic staff led by Housekeeper Isobel Harper completed a large and fluid dramatic canvas. In a cast of 52, there were many stand-out performances, not least from the youngest members of the company, whose imps and angels were vivid scene–setters.

Some spectacular lighting effects were achieved by Andy Webb of TIGZ. If the Mansion’s famous ghosts were in the audience too, then spellbinding is the word for the design and costuming.

The show is also on this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, tickets from Riffs records.

Bernard Kentledge