Bright is the Ring of Words
Written by Jeffrey Mayhew, directed by Julian Garner and performed by Jeffrey Mayhew and John Garfield-Roberts. The show completed a successful run at the Pleasance in Edinburgh, 2010 and opened the new Green Room Studio Space at Wilton's Music Hall in East London.
Bright is the Ring of Words deals sensitively and urgently with issues of self-betrayal and redemption-by-proxy. For Stanley, a young man teetering on the edge of a precipice of self-loathing, hope lies in the fate of alcoholic former opera-singer, John McClaghlan. Can this old soak be resurrected in time to receive his long lost daughter? Can he be convinced that he is worthy of love, or even of life? Furthermore, can the magic of McClaghlan's once-glittering promise somehow rub off onto his voluntary carer? Stanley's quest might be as doomed as it is heroic, but as the story unfolds we realize both how high the stakes are and how few choices are on the table.
Press Quotes:
"Mayhew's powerful short play...Brilliantly Done" - Libby Purves: The Times
"A bitter-sweet odd couple piece with quality throughout" - David Pollock: The Scotsman
"Full of pathos & humour" - Deborah Klayman: The Public Reviews
"Bitingly real, powerful theatre" - Fringereview.com
Bright is the Ring of Words is a low-tech and ready to go show of extraordinary value, please email Jeffrey if you would like to book some performances. For production images please see our Facebook page
Cooking with Puccini
The celebrated composer is taken from whatever limbo he inhabits and finds himself on a modern day chat show. This show looks at the lives of the famous and invites them to share their favourite recipes with the studio audience. During the process the man, his life, loves and music come under scrutiny. Fame, creativity and moral responsibility are all considered through the medium of high comedy as the wisecracking, womanizing Puccini confronts his own persona.
Read the EdinburghGuide.com **** review
Read the One4Review.com ***** review
Read the OnstageScotland.co.uk review
Read the The List review
Swift
Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, Summer 2005
Guy Masterson directs Jeffrey Mayhew's powerful incarnation of Jonathan Swift; churchman, seditionist, humanist, and creator of Gulliver's Travels in the twilight of his extraordinary life.
Celebrated as the author of the Travels, Swift is less known as the passionate freedom fighter, wit, raconteur and champion of the individual which his contemporaries recognised. His views on politics, the relationships between men and women and his insight into the workings and frailties on the human condition are amongst the most trenchant, penetrating and witty of any century.
In this piece he is at last alone and facing the abyss, in constant fear of the madness that will soon overwhelm him. His own life and his Gulliver alter ego become enmeshed as events unfold and intertwine with the contents of his Will, for it is set on the day when this was, indeed, completed. Deeply acerbic, truculent but very, very funny Swift could be thought of as the perfect dinner party guest provided you could be sure he was on his best behaviour. For this show you join him when he is absolutely, definitely not on his best behaviour - and all the more entertaining.
The text is a careful reworking of the vast amount of writings left by Swift himself together with the addition of material from his friends and contemporaries – such as Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot, Sheridan, Parnell, Johnson… all intimately known to him. The result is a real insight into the life and mind of a quite exceptional man.
Read the Daily Mail review
Read the British Theatre Guide **** review (Philip Fisher)
Read the British Theatre Guide **** review (Peter Lathan)
Read the Herald, Glasgow *** review
Read the Herald review
Cyril's Little Moments of Weakness and Strength
Bare Bawds performed and produced Cyril's Little Moments of Weakness and Strength by Julian Garner at the Pleasance Theatre in London and the Edinburgh Festival, summer 2003.
It enjoyed much critical acclaim - please click here for reviews and photos