The second instalment of the Lovehistory Loves Crime series invited us into a world of disturbing and sinister circumstances that occurred in the underworld of Victorian Liverpool. The performance consisted of four theatrical re-enactments of gruesome tales, therefore it is only fitting that the performance was staged in The Concert Room of St George’s Hall, best known for playing host to one of the best story tellers of our time, Charles Dickens, who labelled the room as the most perfect room in the world.
The evening started off well with atmospheric music setting the tone as people found their seats. The room was almost completely full and seats surrounded a make shift stage in the middle, abandoning the concert room stage and making it more intimate and giving the illusion of involving the audience in the events that were retold as if they were there. The narrator, Niall Ross Hogan, spoke clearly and effectively throughout and was one of few actors to overcome the reoccurring mic issues that were unfortunately consistent throughout and distracting from the performance on stage. He introduced each of the stories which involved the story of the Burning Woman, a bank robbery, a mysterious case of murdered babies which some details still remain unsolved and the murder of a bookshop keeper. As stand-alone stories, they were interesting and dramatically performed by actors with obvious talent and impressive intensity, however unfortunately there were some factors that distracted from their hard work.
The stories had a disconnected feeling throughout and there seemed to be little continuity from one story to another, making it at times hard to follow and capture full attention from the audience. As aforementioned, the reoccurring mic issues were extremely off putting to the performance as, due to the story telling aspect of the show, it was extremely dialogue based and often words were missed and misunderstood. Adding to this, the music that was incorporated into the show often overpowered the speakers, however this may not have been the case if the mics had not let them down. Another aspect that was particularly awkward was the way the actors exited the stage, especially those that we had just witnessed murdered. To see them walk away five minutes later as if nothing had happened previously ruined the illusion of the story that had been dramatically re-enacted beforehand and was unfortunately quite a distraction.
As an informative piece of drama offering insight into the criminal history of Liverpool, this production is very enjoyable. However, it lacked the sinister, unnerving elements that they were trying to achieve. The show is a very good idea, and the actors are clearly talented, showing that the production has the potential to be a lot better than it is if technical issues and awkward staging choreography was addressed and overcome. Despite this, the performances were carefully executed to ensure that, although sometimes re-enacting murder or describing disturbing events of decomposed corpses, the show is family friendly and will embrace people of all different ages, so would be an ideal choice for a family night of entertainment.
For more information about Lovehistory and their upcoming productions, visit http://lovehistory.co.uk/
Reviewer: Sarah Goldsmith
Reviewed: 8th April 2016
