4 stars
****

If you know the gist of ‘Under Milk Wood’ you will get the premise of this hour of musical cabaret, although having just come out of ‘Spelling Bee’ it took a while to readjust my brainspace and settle into it. However Street Cries turned out to be an enjoyable hour of entertainment.

What we have are two excellent actor singers with two, again excellent, musicians. Between them they cover a host of different characters’ lives in the day of a fictional town in a whole manner of styles. It is a testament to their talent that despite so many different genres and styles, their vocal technique is excellent and diction spot on.

Musically the songs are very good, I was strongly reminded of Sailor with a touch of Madness thrown in at times. And backed by two fantastic multi-instrumentalists who never got in the way but were always present, the balance worked really well.

For me the quirkiness and strange character names and language did nothing for the piece and I would be happier if this was either fleshed out more or dropped completely. Also some scenes worked a lot better than others.

Two stand-out points for me – Mitch Féral’s ‘old man’ scene and Kelly Craig’s voice.

Review by Alan.

C
1-27 August
20:25-21:25