Toyah - The Fleece

Back in Toyah’s heyday, she offered sci-fi-infused songs of rebellion that allowed suburban adolescents to dye their hair silly colours and imagine themselves interstellar warriors.  More than 30 years later, both Toyah and her fans are older. In most cases, the exotic clothing and unusual hairstyles have been traded in for comfortable jeans and a National Trust membership card.  Middle age has come to the denizens of the Intergalactic Ranch House.  And it has come to their high priestess too: no longer the puckish pixie of punk, grown-up Toyah’s style is more demure little black dress, the main reference to her previous incarnation being the heavy tribal jewellery that silvers her arms.  Yet when she unleashes her trademark smile, she retains the remarkable ability to look like a mischievous 6 year old.

As with most artists who have had a career spanning well over 30 years, the set was a pick and mix of hits, ranging from the 35-year-old Danced to the more recent Latex Messiah. The songs were performed in a stripped-back rock style - perhaps the result of spending so many years married to King Crimson’s lead guitarist - the simple four piece band delivering a raw feel to the songs as Toyah deployed her astoundingly varied voice, switching in an instant from helium croak to rock diva. Occasionally the simplification did go too far - the keyboard part on It’s a Mystery seemed to have been rescored for ‘toddler with toy piano’ - but it did inject a fresh energy into what could easily have become a wallow in nostalgia.  And when Toyah finally arrived at the crowd-pleasing anthems of yesteryear - It’s a Mystery, Good Morning Universe and finally I Want to Be Free - the only thing that stopped the punters from going completely mad was the state of their joints.  There is something both comic and poignant about watching a crowd chant “I’m going to walk the streets, scream and shout” when they actually look like the people who join Neighbourhood Watch to stop that sort of thing.  Maybe the lesson is that inside the most sensible-looking anorak, there may still beat the heart of an intergalactic rebel warrior.

Sara Pascoe - The Lantern

A lot of people have sweeping and fairly negative views of female comedians, ranging from “they’re just not funny” to “they only do jokes about women’s issues”.  Now before you start writing Fierce E-mails in Capital Letters, consider this idea: maybe the reason so many female comedians are disappointing is not because they’re female, and not because they’re talking about periods, but simply because there are an awful lot of poor comedians out there, and some of them are bound to be women.  The fact that some female comedians tell poor jokes about ‘lady topics’ may obscure the fact that the problem is not the subject matter or the gender of the performer, but the quality of the material and the performance.  Bad comedy is bad comedy - the only difference is that with a male comedian you can’t erroneously blame it on the gags about front bottoms.

The empirical evidence lies in Sara Pascoe.  She is female, she does talk about periods - and lots of other ‘feminine’ topics - and she is very, very funny.  Her set blends deadpan observational humour from the life of a borderline neurotic with the current trend of ‘comedy you can learn from’, meaning that the laughs are punctuated with informative yet accessible wanders through the realms of anthropology, biology and psychoanalysis.  If there is anything to complain about, it is that many in the audience clearly recognise some of the material: Pascoe needs to drop the routines that she’s already done on the telly.

The Lantern - which older readers will remember as the bar of the Colston Hall before it grew its gold-encrusted extension - is a decent comedy venue, still small enough to offer the required intimacy.  Sara Pascoe’s talent for intelligent stand-up and her growing profile sadly means that the next time she’s in town, she will probably have progressed to the cavernous municipal space of the main Hall.  Which is a shame.  But then success has to have its downside.

An Elephant in the Garden - Brewery Theatre

Based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book, An Elephant in the Garden is the story of Elizabeth, a teenage girl growing up in wartime Dresden. When “the most beautiful city in Germany” is devoured by a raging firestorm as the result of an Allied bombing raid, she sets of on a trek across war-torn Germany with her mother - and an elephant. 

Adapted by Simon Reade - who was also responsible for the recent one-man staging of Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful - this production draws on an ancient tradition of storytelling, with a single actor narrating, but also acting out the scenes that she’s describing. In a setting like that, the success or failure of the night depends entirely on the ability of that single actor. Happily Alison Reid is more than up to the task.  On a bare set in the tiny Brewery Theatre, with the aid of just a handful of props and a beautifully judged sound and light scheme, Reid conjures up a plethora of interacting characters.  In a bravura performance she populates the stage with Canadian airmen and German farmers, each with their own distinct personality and presence. At times she even gives us a very believable elephant.  Meanwhile she also keeps the story going at pace fast enough to grip even the younger and more distractable audience members.

At little over an hour, An Elephant in the Garden is just the right length to engage its youthful target audience.  And it is a perfect opportunity for them to discover the magic that only live theatre can offer: the ability to suspend disbelief and allow an actor to play on your imagination, conjuring up worlds out of thin air.