michele celeste > english reviews

      THE STAGE, February 22, 2001
      Glasgow/Touring
      Stroma

      Homelessness is a tricky topic to stage, especially for an audience of young people. Not every company could do it, and it is hard to imagine any other doing it as well as TAG Theatre Company. For with this new play,
      written by Michele Celeste, TAG takes strong steps into secondary schools and community venues across Scotland with a cautionary tale that does not have a phoney line anywhere in its 90-minute run.
      In London, Z (Cathleen McCarron) is an underage runaway befriended by
      Michael Moreland's Stu, who tries to shield her from the realities of the street, and protects her from the predatory Terry, played by David
      Ireland. Together with the manic, dishevelled Granville (also Ireland), Stu agrees to travel with Z to the deserted Scots island of Stroma, to clean up after an oil spill.
      Director James Brining encourages excellent, unselfish acting from his young cast, who each deliver powerful performances within intensely likeable personas. Caroline Scott's set provides a sloping rocky platform within the Iron Theatre's Changing House space, and the lighting (Kai Fischer) and music (scientific support dept) combine to create superb atmosphere.
      While the production is frank, Brining resists the temptation to overplay the misery and dangers of life on the streets. ln all, Stroma succeeds
through its honesty - accepting the reality that one in nine Scots children will run away, and giving them a voice -rather than standing on a soapbox and patronising `the kids'.
Alison Freebaim

***
THE HERALD, February 17, 2001

      Stroma
      Tron Theatre
      Changing House, Glasgow

ANYONE who has ever breezed past a Big Issue seller with the familiar (and patently spurious) cry "Got one thanks," would do well to watch the latest production from young people's theatre company, TAG, which follows the misadventures of three homeless youngsters on the streets of London.
      Designed primarily for school audiences, Michele Celeste's play in no way shirks the harsh realities of living rough, and the driving action has the immediacy of an episode of The Bill. Pimps, drugs and corpses are all
that pave these streets. Celeste, however, manages to transcend the grime of the big city with the play's heartfelt sense of longing.
      In his hands, it is a sensation that becomes almost mystical: a yearning not for home, but for "Stroma", a deserted island off John O'Groats. For the young people, it is a possible sanctuary; for the play, it is the most
appropriate destination for what is ultimately a tragic lament.
      James Brining's production is stark and uncluttered, and the emotive power comes from three striking performances that capture the madness and the melancholy of those who live on the streets.
      Michael Moreland is rent boy Stu - the one who holds things together, David Ireland is flip-flop wearing Granville -mental health problems forcing a nomadic existence in search of the parents he claims have run away; Cathleen McCarron is the mysterious Z - no history and the
      increasing threat of no future. Together they make the trip to the island - though only two will reach it as planned.
      It is not the road movie we might have expected, but the journeys that   they each make within themselves are beautifully realised and profoundly affecting.
Robert Thomson

VENUE - 29 October 1999
      The Price Of Meat
      The Tobacco Factory, Bristol

There's no doubt about it - Show of Strength are on top form this season. Their production of Michele Celeste's brilliantly articulate play about
      eight women struggling to survive in a fictional Yorkshire town where nobody's worked since the pit closed down is vibrant, terrifying and wildly funny. Revolving around the Jackson family (or what's left of it), the plot's got more twists and turns than a Cornish B-road. There's murder. There's blackmail. There's a pair of incompetent policewomen (Louise Dawson and Miriam Cooper) And there's a gran obsessed with Marks & Spencer (Wendy Brierley) The pace never
falters and the acting is consistently strong. Flip Webster gives a sustained and convincing performance as the reluctantly homicidal Joy while Amanda Horlock and Sophie Trott are absolutely spot-on as her stroppy but resourceful daughters.
      As the body count rises and the situation gets grimmer, there's a definite touch of Orton in the air. But that's not just because there are gags about corpses. The writing is fiercely elegant and the humour deliciously wicked. Set against a backdrop of poverty and desperation, this is a gripping mix of comedy, suspense and the macabre. Theatre with a real edge. Don't miss it.
Tom Phillips

WESTERN DAILY PRESS, November 4, 1999

       Glorious non-PC mayhem at coal face Tobacco Factory, Bristol: The Price Of Meat

      THIS is a play about what became of the brave Yorkshire miners' wives who supported their men at the strike.
      Ah, you think, a right-on feminist tract about sisterhood and empowerment.
      But everything about this wonderful riot of a play confounds your expectations.
      The author is a man, and an Italian to boot, and there is no sisterhood among these women, who have been living in poverty ever since the strike.       They unite only to relish, like vultures, the disintegration of the Jackson family.
      The play reminds you of Joe Orton crossed with Dario Fo; a dotty black comedy that is a million miles away from Coronation Street. The cast, headed by Flip Webster as the mother, Amanda Horlock and Sophie Troll as the daughters, plus five other women playing several roles each, rejoice in wicked thumbnail sketches and director Jayne Chard controls the mayhem very skilfully to create an evening of glorious political incorrectness.
      Helen Reid