Next production - previewing July 2010 and touring Spring 2011.

She Opened the Door - is a new play for AsOne by Peter John Cooper, exploring Thomas Hardy's wife's Emma's view of the great Dorset Author, his work and his attitude to women. It is a serious piece but is told in a way that veers between dark and light, solemnity and humour. Music and dance interpolate the narrative but not always from the expected rural idyll. Emma shows us how far she has sunk into madness - but can the manuscript of the latest great novel be rescued from her clutches and what secrets does it contain?

Corn Exchange, Dorchester Sunday August 1st.

Hey Baby! Autumn Tour 2009

Now finished touring

'HEY BABY!’ by Nell Denton in collaboration with AsOne Theatre premiered at the Royal Manor Theatre, Portland 19 March 2009.

Review

'HEY BABY!’ by Nell Denton in collaboration with AsOne Theatre premiered at the Royal Manor Theatre, Portland 19 March 2009.

The first night of a new play is always difficult. The audience have no idea what to expect. But last night at the bijou Royal Manor Theatre, Portland, ‘Hey Baby!’ by Nell Denton in collaboration with AsOne Theatre had the audience swinging from laughter to tears and back again. The laughter, tears and applause was unanimous.

Five women attend a GP clinic in Portland. They’ve one thing in common: they are all expecting. Hey Baby features at least a dozen characters but this does not faze the three talented, high-octane actors, Jane McKell, Katie Don-Hughes and Robert Dobson. Jane McKell (Artistic Director of AsOne Theatre) is utterly convincing, lurching from Steph’s frozen indifference and emotional explosiveness - a woman prepared to use the pregnancy to show her husband she’s having an affair - to the bubbly, bravely determined, straight talking, northerner Liz who at 39 seizes the chance before it’s too late; Katie Don Hughes’ luminous face is utterly expressive as she turns on a sixpence playing the naïve Amy, a teenager, who can’t decide whether to keep the baby or not; the troubled Trudy, who struggles to combine work and pregnancy, and sunny Shelley, the only woman who has an uncomplicated response to her growing bump – she can’t wait to see her “her little jellybean”. Robert Dobson takes on the portrayal of four husbands with deceptive ease using only a hat, tie, glasses or gold chain as personal props to differentiate, and takes centre stage as Ryan in a moving scene with Steph’s baby offering hope for the couple’s future; he not only holds the baby in his hands but the audience too. All three actors have crafted physical command of their swift character changes; with an affecting connection with their audience.

This magical piece of story telling in the hands of Nell Denton has the unmistakable ring of truth, and it is no surprise to learn that the women are based on, five real mothers and a father who attended a series of workshops led by AsOne’s Artistic Director, Jane Mckell at Portland Outlook’s children’s centre to share their experiences of pregnancy and birth.
Peter John Cooper, the director, has devised ingenious staging with designer Annette Sumption, which sees the actors weave in and out of their roles in one continuous movement. This underscores the sense that as different as the five women are, they are all on the same journey.

The action of the play is interspersed with projected images of the baby in the womb by Lennart Nilsson. These extraordinary images combine with Dorset composer Simon Swarbrick’s especially commissioned music to create the sense that there are two worlds to this play – the world outside and the world inside the womb – as alien to us as a distant planet.

‘Hey Baby!’ is touring local theatres now and again in the autumn. If you’re looking for a great night out, go and see it – but don’t forget your tissues! (Dorset Echo March 19th 2009)