Silent Laughter: The Rondo Theatre Company, 12 November 2010.

The Rondo is different. The audience is different from mainstream Bath as are many of the productions. Thank goodness. Silent Laughter is a great example of this. Silent movie mayhem produced live. This version was first seen in New York, off Broadway in 2004 and this seems to be the English premier. As someone who finds Chaplin as funny as toothache I approached it with caution. But no caution was needed. This was a full blooded, relentless, very inventive silent hoot, held together by brilliant pianist Vaughan Hill and, of course, the cast of quite a few playing even more parts.

Naturally there is a hero, Tim Thornton brilliant as the ever present Billy, and a superb villain, a sinister version of Groucho, Lionel Drippinwithit, played to the hilt by Steve Huggins.But the cast were all great and the silent version of Danny Boy almost a showstopper.The backdrop is on a screen as are the few words.

Somehow, in between the silent movie routine, there were real surprises and naturally it all ended happily with a custard pie scene, but even that cliché event raised laughs and a great closing ovation from the enthusiastic audience. The laughter wasn't silent.

Philip Horton - Bath Chronicle. 

Merry Wives of Windsor
Bawdy battle of the sexes was faultless
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Bath Drama/Rondo Theatre Company
The Botanical Gardens, Bath
Oh, what a perfect summer's evening entertainment — a faultless production of Shakespeare's naughty bawdy comedy that was blessed by good weather.
For once we could sit back with our picnics in the warmth of the evening sun and enjoy - as opposed to endure - an open air performance.
And there was no question about enjoying this co-production between two of Bath's best known amateur theatrical companies - It was wonderful.
Director Jennifer Riddle took this raunchy battle of the sexes tale and gave it a modern twist by setting it in the 1950's complete with some cool jazz courtesy of saxophonist Nick Sorensen.
The play features Falstaff— but not as you would recognise him from Henry IV, in this production he becomes a swaggering spiv in a jazz club who sets his sights on seducing two attractive women — the merry wives of the title.
What follows is a fast-paced farce in which the women easily outwit the lusts, intrigues and jealous foibles of Falstaff and their husbands.
Lindsey Peters as Mrs Ford and Alex Oliviere-Davies as Mrs Page were excellent as the merry wives who have such sport, conspiring together with much wit and glee. Falstaff is played in hilarious
fashion by a greasy, strutting Matt Nation who, on the opening night, was word perfect in his demanding role.
A sub-plot in the play that revolves around three suitors vying for the hand of the maiden Anne Page (Claire Wilkins) allows for more comedy in the camp portrayal of one of the suitors, the ridiculous
Slender, by Steve Huggins and by his idiotic manservant Simple (Kevin Williams).

Chris Seton-Smith, another suitor was very funny with his cod French as Dr Caius and there was a marvellous fencing scene between him and vicar Sir Hugh Evans (Jeff Hughes).
Supporting cast were all equally good and the pace never let up, never missed a beat.
Jackie Chappell

Road - November 2009 Bath Chronicle Review, November 26, 2009.

If ever there was a must-see performance to get you away from watching Spooks on the telly on a Wednesday night, then this was it.

Road is a revival of Jim Cartwright's play that was first produced in 1986, a gritty reaction to the quashing of the miners' strike, unemployment and poverty.

At the same time it is a celebration of life in the raw and the hope for something better - all delivered in a rich Anglo-Saxon vernacular enlivened by gutsy humour and flashes of pure poetry.

It ranges in turn from laugh-out-loud humour to pure pathos.

This was a stunning production on the part of an amateur company and a triumph for Alex Needham whose first outing as director this was.

The play takes place in one Lancashire street - here represented on a stark set by a bit of scaffolding and the occasional prop.

No more is necessary as the eclectic range of characters paraded before us, introduced by the narrator Scullery (well played by Steve Leanaghan), are quite colourful enough.

There are girls dolling up to go out on the pull, a former skinhead who has found salvation in the Dharma, and two lads, Eddie and Brink whose route to sanity lies in getting drunk and letting rip to the sounds of Otis Redding.

From partying to ranting against the lack of jobs, a drunken husband or the sheer grinding awfulness of poverty, it is all enacted with a richness of language and at an exhilarating pace that barely faltered on the opening night.

Many of the cast doubled - or even trebled - up on their roles, with Tim Thornton brilliant variously as the nutter Skin Lad, a mad DJ and a soldier who is sick in his chips.

Paul Dyson is moving as Jerry, an ex-RAF chap who can't get away from his past, and Gina Cottey (Carol), Amy Hughes (Lane and Louise) evidently have huge fun playing sassy girls looking for something a bit better in life.

Carolyn McCormac, who first appears as defeated, drunken mum Brenda, then transforms superbly and almost unrecognisably into the sassy, mouthy Marion shouting after her errant husband.

This production rocks - and that includes the interval when you get the chance to relive your 80s dancing days on the stage - go hide outside if of a nervous disposition.

It deserved a bigger audience than the half-full house it had on Wednesday.

Jackie Chappell

Tartuffe - May 2009 Bath Chronicle Review (18th May 2009)

The Rondo Theatre Company has put on a highly enjoyable adaptation of arguably Moliere's most renowned work. Under the sure hand of director Mike Taylor, the audience at the Rondo was treated to a gem of a production. It is 17th century France and a wealthy family watch in horror as the sycophantic conman Tartuffe, hoodwinks his way into the master's good favour. After the master's wife cons the conman into revealing his treacherous misdeeds, the family may be too late to save themselves as the devious Tartuffe attempts to usurp the master and take over the household. A huge amount of credit must go to Pulitzer Prize winning poet and translator, Richard Wilbur, who would have delighted Moliere himself with this quite brilliant translation; the entire play, true to the original version, is performed in rhyming couplets. Superb performances all around, but special mention to Chris Seton-Smith, whose portrayal of the smarmy and morally corrupt Tartuffe, is both hilarious and unctuous in equal measure. Regardless of whether they were Moliere fans, the audience thoroughly enjoyed this polished and often very funny production.

Jake Tupman

Black Comedy and Heavy, directed by Matt Nation (November 2008)

Bath Chronicle Review - 02 Dec 2008

Bath's own Jon Thrower takes centre stage at the Rondo as he writes one of two short plays and stars in the other. His play Heavy provides the perfect support for Peter Shaffer's farce; Black Comedy. A packed out Rondo, laughed until they cried, as first Thrower's hilariously flawed characters brought the 19th century Office of Weights and Measures to life, and then as then as the superbly crafted characters in Shaffer's play fumbled around in feigned darkness, trying to avoid both physical and metaphorical conflict. The two directors have experimented with unconventional techniques of theatre use, and although there are times where it hasn't quite worked, most of the scenes are choreographed with commendable precision. Without doubt though, the charm of these two plays lies firmly with the three dimensional characters and their inevitable disputes; and thanks to some capable acting from a strong cast, the audience was rarely more than a few seconds away from the next laugh. It is a testament to the strength of Thrower's writing that his play was not overshadowed by its more illustrious counterpart. Instead, the audience left the Rondo in discussion about which of the two plays they had liked more.

Jake Tupman