“..it gets the blood pumping, it's marvellously liberating.” “A play which, for all its erudite veneer, was undisguisably a pantomime too” ★★★★★ Fringeguru

“A massive slice of fun with a hearty message to boot. I loved it.” ★★★★★ Latest 7 Magazine

“The show was funny, stimulating, thought-provoking and highly enjoyable, and the audience participation/manipulation masterful and empowering” Total Theatre (unrated)

 

"a rollicking good night out in this audience participatory piece of anarchic fun." ★★★★ Fringe Review

Lastest 7 Award winner for Best Theatre Show of the Brighton Festival and Fringe

FringeGuru Editors' Choice Awards for Brighton 2011

It would be a travesty to overlook Kemble's Riot, one of the most talked-about - and most successful - of this year's theatrical premières. A pantomime for grown-ups with an unashamedly intellectual theme, writer-director Adrian Bunting deserves the plaudits for his sheer chutzpah in bringing it to the stage. But it's the strong cast, led by Brighton favourite George Dillon and a masterful Steve North, who did his vision proud.

FringeGuru Review ★★★★★

Glancing around the crowded Old Courtroom just before the lights went down, I really didn't predict a riot. I knew - we all knew - that we were there to recreate the Old Price protests of 1809, when an angry public shut down the Covent Garden Theatre for an astonishing 66 days. But would the tweed-clad gentleman in front of me really raise his voice? Could that arty lady in rectangular spectacles bring herself to join a mob? Maybe, just maybe, they'd do it on the street - but never in the sanctity of a theatre.

We listened politely as the play's two advocates set out their cases. Like wise owls, we nodded at the telling parallels to the present day. And then it happened: a shout here, a hiss there, a sudden explosion of noise. We stamped, we bellowed, we sang cheerfully anachronistic protest songs. It's good-tempered, it gets the blood pumping, it's marvellously liberating... and poor old John Kemble, theatre proprietor and most famous actor of his day, is caught at the centre of it all.

There's a certain naughty frisson to all this, since lead actor George Dillon is Brighton's own Kemble: shouting him down in his home city is like booing Simon Callow himself off the stage. But Dillon's a good sport about it all, manfully hamming up his early scenes and deriding us, his hated audience, as soon as he thinks our backs might be turned.

I started to fear, not that it would flop, but that the whole thing would run out of control.  But they're onto that too: Steve North, playing rabble-rouser-in-chief Henry Clifford, has the natural authority both to start a rumpus and to quiet one down. In case we don't get his gestured hints, the simple expedient of raising the house lights gives a clear signal when it's our turn, and the audience (in the main) slipped into and out of the mob mentality according to the demands of the plot.

There are a few imperfections. The prelude felt over-long (we were there for a riot, not for Macbeth); some of the exposition was a little heavy-handed, and the key points of the plot were reiterated once too often for my taste. But never mind all that - there's a serious narrative alongside the swagger, and the script plays emotional tricks which, though hardly subtle, are masterful all the same. Towards the end, as a broken Kemble rants inside his besieged mansion, I felt the pangs of repentance; and when Clifford incited us to a final act of humiliation, I found I couldn't join in.

This is a man who, in a fittingly Shakespearean tragedy, has allowed preening ambition to destroy that which he holds most dear. But the moment passed. With one last petulant monologue, Kemble reverted to what he was - a pantomime villain soaking up our pantomime boos, in a play which, for all its erudite veneer, was undisguisably a pantomime too. So can I *really* five-star a panto? Of course I can. Book early.

Latest 7 Review ★★★★★

Hats off to Adrian Bunting for conceiving such an entertaining theatrical diversion. In one hour he and his talented company told us the story of the disturbances at a theatre in Covent Garden that saw actor John Kemble brought down over an increase in ticket prices after his uninsured theatre was burnt to the ground. It could well have been enjoyed as a history alone but the parallels to modern banking practice where we are all being asked to pay for their mistakes and excesses are more than poignant. Brilliant performances from George Dillon as the arrogant Kemble, Alex Childs as his actress sister Sarah Siddons in a gripping slice of Macbeth, were matched by Steve North as rebellious Henry Clifford, and Julie Nash as Mary Austin Kemble’s supporter who rallied the audience to protest and chant. And given that we were fro the most part reserved Brits, we did a pretty good job of raising the roof and turning the tables on Kemble. A massive slice of fun with a hearty message to boot. I loved it.

Total Theatre Review UNRATED

Kemble's riot was a defining event in the history of Theatrical London during the final days of Patent Theatre. Although called a riot it was more an organised and peaceful rebellion against John Kemble's attempt to increase the prices at the New Theatre Covent Garden to pay for renovation work after a calamitous fire.

Written by Adrian Bunting, Kemble's Riot sets out to tell the story and lead the audience in rebellion – and achieves both with aplomb. The cast consists of four actors: John Kemble (George Dillon) and Sarah Siddons (Alex Childs) on the stage, and Mary Austin (Julie Nash) and Henry Clifford (Steve North) in the auditorium. The audience are separated into two camps: 'for the king' (accept the price rises) lead by Austin, and 'for the Prince' (against the rises) lead by Clifford.

The play is written and performed in two distinct styles: Regency Rococo on the stage, with Kemble throwing wonderfully hammy Shakespearean Shapes and Sarah Sidons in fine hand-wringing Regency diva mode; contemporary/naturalistic in the audience, with Clifford – the rebellion's organiser, striding through the audience Scargill style, fist in the air, spittle spraying the audience – balanced out by Mary Austin, a model of the modern middleclass theatre-goer, willing to keep the status quo for a quiet life.

The staging is minimal (no set, no props, actors in black) and the drama text-driven, this simplicity helping to focus attention on the action in the audience as we stamp our feet, raise our fists and demand satisfaction.

The show was funny, stimulating (energetic for the audience) thought-provoking and highly enjoyable, and the audience participation/manipulation masterful and empowering (thanks to the great skills of Steve North and Julie Nash). I would go again and suspect the experience would just get better and better, especially as the tickets were an affordable £5. But if they tried to raise their prices...

James F Foster

Fringe Review ★★★★

I don’t know if in its former incarnation The Old Courtroom was ever witness to the collective haranguing of a Friday night Brighton mob, but it certainly was this week. The place is a great venue for this historic account of a series of riots that took place in John Kemble’s theatre at the start of the 19th Century. We were ushered to our seats with the explanation that we should pick up different programmes depending on which side we chose to sit. Immediately we were branded as being on The King’s Side or The Prince’s Side – in the end the names were irrelevant, we just knew whowere the opposition.

Suddenly, actors amongst us started chatting about how they were looking forward to Kemble and Mrs Siddons (the sibling duo)’s portrayal of ‘MacBeth’.

Mention of the unmentionable illicits the bad luck that it predicted however and half way through the famous Act I scene (beautifully tinged with melodrama by George Dillon and Alex Childs) the theatre catches fire and is burnt to a cinder.

So starts the chain of events that will lead to the riots. The scene shifts to describing the new elaborately designed theatre with all mod cons - lamps instead of hundreds of candles and a vast crew to lay on the most spectacular entertainment for the paying public. However, Kemble admits that the previous theatre had not been insured and herein lies the rub! The paying public had been used to a price set a century before and the fact that the cost had rocketed in order to pay for Kemble’s mistake, caused a mixed reaction.

Egged on by our respective ringleaders – passionately led by Julie Nash and Steve North, we added our voice to the sides for and against the increasingly pompous theatre manager. The argument had little place to go – it was reasonable to expect that change costs, versus the public shouldn’t be expected to pick up the tab for one man’s mistakes. But the resonances with current events were all too clear and as a fellow audience member so beautifully put it, ‘although the argument didn’t develop, my character did’. And the fun of being in a room where and entire group of people were allowing themselves to get more and more involved with chanting and singing, was great entertainment. As Kemble resorted to underhand tactics, so these two factions united, which acted as a nice shift into the next wave of anarchy.

I would have liked to see the man at the centre of the furore be given a small voice of humanity, if only to cast light on a more sympathetic side of his character. But his mask never dropped from one of outward show and it was left to the more empathically sketched Sarah Siddons to show the softer side of the family.

But overall, it was a very good night out and the audience were clearly fired up by this unifying theatrical experience.

Reviewed by Charlie Hughes-D'Aeth 13.05.11

Radio Reverb 7th Jan 2012

Last night I let rip at Kemble's riot! And I thoroughly recommend you do the same tonight! (It being Saturday 8th December 2012) You'll be in the company of fine masterful and powerful performers; roller-coastering you through a riot of an adult pantomime. A marvel of a mirror for our modern times. Written and Directed by Brighton's very own Adrian Bunting.