Reviews
Rupert Brooke
"An excellent one-man show... we were enraptured by Race's rendering of the life and work."
Charles Moore - The Spectator
"For some 75 minutes we are held spellbound by the portrayal of the young poet, aided only by a uniform, a kit-bag and a suitcase, on a bare stage, beneath a huge tablet of names of the Fallen. Oh, and Brooke's own words, of course. His letters, and poems, have been seamlessly incorporated into this monologue by playwright Mark Payton, and the director, Juliet Forster, has helped actor Jonathan Race to extract every ounce of reality and pathos from them...Perhaps of necessity, constrained by time, the play, in lionising Brooke, neglects the darker side, his confused sexuality, but what is there is memorable. Had he lived to see real warfare, he might have changed his standpoint, but what we have is noble and patriotic, and Jonathan Race captures the poetry superbly..."
RP-Doncaster Free Press
"Race has both light and darkness in his Brooke, who is at once serious and yet waspishly humorous..."
Charles Hutchinson - The Press
"Everyone filed into the Main House at York Theatre Royal, quietly and respectfully, taking in Anna Morris’s simple, yet most effective set design...we were to discover through Jonathan Race’s lively delivery, that Brooke was a revolutionary political radical, witty travel writer, and a very funny private humorist...combine this with sensitive direction from Juliet Forster, and you have a challenging, moving, and, at times, very funny play."
Julia Pattison - Pocklington Post
"An intense yet funny account of the poet's life... a compelling and totally absorbing evening."
Kentish Gazette
"Mark Payton has written an appropriately brief but intense monologue...From beyond the grave, in army officer's uniform, Brooke's short, dynamic adult life is recounted in flashback by the man himself. Although it is assumed that the audience will have some knowledge of Brooke and his circle, a nevertheless impressive factual background is rapidly sketched in, and a number of poems are quoted in full, including the entire "Old Vicarage, Grantchester" and the justly celebrated sonnet "The Soldier", both containing some of the most iconic lines in the language.
"Physically Jonathan Race is a thoroughly convincing Brooke, his bearing and gestures cleverly conveying something of the young man's privileged background...His interpretation lays most emphasis on the poet as a self-assured, supremely confident, almost pompous young man: politically aware, full of literary ambition - not every boy passing through Rugby school chapel sees a space on the wall for his future memorial - and, in 1914, enamoured of an ivory-towered vision that his mission as a warrior would be personally purifying. (Many commentators have since remarked how this latter outlook may inevitably have changed had Brooke lived longer).
"Yet Race also succeeds in capturing the neurotic side to Brooke, whose physical health could often be as delicate as it was robust. Here was an individual with Apollonian virtues, extolling the glories of mind and of nature, yet given to a rash, intuitive, Dionysian impulsiveness, his heart easily lost to love...There is much effective kaleidoscoping of the years, condensing Brooke's heady progress through pre-war London high society, his subsequent trans-Atlantic voyage, and sojourn in the Pacific.
"We come away with a strong impression of an era, and of a glimpse into a complex, multi-layered individual...it is to be hoped that this compact and compelling play is revived at regular intervals."
David Earl for the Rupert Brooke Society
Rupert Brooke audience comments:
"I have just returned from the Theatre Royal having enjoyed the Rupert Brooke show very much indeed - beautifully sustained, subtly lit and full of fascinating detail I was unaware of. Congratulations!"
Kenneth Briggs - York
"Jonathan Race encaptured the feel of the time and at the end bought us both to tears. The whole production was first class. Thank you for a memorable performance."
Michael and Elizabeth Taverner - York
"The sad, funny and moving portrayal of Brooke was well crafted and executed. I enjoyed every minute."
Mr and Mrs Bulmer - Leeds
"It is hard to remember that it is just one man on stage. It is imaginative, moving, inspiring and poignant. I went half-heartedly, wondering if it would be any good. I recommend it whole-heartedly."
DM - Cambridge
"You connected absolutely, with my own grandfather's story, and I am infinitely grateful."
SH - Bracknell
"We saw the recent production of Rupert Brooke at Canterbury and enjoyed it immensely. Congratulations to all concerned!"
William Pettit - York
Reviews of other work by members of the company
The Railway Children
"...beautifully pitched performance from Jonathan Race..."
Claire Brennan - The Observer
Three Men In A Boat
"...the three main characters succeed with excellent physical comedy and timing, a highlight of which is Jonathan Race's performance as Harris and his masterly presentation of the comic song."
British Theatre Guide
Patient No.1
"...it was Jonathan Race's security agent, who finally comprehends the true meaning of shock and awe, that moved me."
Kate Lock - BBC
"There are some fine performances... Jonathan Race maintains the perfect physicality of the emotionally blunted secret service agent."
Sam Franklin - ArtsHub UK
"Jonathan Race even adds a touch of surreal comedy as the robotic security agent."
Michael Billington - Guardian
The Night Before Christmas
"Jonathan Race is totally convincing as the dad trying to get his daughter to sleep on Christmas Eve and is good value as the toy whose batteries keep failing..."
Susan Elkin - The Stage
Not About Heroes
"Owen is played by Jonathan Race in a most impressive and profoundly moving performance. There are no histrionics, just a very deep level of emotion and sincerity."
Lesley McEwen - Newbury Chronicle
Augustus Carp, By Himself
"Already Jonathan Race's portly Carp is a comic joy of over indulgence and indigestion well able to take centre stage and hold it."
Steve Pratt - Northern Echo
"The mixture of shameless self-preservation, bemusement, and the sheer capacity to gloat are all summoned brilliantly in the performance and face of Jonathan Race as Augustus Carp. The play is almost an autobiographical soliloquy. If it was performed by this actor alone it would still be funny."
BBC North Yorkshire stage
"Jonathan Race is wonderful as Carp…his face has a Rowan-Atkinson-like mobility, and his utter lack of self-knowledge is entirely convincing."
Mark Woods - Baptist Times
Female Parts
"Gail Kemp was quite brilliant in all three pieces.
"This was a remarkable performance, not least because it was so intense and demanding for the actress. Although she was on stage for about an hour-and-a-half, the pace and sheer physicality never faltered. She was funny, moving and powerful in turn, displaying passion and compassion, and maintained a mesmerising contact with the audience... Miss Kemp's huge talent made this a superb, unforgettable evening."
Newbury Weekly News
The Gruffalo
"...However the outstanding performer in this show is Jonathan Race…His comic timing is superb, raising a few laughs from the adult contingent on more than one occasion. All this with a superb singing voice and energy by the bucketload!"
John Cuthbertson UK Theatre Network
Mistero Buffo
"The comedy is balanced by pathos, the latter in the hands of Vicki Hackett, who gives a towering performance."
The Stage
Pilots and Navigators
"Dunn was the last new poet published by Oxford University Press before their commercial decision to axe contemporary poetry altogether.
"Thankfully, Carcanet have picked up this collection, a confident and stylish book by so young a writer. Formally, one could not find fault in these polished stanzas, and Dunn displays an instinctive sense of line and subtlety of rhythm. The title conjures up expectations of a different book, but travel features often, whether touring with actors, ferry trips to Brugge or Dublin, cars in driving rain, or an ancestor's (perhaps apocryphal) voyage to England with his own 'secret Scyllas and Sirens / with which to contend'.
"The touring actors appear in various poems, but in 'Bournemouth' Dunn looks beyond the artifice to 'the unreeled sand where its own, its true story / is played out quietly by a cast of dumb extras'
"Friendships, adventure and fledging relationships are set against questions of identity and delight in experience. Pilots and Navigators is an accomplished debut from a poet we're sure to hear more from."
Bloomsbury Magazine
"An often unique voice... subtle, thought-provoking and enormously readable."
Poetry Review
Flying Fish
"Dunn's considerable talent... rewards the reader with epiphanies, annunciations of light, poems refreshingly affirmative."
Dannie Abse
"An alert, intelligent book... poems which, Brodsky-like, take the reader somewhere new, jinking round the corners of places we think we know into imagined elsewheres... there's much to admire."
Poetry Wales
