"How My Light Is Spent" / "Last Days Of Judas Iscariot" / "Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol, 2"

A recent reviewing assignment was “How My Light Is Spent” the latest play by Alan Harris, and one of the winners of the Bruntwood Prize in 2015. It is the Newport-set tale of the developing relationship between a recently unemployed man, played by Rhodri Meilir, who feels that he is literally disappearing, and Alexandria Riley’s phone-sex worker, who is also floundering. Both actors also take on the roles of other, equally lost supporting characters, in this funny and poignant piece. Another co-producing triumph for the Sherman Theatre.

"How My Light Is Spent" (photo: Jonathan Keenan)

Most recently, I had the chance to review one of the end-of-year productions from the Richard Burton Company at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama – “Last Days Of Judas Iscariot” by New York playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. Given the size of the cast, and the combination of a serious religious theme and a profanely comic tone, it hasn’t been professionally produced as often as it might have, so I was grateful for the opportunity to see it. Doubtless amongst the excellent company there were actors I will one day boast about having in the same room as.

I only went to see the first “Guardians Of The Galaxy” film some weeks into its cinema release, struck by its surprise success, and found it charming, if nonsensical. The second film in James Gunn’s series makes even less sense, involving as it does, Kurt Russell turning up as Chris Pratt’s alien father, who is actually a planet (or something), and Pratt’s gang of misfits being chased across the universe by a gold-painted Elisabeth Debicki after stealing some batteries. It was good to see a beefed up role for Karen Gillan, however, as Zoe Saldana’s understandably bitter sister; and the whole thing is colourfully entertaining, and full of Python-esque self-undercutting humour.