"Where Do Little Birds Go" / "Seen" at The Other Room

The second Cardiff Fringe Theatre Festival took place last week, colonising unusual venues in various parts of town. I only managed to make it to one show: the Welsh premiere of Camilla Whitehill’s “Where Do Little Birds Go”, in the intimate downstairs vault of the Little Man Coffee Company in the city centre. A one-person play based on the true story of a young woman’s traumatic involvement with the Kray twins in 1960s London, it was highly evocative, with a very effective central performance from Kate Elis, and some clever sound design.

Kate Elis (photo: Ben Jones)

More recently, following on from June’s Young Artists Festival at The Other Room, the temporary companies which were formed to perform short plays by established writers were re-convened. This time we gave those pieces which were written by newer playwrights during the week another rehearsed reading, this time in front of a paying audience, under the banner of the venue’s regular “Seen” events. Thus, I got the chance to direct three of my original four actors in a re-staging of Gareth Ford Elliot’s drug-dealer monologue “Bull Shade Skank”, which was great fun. It was also useful sitting in on the post-show feedback session, during which audience-members offered valuable insights into each of the pieces (the other writers being Luke Nixon, Jenna Beth Lowendahl, Hefin Robinson and Melangell Dolma). A much-needed reprise.

By the way, I wrote more extensively about my experience of the Young Artists Festival on my National Theatre Wales Community blog.