Horror on High Street - Review - Fremantle Shipping News

After a year of classes, Fremantle Theatre Company’s acting students, ranging from the age of 15 to 40+, showcased their stuff in front of cosy audiences first on the hot humid night of Friday, 29 November 2024, and then for the second and last time, the next night. This reviewer was there on the Friday night.

The classes are led by Hermione Gehle, with Renato Fabretti and Mischa Ipp.

The show’s title? “Horror on High Street”.

Important to remember this was the students first ever live performance.

Over the course of about an hour we were presented a series of ten stories addressing a broad spectrum of concepts, including:

• Two men bickering over appropriate social etiquette while burying a freshly murdered woman
• Sacrificial friendships descending into dank cavernous depths
• A slain queen seeking company as she dines with her servant in the woods
• A desperate entreaty for a lover to take them back
• The fatal unearthing of a time capsule
• A problematic attempt to cure clown nightmares
• Post-coital regrets or something more sinister
• A speech about ecstasy?
• An ode to a dagger. Possibly Shakespeare
• A final stand against a zombie invasion

The production would have been enhanced with the addition of microphones for the actors as it was rather tricky to hear them from the back row. Some of the soundtrack choices and timing of sound effects were questionable. A malfunctioning costume belt served as an accidental, comically obscene appendage for one of the poor boys.

The female actors especially impressed with powerful and compelling performances, favourites on the night including the queen and the lover’s entreaty. Quite a lot of passion.

Perhaps a touch more rehearsal might have lent to more readily memorised lines with greater conviction, although I don’t mean to paint every single one of the students with the same brush. (You know who you are!)

A cursory bow and thank you to the audience at the end of the first night show wouldn’t have gone amiss, either, and might have garnered some applause.

Hopefully the second showing of this production shed these debut teething issues.

Meanwhile I was grateful for:
1. The opportunity to see budding actors in action
2. A nice, full glass of prosecco
3. A very tasty burger and waffle fries from relatively newly established Smash Grill in FOMO, cooked to perfection in record time after I expressed our hurry fifteen minutes before the show

I look forward to seeing FTC’s actors branch out and improve further.

By Gayle O’Leary. If you’d like to catch up on more reviews by Gayle here on Fremantle Shipping News, and much more besides, look right here!

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