Minty Bit Stronger

It's not all tube strangers and hula hoop letters here at Minty Bit Stronger. I also like to occasionally offer up some culture to feed my readers vociferous intellectual appetites. The culture I speak of is theatrical in this instance. A play called Cardenio, arguably a lost Shakespeare masterpiece, being performed at the spooky Rose Theatre . Cardenio could be described as a play about two women who share little similarity besides their mistreatment and objectification by men; conceivably a one act tragedy about feminine rebellion in an age of accepted misogyny. This is what I took for my truth. A play so rich and beautifully complex as Cardenio has any number of themes to satiate a theatre goers thirst. The themes of power, ownership, fidelity and duty sit alongside themes of love, family, sacrifice and honour.   The title character Cardenio (Matt Gibbs) and Luscinda (Paloma Oakenfold) are in love, but she is passionately desired by King Fernando (Ryan Burkwood). The Ki...

Cinderella On my way to a rehearsal for 'Mother Goose', I found myself recalling all the other productions I've been in since I was a child. I wasn't a stage school brat and I didn't have pushy parents but I did get my acting bug pretty young. I guess my earliest acting memory was a raging battle to be cast as Joseph in a school Nativity play. I must have been about six but none-the-less I was furious to be given the role of 'wise man with myrrh' and I wouldn't rest until I was certain I would be the greatest 'wise man' that Layton had ever seen. Tea towel on head I was keen to shock, awe and maybe even steal the show. I was going to be brilliant! Obviously, I was rubbish because in the next biblical production I was cast as 'elephant's legs'. It was Noah's ark and the Ark was a giant cut out of a boat with various 'animal print' legs shuffling it along. I didn't even get a tail. And, I think I was at th...