Pipe Dreams Pack a Perfect Punch

Arts Insight Theatre Group present Pipe Dream, a jukebox musical, written and directed by Laura Berridge at Rother Street Arts House, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Review by Ann Cee 

Heart, humour and stonking pop tunes from the shoulder-padded '80s pack out this musical extravaganza performed by Arts Insight at Rother Street Arts House, Stratford Upon Avon.

Were you busy being a Material Girl, or crooning with Wet Wet Wet, or bopping to the Eurythmics as the capitalist economy took a firm hold of British society forty years ago? Was your family life being disappeared by the blinkered pursuit of loadsamoney and a yearning for a video-star lifestyle?

Pipe Dream is the energetic music and dance story of families up and down the land buckling under the ever intensifying pursuit of the next new thing.

Principals Louis Lissaman, Charlie Pritchard, Amelie Robertson, Daisy Marr, Eliza Barnes and Flora Fulton did a sterling job of leading the pack with great voices and great emotional range. I particularly loved 'Love Changes Everything', 'The Power of Love' and 'Listen to Your Heart'.

Great dimensions were added with the film and puppetry aspects given life by Lori Hopkins, Ben Moores and Robert Hands.

A huge ensemble bop and shimmy their way through their characters' hopes and fears as absentee parents unexpectedly leave them to their own devices. Together they build their self reliance, cooperation and team work and learn to stand together and to stand tall. Great life lessons for all of us.

A fabulous live synth kept the soundtrack buzzing along and rooted the story in the 80s to perfection.

Writer and Director Laura Berridge weaves a strong relatable tale with some banging pop classics from a time when legwarmers, shell suits and TVs-the-size-of-crisp-boxes were the height of fashion in every living room in the land.

Berridge and her team of creatives and supporters provide a masterclass on bringing tangible warmth, team work and style to young, community theatre and its a triumph from beginning to end. I hope that Nothing is Gonna Stop Them Now from Standing Their Ground and continuing to be So Excited. I just can't wait for next year's show... who knows there may be more fabulous Togetherness in Electric Dreams!

In three words: topical, lively, bright.