Transform 14 kicks off at West Yorkshire Playhouse

Now a fixture on the West Yorkshire Playhouse calendar, the Transform festival returns to Leeds in 2014 with another packed scheduled of new works, works in progress, guest artists and free events.

This year, Transform takes place over one action-packed long weekend. Kicking things off was a free opening night celebration featuring Leeds Jazz collective, A New Perspective. We also stopped by for a glimpse of Unlimited Theatre’s new show, Am I Dead Yet?.

Opening Night

Opening night at the Transform festival and we were treated to some excellent free entertainment in the theatre bar, courtesy of Leeds Jazz collective, A New Perspective.
Despite the raucousness during the intermission exodus from the Quarry Theatre, this was a fitting opening to Transform 14 and set the tone for the weekend.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse has made great strides in transforming itself into a community venue where people can come, hang out and see some cool stuff. In many ways, Transform is the embodiment of that spirit and putting on free shows like this ensures that spirit remain alive and well. A great, laid back start to Transform 14.

Am I Dead Yet? (Unlimited Theatre)

One of the interesting aspects of the Transform festival is that it allows audiences a glimpse of new shows currently in progress. In this case, Unlimited Theatre took the opportunity to unveil their new work about the sunny subject of death.

Running a scant 45 minutes in its current form, Chris Thorpe and Jon Spooner from the company take us on a whirlwind tour through mortality via songs, stories and audience participation (in the form of cards filled out beforehand for use in the show).

This is a veritable tour-de-force of death, as we learn all about what happens if our heart suddenly stops beating; complete with useful statistics on just how often that happens each day. Jolly stuff.

Despite the subject matter, however, the show rarely strays far from light-hearted in tone, which is at once a strength and a weakness. Joking about death is all very well, but it’s shaky ground nonetheless. While, for the most part, the tone is appropriate, there are a few places where the clash between humour and gruesomeness is a touch uncomfortable. Which may very well be the point.

Much of the levity comes from the down-to-earth humour of Chris and Mark as they riff off each other, using the bare set to good effect and making the most of the patchwork of material. Throughout, the show is well paced and inventive; from blasting out Motley Crue to bringing on a St John’s Ambulance-trained first aider to give us a rundown of CPR (the show was even made in collaboration with emergency care doctors and professionals).

The audience participation part, which could have fallen flat, adds much to the show as people come up with some terrific answers to questions about why they don’t talk about death, and how they think they’ll die. As with the rest of the show, the tone veers sharply from funny through to sobering, as one anonymous contributor states they’ll probably die of the tumour that was discovered on Monday. Yikes.

While this is a made-up performance, reality is always hovering nearby; much like the grim reaper. As a result, enjoyment of this show, in its current form, largely hinges on whether you’re comfortable confronting your own mortality and hearing tales of how other met, or narrowly avoided, theirs.

Overall, this is an interesting and inventive show about a subject many of us avoid talking about, but which will affect us all one day. Just be thankful you’re not one of the five unlucky souls who, we were informed, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest somewhere in the country during the running time of the show.

Transform continues at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until 30 March.