REVIEW: Uppingham Theatre's Wyrd Sisters

Uppingham Gets it Right

by Annie Mac

Readers of Wossname will by now recognise the name of the Uppingham Theatre Company, whose late-October 2015 production of Wyrd Sisters had a long and fascinating pre-production run-up that we featured over many issues. Being many thousands of miles from Uppingham, I was unable to attend a performance of the play in person, but techmaster Martin Baines kindly arranged to send a recording of one performance to me via clacks. And I am very glad he did – this is not the first amateur theatre rendering of Stephen Briggs' Wyrd Sisters play that I've seen, but beyond doubt it is the best.

Top marks go to Stephen Green and Meryl Vincent-Enright as would-be royal couple Duke and Duchess Felmet, especially to Ms Vincent-Enright for giving the Duchess that fine – and canonically accurate – balance of pompousness and murderousness that melds Lady Macbeth and Hyacinth Bucket. Mick Barker excels as the Fool, the miserable bells-festooned jester who is far from foolish. The scenes between the Duke and his Fool are among the best in the production. Also of special note is Andrew Chapman's turn as Vitoller, owner-manager of the company of strolling players who shelter the infant Rightful King of Lancre (well played as a young man by Geran Jackson), and George Larkin's as ghost of Verence I, recently-murdered Previous Rightful King of Lancre.

As for the Wyrd Sisters themselves, Joy Everitt's portrayal of Granny Weatherwax has just the right amount of Granny's famously tight-lipped "I can't be having with this". Holly Bertalan may not be anywhere near as (also famously) flat-chested as Magrat but she makes up for her lack of lack by hitting Magrat's New Age-y soppiness spot-on. And Gillian Kendon does a creditable Nanny Ogg, although I could have done with seeing more of Nanny's legendary sauciness that Ms Kendon only showed at the very end of the production as she danced off into the wings, kicking up her heels and displaying her "scandalous" bright red petticoat with correctly Oggish delight.

Vikki Shelton's direction is nicely timed, keeping the action moving along and getting the best projection from her players, and the entire cast achieves a satisfyingly low incidence of fluffed lines. But in many ways the shiniest star of this production is its technical excellence. Uppingham's Wyrd Sisters features the most professional-looking stage and costume design I have ever seen in an amateur theatre Discworld presentation. The sets are clever and striking, utilising well-planned back projection to create believable vistas – the wild Lancre moors, the streets (all right, street) of Ankh-Morpork, the vast-roomed, draughty expanses of Lancre castle and it gloomy dungeon. A round of applause goes to the aforementioned Martin Baines for his projection and projection design, and to stage manager Alan Jackson for ensuring that everything and everyone in this physically intricate presentation went smoothly. Bex Key and John Everitt discharged their lighting and sound duties superbly, but I think I'll have to award Man of, that is, Seamstres-, er, Needlewoman of the Match to Mandy Jackson for her design and creation of the wonderful costumes, especially the Duchess' extraordinary gown that looked to be of full-on telly costume drama quality.

What marks the Uppingham Theatre Company's production of Wyrd Sisters most of all is its sense of dedication – to detail, to the spirit of the chosen play, to making sure every member of the company gave their best from early days to the well-merited final bow. As producer-director, Vikki Shelton infused the entire process with indefatigable enthusiasm and all manner of promotional ideas, and most of all with sheer honest heart and soul. I do hope the company chooses to do another play from the series one of these days; based on the great showing of Wyrd Sisters, I would say Discworld is in great hands in Uppingham.

REVIEW: "Clacks" board game

By Steven D'Aprano

   The Clacks board game turns the climax of "Going Postal" completely around. Inspired by the infamous race between the Grand Trunk clacks company and the Royal Ankh-Morpork Post Office, in this game you try to race to Genua. But with a twist: you are working for the villains of the book, the Grand Trunk, and you're trying to beat the Post Office (represented by a cute little figurine of the Postmaster Moist von Lipwig – painted gold, of course).

   Presumably the Post Office has magical assistance, as the Postmaster speeds from town to town in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, the Trunk is plagued by problems including Deep Downers, inconveniently placed golems with bright lights, substandard wick-trimming, Nugganites, roving reporter Miss Sacharissa Cripslock, and the dreaded Killer Poke. Fortunately you only have to transmit two short words. Can you beat the Post Office?

   And the race is on!

   "Clacks" is fundamentally a game of skill, with just enough element of chance to mix it up a bit. It is certainly a challenging game, but fun, and will especially suit people with good pattern-matching skills. To move forward, you have a limited number of Jacquards available to flip the tower's lamps from On to Off, or vice versa. There are sixteen lamps all up, and you flip some number of them by playing a Jacquard from your hand. If you succeed in making the code for the letter you are trying to transmit, you move your token one step closer to Genua. A system of Stress Points and Faults control how often breakdowns occur and how fast the Post Office moves.

   If you're the sort of person who loves coin flipping puzzles, you might love this game. Even if you aren't too fond of them, it can still be very enjoyable once you get how the lamp flipping system works. I feel that the game's recommended age range, seven to adult, is probably over-optimistic. It seems to me that the average seven year old would find the lamp flipping too difficult to be fun. I had a bit of trouble too, admittedly after a long and tiring day, but once I got past that, and could successfully transmit letters, I found the game very enjoyable.

   Clacks is a rich and complex game, with three different sets of action cards ("Operator's Log", "Incident Report", and "Maintenance Report"). There are three distinct games possible: a cooperative game where the players work together to beat the Post Office, a competitive game where players play against each other, and a "Junior Race Game" for two players using simplified rules. Don't be put off by the word "Junior", it's quite good for adults too, especially when you're still learning how to recognise letter patterns and play Jacquards to make new patterns. Plus there are a variety of optional rules which can make the game more interesting for those who have mastered the basic rules, so you won't get bored in a hurry.

   (Hint: if you're looking to make it even more of a challenge, you can limit yourself to playing only a single Jacquard each turn, as we accidentally did.)

   The quality of the physical game pieces is excellent, and BackSpindle Games certainly haven't stinted on the materials used. I especially love that the rule book is printed as a Haynes Operators' Manual. The game pieces are very well made, and the artwork is well-done but not quite to my taste. (A bit too dark, and not quite enough contrast to read the cards easily.) There's an unfortunate discrepancy where the manual refers to the Maintenance Report cards as "Fault Report" cards, and preparing the lamp tiles for the first time is a bit fiddly, but making up for that, there's a lovely secret message in the manual, hidden in plain sight.

   I have no hesitation in giving this game a thumbs up, and I certainly will play it again.