Rommi Smith

Press & Reviews

The Rommi Smith biography, selected reviews and a photo are available to download for press and review use.

For more information please contact me.

Recent press coverage:

White Open Spaces - Reviews

edinburghguide.com 2006-08-23
The Scotsman 2006-08-10
British Theatre Guide 2006-08-21
The List 2006-08-23
Edinburgh Evening News 2006-08-25
The Stage 2006-08-14

White Open Spaces - The Scotsman

A GROUP of writers, along with representatives from BBC Radio Drama and theatre company Pentabus, spent a week on a retreat considering the question of racism in the countryside. This programme of seven short plays is the result.

There is a pack of bright new talent here, staged thoughtfully by Pentabus (who won a Fringe First in 2002 for Silent Engine) and supported by excellent performances from actors including TV veteran Godfrey Jackman - at 83, the oldest Fringe performer this year - and Janice Connolly, better known as Mrs Barbara Nice.

After an hour in their company, you are left in no doubt that racism is alive and well and living in the countryside. Mel - tall, glamorous and black - notices it immediately in Completely F****** See-Through, a lively piece by poet Francesca Beard, as does Courage, the black man in Courttia Newland's A Question of Courage, who is questioned by police after his girlfriend goes missing while on a hillwalk.

The danger here, which is exacerbated by presenting all seven plays in a single bill, is that all the writers are singing from the same hymnsheet, exposing and condemning the insidious racism of the British countryside. Two plays in, you've got the message and are ready for something more.

Thankfully, since this is good writing, there's plenty more. Rommi Smith's lyrical Mountain Knows Me brings us an OAP (played heart-rendingly by Jackman) watching his countryside and his memories destroyed by the building of a superstore, while Kara Miller's Letting Yourself Go features Connolly as a lonely farmer's wife determined to stay loyal to her philandering husband. Racism is not central to either.

Several of the plays touch on the contradictory relationship between city dwellers and the countryside: they are simultaneously bamboozled by the strangeness of its ways and entranced by its beauty. We head there to find consolation, or to patch up our ailing relationships, and feel aggrieved when, as often as not, the problems come with us.

These issues ultimately prove more interesting than the repeated preaching of an anti-racist message to an audience already converted.

http://www.edinburgh-festivals.com/reviews.cfm?id=

White Open Spaces - Edinburgh Guide

White Open Spaces is brought to us by Pentabus Theatre, BBC radio drama and a group of extremely talented writers. These seven monologues were written after a week at The Hurst in Shropshire and explore issues of countryside "passive apartheid"in an immensely insightful way, delving to profound levels with humour and intellectual fervour.

The same praise cannot be given to all the actors however, who vary considerably in their ability. The outstandingly witty and perceptive script, Completely Fucking See-Through by Francesca Beard certainly deserves a far finer delivery than the overacted and artificial performance of Endy McKay. On the other hand, Janice Connolly's performance is spectacular. Connolly excels in Joy's Prayer, by Ian Marchant and Letting Yourself Go by Kara Miller, creating thoroughly believable characters with remarkable depth of emotion. Saraj Chaudhry also displays striking talent and gives a funny and touching performance, inviting us into a deeper appreciation of nature as a place of regain our identity. Rommi Smith's Mountain Knows Me, which protests against the destruction of nature and recognises its spiritual qualities, must also be commended for its astute observations.

White Open Spaces is well worth checking out and generally the production is strong. Shame about some of the acting, but the writing is guaranteed to impress. .
©Pippa Tennant 21 August 2006 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com.
Runs to August 27 at 17:15 every day, not 22.
Company - Pentabus Theatre.

http://www.edinburghguide.com/festival/2006/fringe

White Open Spaces - Drama

It's not often that you come out a play thankful for Trevor Phillips, the Head of the Commission for Racial Equality, but his question that the British countryside may be guilty of a passive apartheid is the genesis of this remarkable collection of short plays. It is an utterly absorbing collection, which manages despite its serious subject matter to be amusing as well as thought provoking. This assortment manages to question and provoke at the same time and each is perfectly concieved. To highlight one performance out of these would be unfair, as each play was as complete as the next and the previous. Essential plays and essential viewing.

Richard Johnson - The LIST