FESTEN REVIEW: BATH CHRONICLE, 01 JULY 2008

Over the years we have come to expect the unexpected from Ann Garner's talented team of players. In fact we have become almost used to the quality of their work being sustained at an impossibly high level.However, what they have now achieved with David Eldridge's controversial play about sexual abuse, family cover ups and racism is quite extraordinary even by their own standards.

The play is an adaptation of a Dogme film which takes as its setting a 60th birthday party for the father of a clearly dysfunctional family. As the family gathers round the supper table - where most of the action takes place - horrifying family secrets are suddenly let out of the bag.

Previously and all over the world the action has been set on a conventional stage but Ann decided to do it in the round - such an extraordinary decision that the London producer Marla Rubin is coming to Bath at the weekend to see what happens.

She is likely to be hugely impressed with what she sees.

Here we are so close to the action that the actors are almost within touching distance. The result is that we feel the horror of it all in a way we simply don't when seeing it on a conventional stage.

It helps that the actors - aged just 13 years and upwards - are so good, each creating their own private little hells as the horrors unfold.

The play is not for the squeamish but for those who demand theatre of an unusually high standard.

I would not expect to see better, more intense professional theatre than this all year.

Please don't miss it.

by Christopher Hansford, Bath Chronicle