REVIEW: TEN DAYS by Matthew Jameson at The Space 13 – 25 March 2023

‘tough material to make a tidy play from, and Matthew Jameson has made a good fist of it’ ★★★

In 1917, American journalist/playwright/writer-for-hire John Reed arrived in Petrograd (present day St. Petersburg) and witnessed the birth of the Russian Revolution and the triumph of Lenin’s Bolsheviks. He wrote a book about what he’d seen, ‘Ten Days That Shook the World’, which was for a very long time the best account of the tumultuous days of October 1917. He wasn’t necessarily the most qualified person to write an official history, but he was there, he did it, he deserves all the kudos available, not least for his confidence. Matthew Jameson has taken ‘Ten Days That Shook the World’ and tried to extract a play from the welter of committee meetings, backroom deals and betrayals, and infrequent bouts of physical action that make up Reed’s book. He doesn’t quite manage, but he deserves an awful lot of respect for the effort.

BolshEpic is the ten-person theatre company that has undertaken the task of bringing Reed’s sometimes leaden prose to life. They are a mixed group of old and new actors, people from the community around the Space Theatre, and people with an interest in telling this story. It leads to some variance in the quality of the performances, but possibly adds to the fierce desire to communicate. Matthew Jameson and the company interpolate some fairly broad comedy strokes, not all of which land, not all of which are worth their place in a three hour long play, but again, the intention to vary the pace and lighten the mood is admirable.

It is a three hour long play, it has a lot of committee meetings in it, it has a cast of thousands, many of them with unfamiliar Russian names that it’s difficult to tell apart, and the participants in the parliaments and soviets and unions and parties that whirled around the Petrograd streets. It is tough material to make a tidy play from, and Matthew Jameson has made a good fist of it. It could use editing, and it’s likely that that will happen as the bits that play well come in to focus, and when the baggy script (sometimes making an appearance as committee notes for overwhelmed actors) gets some re-working

 TEN DAYS

14 MAR - 25 MAR

The Space

Box  Office  Ten Days - The Space

 Cast
Matthew John Wright – Lenin
Oyinka Yusuff – Trotsky
Deven Modha – Kerensky
Salvatore Scarpa – Antonov/Martov
Maggie Cole – Krupskaya/Kishkin
Clementina Allende Iriarte – Zinoviev/Blagonravov
Tice Oakfield – Tsar Nicholas II/Kamenev
Steven Shawcroft – Koba/Ulyanov
Andy Straw – Prince Lyov/The Bear
Matthew Jameson – John Reed

Creative Team
Written & Directed by Matthew Jameson
Assistant Directors – Andy Straw & David Grindley
Musical Director/Soloist – Tice Oakfield
Dramaturgy – Mike Carter

 Reviewed by Chris Lilly