The upstairs room at the Cumberland Arms was the perfect venue for Cafe Bohème, a gloriously light-hearted immersive theatre piece created by Headway Arts especially for Newcastle Fringe. The audience, many sporting sequins and pearls, sat at tables cabaret-style, with the cast visible throughout, threading their way crocodile-style around the room at the beginning and end and always engaging thereafter. No place to hide for these performers who rather celebrate difference as a company of learning disabled adults, many of whom have been with Headway throughout its 30-year history.
A series of well-executed cabaret acts such as magic tricks, mind reading, jokes, songs and dances, punctuated a simple story line about a stolen necklace. Headway’s Creative Director, Alison Walton-Robson, did a good job of standing in as La Countessa Tortellini, the victim of the said crime, only lapsing once into her natural Northumbrian burr. She was, to all intents and purposes, an American socialite who had lost her husband, and to lose the string of pearls he had given her was a disaster. It was up to the cast of clown waiters and assorted cabaret artists to play detective, until that is a super-sleuth dressed as a cowboy stood up from his place in the audience to lend a hand. The thief turned out to be a ‘kool kat’ of the feline variety – who would have thought it!
The whole show was accompanied throughout by a live musician, strumming and finger-picking an electric guitar. Audience interaction was integral to the show and we were rewarded at the end with deliciously decadent scones, jam and Devonshire clotted cream. A Q&A session with the company followed where we learnt about the company’s history and creative methodology. All the work is original and devised through a workshop process with the performers developing their own ideas for characters and contributing to various aspects of the production. The poster and visuals for Cafe Bohème were inspired by Andy Warhol’s iconic colourful prints and were made at Headway’s base in Blyth which acts as a local arts centre as well as a home for this enthusiastic company of performers.
Headway became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in 2023, long overdue in my opinion. They fly the flag for the region and the country as one of the UK’s most widely-travelled performance companies, participating in numerous Erasmus+ projects prior to Boris Johnson’s refusal to allow continued UK involvement in the scheme post-Brexit. Last year company members performed at the World Down Syndrome Conference in Brisbane. We are exceedingly lucky to have them on our doorstep so watch out for their next production.
Julie Ward saw Café Bohème at the Cumberland Arms.
A Newcastle Fringe review. There’s still a lot going on!
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