Blue-moon performance  Review by Simon Machin 

'My isn't the moon terrible?', cries wonder-struck teenager Emily Webb, to her young man, as the sounds of choir practice waft across a sleepy Grover's Corner, New Hampshire.  Small-town America, 1901, is the setting of Thorton Wilder's experimental play that burst the box-set conventions of Broadway and, with minimal props, forces it's audience to confront their collusion in make-believe, not just theatrical, but also the deadening role- playing of every day life. 

With Our Town, the Space Drama Company, under Hugo Ellis's direction, has also come of age, assisted by a warm and compassionate performance by Davie Robertson as Stage Manager, who guides us through a life-in-the-day of the town in the slow-burn first act, and an influx of talent from Hurtwood House School.

George Gillies invests Miss Webb's beau, George Gibbs, with gangly vulnerability, and Betsy MacKenzie brings extraordinary presence and naturalness to Emily, whose awakening love, wedding, funeral, and supernatural return forms the play's emotional core. 

However, to single out perormaces is to detract from the Space Company's hallmark - exceptional ensemble playing coaxed out of amateur actors.  For a small town, this is as rare as a blue moon.