An Incident at the Border at Oran Mor and Jericho Hill at Mcchuills
Ashley will be performing in An Incident at the Border at Oran Mor, Glasgow from the 23rd to 28th November at 1pm.
Also for one gig and one gig only she will be singing (and playing a bit of cheeky uke) with Jericho Hill at Mcchuills, Glasgow December 4th 8.30pm.
Last Week In New York
Ashley is performing in her final week at the New Victory Theatre New York and will return to begin rehearsals for An Incident at the Border, playing at Oran Mor in Glasgow at the end of November.
Hansel and Gretel Reviews – New Victory Theatre
TheatreMania.com – no rating
Mullins and Smith imbue the title characters with a charming innocence, a somewhat annoying bratty quality and, most important, an honest innocence.
NY Times – no rating | Reader rating 5/5
Mr. Mullins and Ms. Smith perform with exuberant innocence
Timeout NY – 4/5
NY Post – no rating
Hansel and Gretel, BBC Radio and Lifesaving
Ashley begins rehearsals for Hansel and Gretel with Catherine Wheels theatre company at the end of the September.
Hansel and Gretel will play a 3 week run at the New Victory Theatre in New York in October.
Peer Gynt Reviews – London Barbican
Click links for full reviews.
The Independant on Sunday – 4/5
Ashley Smith as the ideal (and idealised) partner, Solveig.
The Guardian – 4/5
In Hill’s production, these final scenes are as deeply moving as ever. When Ashley Smith’s tender, bespectacled Solveig cradles both the young and old Peers in her lap and quietly sings “sleep, my boy, sleep”, you realise Ibsen’s play is an exploration of the Oedipus complex.
This is London – 3/5 | This is London readers – 3.5/5
A wholesome turn from Ashley Smith as rejected dream-girl, Solveig.
Music OMH – 5/5
Ashley Smith is a touchingly faithful Solveig.
What’s On Stage – 4/5
Peer Gynt Trailer
Trailer for Peer Gynt from before Ashley joined. The show is still the same with a majority of cast members remaining.
Peer Gynt Synopsis
This raucous and radical interpretation of Ibsen’s classic play takes the audience on a truly wild theatrical journey. An exhilarating tale of a life lived on the edge, this production is a mix of trolls, madmen, dancing girls and live music.
Peer Gynt is a dreamer, a liar and a serial womaniser. Cast out from his home town, Peer embarks on a thrilling and astonishing adventure in search of fame and fortune that takes him from Norway to Africa and eventually back home again.
Be prepared for a theatrical roller-coaster ride through one of the most renowned works of modern literature.
This exciting co-production brings together two of Scotland’s most acclaimed theatre companies, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Dundee Rep Ensemble.
Following the overwhelming success of Black Watch in bite08, the multi-award winning company the National Theatre of Scotland returns to the Barbican.
Dundee Rep Theatre is Scotland’s only resident ensemble company of actors. Under the artistic direction of James Brining, the Ensemble continues to broaden the type of work it undertakes to help realise the potential of Scotland’s unique artistic resources.
Co-produced by Dundee Rep Ensemble and the National Theatre of Scotland. Revival supported by Barbican Bite09.
Peer Gynt
Ashley is currently starring in Peer Gynt and can be seen at the following venues.
Barbican Centre, London
30/04/2009 - 16/05/2009
Dundee Rep Theatre
26/05/2009 - 30/05/2009
His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen
02/06/2009 - 06/06/2009
Eden Court, Inverness
09/06/2009 - 13/06/2009
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
17/06/2009 - 20/06/2009
Theatre Royal, Glasgow
23/06/2009 - 27/06/2009
Baby Baby – Herald Review
The word “pramface” was coined to further demonise working class single mothers from Shameless-style council estates. Vivian French’s play, adapted from her own novel for young people, redresses the balance somewhat by giving voice to a pair of what used to be known as gym-slip mums and empowering them beyond the usual stereotypes.
Under ordinary circumstances, goth girl Pinkie and street-smart April wouldn’t be seen dead together. Each runs with their own pack, resentfully aware of each other. When first time sex makes them both pregnant, they eventually find some kind of common ground when invited to share their experiences with the local posh school, moving beyond tribal divides to do their growing up in public.
Old-time social realism would have treated such material in a well-meaning but laboured kitchen-sink fashion, with at least one back street abortion thrown in for good measure.
What French and director Jemima Levick have opted for instead is to dove-tail each young woman’s first-person narrative across each other in an impressionistic, representational playing style that pulls no punches and never falls prey to easy sentimentalism.
The result is something akin to Nell Dunn’s Poor Cow dragged kicking and screaming into the here and now for the Skins generation.
Hannah Donaldson and Ashley Smith make for a feisty pair,
telling it like it is and never shirking from the ugly truth of things as they parade their way around Lisa Sangster’s black chrome set.
As April and Pinkie realise how their lives are mirrored, this moving and all too real story becomes a getting of wisdom en route to empowerment.
Baby Baby – Whats on Stage Review
The plot is centered round Pinkie and April, who have different friends, fashion, tastes and attitudes. Pinky with her bright pink punk hair, hippy charity shop clothes and biker boots lives in another world from April, with her nice tops, skinny jeans and snow white trainers. They are as different as girls can be. Being fifteen is the only thing they share until contrasting events give them another thing in common – they both become pregnant, and their two worlds collide at Tinley Road School for young mums.
A two-hander play, Hannah Donaldson (April) and Ashley Smith (Pinkie) give spirited and confident performances of their central roles as well as effortlessly switching on cue to play a variety of the play’s other characters including April and Pinkie’s mothers, which gives an informative insight into their own mother/daughter relationships.
Smith pitches her performance of street-wise and self-assured Pinkie at just the right level – conveying her character’s cockiness and abruptness without alienating her audience.
She moves effortlessly from joy and independency to anger, realization and eventual maturity. Donaldson on the other hand has a very different job on her hands as nice girl April who loses her virginity in completely different circumstances. Both actresses display their comic and dramatic abilities with extreme style and manage to embrace the audience beautifully with immaculate and well-paced delivery.
The production is directed by Jemima Levick who keeps both girls very much on their toes in a perfectly paced production on a simple set designed by Lisa Sangster, with limited props including two add-on costume bumps which effectively symbolize the girls pregnancies and eventual births.
A thought-provoking and moving play about prejudices, perceptions and parenting and how these attitudes impact our choices in life, Baby Baby is a well written, directed and acted piece of theatre which certainly seemed to be well received by its primarily young opening night audience, giving everyone something to think about on the way home.