…lingers thought-provokingly in the viewer’s mind after the final words have been spoken
– The Reviews Hub on ‘ROVE’

Written and performed by spoken-word artist J. Fergus Evans, Rove is a tribute to folk music and an intimate exploration of family and belonging.
A blend of play, gig, poem, stand-up, memory and monologue, Rove fuses together these different traditions much like its creator, whose family heritage covers countries and continents. Evans grew up in the American South with a keen sense of his family’s Irish and American history, retold to him through stories, legends and “theories passed on as facts.” This show journeys through that history and questions what it means to belong.
His stories are interwoven with folk songs and accompanied by Rhiannon (Margaret) Armstrong, who quickly sets her stamp on the production as side-kick, friend and comedy partner to Evans with the wry line, “There’s not a lot to pass down in my family, so the eldest daughter gets the name Margaret.” Fergus himself is named after his grandfather’s surname, as a promise of remembrance to the family’s Irish homeland.
For lovers of folk music, the show has a great deal to offer: old favourites like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Black Jack Davey” are performed with an understated, contemporary groove. Both performers sing, often accompanied by Armstrong’s violin (plus occasional shoes or a glass of water), which is brilliantly played with the use of a loop pedal to create layers of live sound. Bright green lighting renders the auditorium ethereal and other-worldly, as Evans’ and Armstrong’s voices bounce around the Bike Shed’s close brick walls.
The production is itself a little like a folk song, with verses and choruses, repeated lines and comic riffs. Segments of performance poetry narrate Rover Joe’s (a variation on Evans’ grandfather) experience of moving to Chicago and having to re-establish a sense of self, separated from all he knows by a vast expanse of ocean. Interspersed with Evans’ reflections on how memory works, we watch Rover Joe’s identity shift as he falls in love, becomes a father and passes on his heritage to his daughters.
While beautifully and poetically depicted in terms of appearance, some of the female characters in Evans’ stories lack dimension and personality: Rover Joe’s sweetheart is a waitress’ uniform and honey-coloured hair, but little more. In places too, the show’s quiet nostalgia verges on the underwhelming and, because it offers so many different performance styles, we don’t get quite enough of any of them. Rove is a buffet of different art forms, but this huge range within a performance of just over an hour renders it a little unsatisfying as a meal.
That said, the production is one that lingers thought-provokingly in the viewer’s mind after the final words have been spoken. The ending about-turns and addresses the (metaphorical) elephant that’s been lurking in the room since the show’s early moments, in a deeply affecting finale that throws a whole new set of questions onto Rove’s stories.
http://www.thereviewshub.com/rove-the-bike-shed-theatre-exeter/

Charmingly honest…  you’re a theatre-goer who likes their performance honest and raw, then this one’s for you.
– Middle Peg Review on ‘ROVE’

In the truest sense of the work Rove is a confessional piece of theatre. Charmingly honest, J. Fergus Evans tells us stories of his family’s history using straight narrative, narrative poetry and folk music.
His purpose is twofold; he wants to show the slippery nature of family anecdotes, and does this by reworking the same story multiple times; carefully rephrasing the poetry of a line to alter its significance. But then, despite differences, he also shows that each story works its way to the same ending. That is, all these stories have ended up in Evans’ grasp: his treasure trove of stories may be changeable and contrary but to him they all bear some truth to his own sense of self.
Evans feels himself in a bind, though; as a gay man he can’t see himself ever raising a family, and without someone to whom he can pass on these stories he feels that his wealth of family history will come to an end. And so he has constructed this show, gathered us, the audience, and embarked on his hour of storytelling.
This show is simplistic and personal, and it would be difficult to sit through a performance without letting yourself engage with Evans’ story. With his barefaced emotion and his use of direct address this isn’t a play to be viewed with detachment. And, indeed, you may feel uncomfortable being confronted with real emotion on the stage, but that’s where Evans’ companion, Rhiannon, serves her purpose: not only as a deflection to Evans’ welling eyes but as a violin-playing, straight-talking emotional rock. She’s the buoy to which the audience can cling when emotional levels are rising high.


Evans and Rhiannon seem soulfully complete; joining together they sing old folk tunes between stories, using audience members’ shoes as percussion instruments, and then, happily embracing a moments silence as they look deeper into each others eyes. Their singing seems to reflect the traditional, ritual element of family storytelling, but it also as cutesy and sappy as it sounds.
This piece is bold in its honesty, and certainly prompts you to think about the sources (and validity) of your own family stories. It’s intimate, thoughtful and personal and, if you’re a theatre-goer who likes their performance honest and raw, then this one’s for you.
http://middlepegreview.com/2015/03/01/rove-3-stars/

"raises some thought-provoking points on the nature of families and the tales they harbour."
– Everything Theatre on ‘ROVE

As the audience enters, a young man with a magnificent beard is asking the violinist on stage with him if she knows “the one about…” several times. She always says yes, and then plays a brief tune. I realized after I settled that all the requests feature a man called Rover Joe involved in numerous exploits or unlikely situations. The tunes the violinist played were always brief, but oddly fitted the description the young man gave.
The performers introduce themselves. Initially, I thought they were characters but realized quickly this wasn’t the case. J. Fergus Evans is gay, Irish-American and has a bundle of family stories that may be true, or may not. Rhiannon Armstrong is a folk musician with a family history of song collection. They briefly explain why their names were chosen for them, which sets the tone for the rest of the evening. Family stories are the focus, but they are told from the heart of the individuals rather than from behind the mask of characters. This comes across as informal and conversational, particularly as Evans and Armstrong engage directly with the audience. It feels more like a cabaret or comedy set up, intimate and with an element of improvisation.
The structure of the performance is relaxed and loose. The subject of the story is a man called Rover Joe, Evans’ grandfather who emigrated from Ireland to Chicago. His tale is told in four sections, in between music, and talking to the audience about the importance of stories, their families, and so on. They also explain their artistic process, which in my opinion did not contribute to the performance and could be cut in order to focus more on the storytelling. Arguably, the performance could focus solely on the Rover Joe stories. My initial instinct is to say that this is a show in its very early stages of development, or seems like it should be. On the other hand, the event as it was held a certain amount of quaint charm, like a folk song.
Armstrong’s music is excellent, as is Evans’ storytelling; though opening his eyes whilst giving us the tales would create more of a connection with the audience. The whole show is only an hour, but feels longer due to its fragmentary nature. Rover Joe’s story is complete, but I wanted to know more about him and his family. Perhaps this is sentimental on my part as I am Irish-American as well, and understand the desire Americans feel to identify with a homeland. Other audience members may not have the same level of emotional engagement in the show. The pace was slow at times due to the conversational elements and could have been streamlined, but the Rover Joe stories are the highlight of the evening.
​
This is certainly a unique performance: sentimental, quaint and emotionally honest. It raises some thought-provoking points on the nature of families and the tales they harbour. This is certainly a production to see for those interested in storytelling, folk music and folk tales, and quirky performances that don’t easily fit into a genre.

Laura Kressly

https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2015/03/rove-battersea-arts-centre-review/

REVIEW // Theatre Fullstop on ‘ROVE’ (5 stars)So simple. So beautiful. Almost perfect. When the audience enter the room for J. Fergus EvansRove they are greeted by the cast of two sitting in chairs, chatting. Not the most epic intro, as Evans throws out song titles for Rihannon Armstrong to play. All the songs centre on the near mythical Rover Joe, an Irish adventurer traveling America. When he finally finds a song she doesn‘t know, the show begins. With a deft touch, Evans traces his family history through half-true anecdotes, folk music and spoken word poetry.


The show sneaks up on the audience. The first few minutes seem a bit clumsy, with introductions and explanations galore. Then the music starts. It is stunning. Rihannon’s instruments are a constant companion to Evans‘s storytelling and singing. She also provides an occasional foil to Evan, flat out arguing with him at one point, albeit in a friendly understated manner.
It is a show about stories, which litter it. Rover Joe is the main character of most of the songs, with the spoken word poetry bridging the gap between stories and music. It is heartfell poetry, about roving, family and how stories bridge the gap between generations. How they grow and shape those effected. At the heart of the show is a sense of loss, tempered with only the slightest hints of hope. It is the loss of a homeland and then the loss of romance in the new world.
This show is simply incredible. It is intimate and touhing, with a musical accompaniement that would be worth seeing, even without the beatiful poetry and expert storytelling. Evans spills his heart on the stage and watching him do so is a sight to behold. Do not miss this.
Ingimar Sverrisson

https://theatrefullstop.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/rove-the-battersea-arts-centre-review/

"Rove is catharsis. It’s cleansing and memory and music and painfully, achingly full of love."
– Exeunt Magazine on ‘ROVE’

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with us and the Word was us.  And the Word was stories, and stories have endured.
It’s a drizzly Saturday afternoon and I’ve stopped dead in the middle of the Tesco over the hill from my house, clutching a carton of eggs and staring into middle distance. I’m not generally given to public drama, but Neil Gaiman has just uttered the words “I’d been thinking a lot about death and the fact that people’s stories go with them when they die”, and I can’t tell if I’m more amazed that he’s just said it – that precise collection of words, that musing – or at the accumulation of circumstances that’s led to it.


It’s been two days since I sawRove; I’m feeling somewhat exhausted and the weight of things I need to do (writing this amongst them) is pressing on me, so I’ve set out for a head-clearing walk to the shops with an audiobook. Not a usual habit of mine, but music doesn’t feel right today; today I just want someone to tell me a story, to talk to me and expect nothing in return, and I’ve been looking forward toTrigger Warning – Gaiman’s new collection – as it’s his first in a little while. So here I am. In Tesco. With my eggs, and the jolting force of coincidence.
In October, I started thinking about people’s stories going with them when they die, as my neighbour (and her stories) quietly did just that. Last weekend I started collecting stories from my friends. I asked them for ones that they had never read or written down, while I sat opposite with a voice recorder and a look of happy expectation. What I received surprised me; made me smile and, in one case, made two of us cry. What I was given was far more personal than I had anticipated, and far more meaningful for it. Some of it hadn’t really been told before.
Stories are not just the way in which we piece ourselves together; making sense of the vastness of the world and our small place in it. They are also catharsis.
Rove, is catharsis. It’s cleansing and memory and music and painfully, achingly full of love. J. Fergus Evans has plenty of stories. What the J stands for, for starters, and why he’s started going by his middle name. Where his family are from and why everything about this piece is so embedded in place, or the loss of place. How his grandparents met. How they lived. And died.
And through it all he mines, and we follow with perhaps more curiosity than desperation, for truth. For the truth of who he is and the true story of what was.
Mingled with folk songs from his own family and from that of Rhiannon Armstrong – the musician creating the sometimes comforting, sometimes unsettling, clawing, scratching, wriggling under your skin violin accompaniment – Rove is a collection of family stories that I will not write down because they are meant to be told. And even if the emotional journey is one that we witness rather than participate in, Evans is narrating the simplest of truths; it’s only there until it’s not. Something all of us feel, and fear, about our family.
Here’s the song I associate with my mum. Neither of us are blessed with a good singing voice, but hers always sounded so sweet when she sang me to sleep with this. It makes me feel small and safe all at once and yes, it is a great big, unapologetic ball of cheese. Much like Evans and Armstrong’s songs, it won’t have the same emotional resonance with you personally; though theirs are delivered with such wonderful intimacy that that’s easily overcome. But you’ll have a song of your own, that was sung to you. That you sang. Or danced to. Or once hollered off a bridge with someone.
It wasn’t until my friend’s daughter was born that I realised what my song was going to be – and it wasn’t the one my mother sang to me. It’s this one; about wanting to go to the fair and being in love with a cobbler. Utterly applicable to the life of a two year old Swedish toddler, naturally, but it’s what she’s heard from me since she was three months old and I don’t know, maybe someday she’ll remember it and sing it to her children. Or think of it and feel like she belongs somewhere.
Listen hard and remember, Evans tells us. I think I disagree a little. Listen to stories often, listen well, but live. Tell them alive, let them change and make more of your own. The truth of what was, such as it can be, isn’t out there, or in them; it’s in us, as long as we tell it on. Without that; everything dies, Mr. Mulder.

Mary Halton

http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/rove/

"a moving tribute to the power of storytelling"
- Manchester Theatre Awards on 'ROVE'

If nothing else The Lowry’s policy of developing projects is offering variety. After the high-tech and immersive Light we go right back to basics with Rove - a meditation on the power and limitations of storytelling.
The folk tradition accounts for the situation where an adult unconsciously copies a tune heard in infancy. For poet J Fergus Evans the reverse is true – as a child he is mortified to realise he does not recognise the folk tune The Gypsy Rover which his mother claims to have sung to him as a lullaby. Evans sees stories as a vital part of family life. A shameful or traumatic event may, by mutual consent, be concealed by one generation, but, he argues, the next will notice the absence of a story and make up one to fill the gap. Evans goes on to offer a number of tall tales about his family – his grandmother danced in a dress made of raven feathers – that may or may not be true.

The play is structured around Evans’s re-working of folk tales about the Gypsy Rover, recounted in his engrossing lyrical phrases. The aspirations of immigrants to the United States and the lure of showbiz result in the stories occasionally reaching a different conclusion from the traditional outcome. Evans even gently nudges the legend to suggest that his family may be the descendents of the Rover.
Evans’s stories alternate with the actual folk songs about the Rover, performed in traditional style with musician Rhiannon Armstrong. Armstrong’s contribution ensures Rove is a full theatrical experience and does not slip into a monologue. She joins in with Evans’s discussion on how family names are developed by mentioning that her family are anxious to clarify her name was inspired by the Welsh queen, not the Fleetwood Mac song.

As the play concludes, Evans’s approach becomes less playful and more personal – embarrassingly so at one point. Evans has built the show around how stories are a vital part of family life. He then has to tackle whether their significance remains, without future generations of his family to whom stories can be told. He becomes a lonely figure, contemplating a future without children. One wonders if the audience are acting as a proxy family for Evans – a means of ensuring that, even without descendants, his stories will not be lost.

Rove, a moving tribute to the power of storytelling, is always involving, even if occasionally discomforting.

Written and performed by spoken-word artist J. Fergus Evans, Rove is a tribute to folk music and an intimate exploration of family and belonging.

A blend of play, gig, poem, stand-up, memory and monologue, Rove fuses together these different traditions much like its creator, whose family heritage covers countries and continents. Evans grew up in the American South with a keen sense of his family’s Irish and American history, retold to him through stories, legends and “theories passed on as facts.” This show journeys through that history and questions what it means to belong.

His stories are interwoven with folk songs and accompanied by Rhiannon (Margaret) Armstrong, who quickly sets her stamp on the production as side-kick, friend and comedy partner to Evans with the wry line, “There’s not a lot to pass down in my family, so the eldest daughter gets the name Margaret.” Fergus himself is named after his grandfather’s surname, as a promise of remembrance to the family’s Irish homeland.

For lovers of folk music, the show has a great deal to offer: old favourites like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Black Jack Davey” are performed with an understated, contemporary groove. Both performers sing, often accompanied by Armstrong’s violin (plus occasional shoes or a glass of water), which is brilliantly played with the use of a loop pedal to create layers of live sound. Bright green lighting renders the auditorium ethereal and other-worldly, as Evans’ and Armstrong’s voices bounce around the Bike Shed’s close brick walls.
The production is itself a little like a folk song, with verses and choruses, repeated lines and comic riffs. Segments of performance poetry narrate Rover Joe’s (a variation on Evans’ grandfather) experience of moving to Chicago and having to re-establish a sense of self, separated from all he knows by a vast expanse of ocean. Interspersed with Evans’ reflections on how memory works, we watch Rover Joe’s identity shift as he falls in love, becomes a father and passes on his heritage to his daughters.

While beautifully and poetically depicted in terms of appearance, some of the female characters in Evans’ stories lack dimension and personality: Rover Joe’s sweetheart is a waitress’ uniform and honey-coloured hair, but little more. In places too, the show’s quiet nostalgia verges on the underwhelming and, because it offers so many different performance styles, we don’t get quite enough of any of them. Rove is a buffet of different art forms, but this huge range within a performance of just over an hour renders it a little unsatisfying as a meal.
That said, the production is one that lingers thought-provokingly in the viewer’s mind after the final words have been spoken. The ending about-turns and addresses the (metaphorical) elephant that’s been lurking in the room since the show’s early moments, in a deeply affecting finale that throws a whole new set of questions onto Rove’s stories.
​
http://www.thereviewshub.com/rove-the-bike-shed-theatre-exeter/