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NB: 1) Given the nature of drag performances, credits in this review are limited to the names of the on-stage personae we are presented. 2) This is a recurring performance, different every time it is staged; this review can only speak conclusively of the particular performance to which I was invited. This was a rather underwhelming performance, overall, but I shall start with the positives. Each performer has a distinct style and aesthetic; they have each clearly worked on these. In terms of performativity, Asia Thorne outshines all others with an astounding energy, vigour and vitality, expressivity and confidence. She demonstrates a wonderful corporeal control and articulacy and great talent. The most refined and articulate performance, though, comes from contemporary burlesque dancer Cleopantha. Everything from music choice to costume to narrative is slick in this performance. However, the delivery of her repertoire remains a substantial issue, and now I move on to negatives. Continuing with Cleopantha’s burlesque performance, movements such as licking her index finger quickly become easy and overplayed references, and her jumping into a splits is not only underwhelming in its poor execution but looks simply painful, not erotic. Her difficulty in tearing the main bulk of her costume away — rather the crux of her performance — unfortunately demonstrates an unrefined skill, also. These elements ought to have been better rehearsed. It seems at the moment that Cleopantha is simply relying on the magic of a live audience and stage to gift her with vigour and precision. Despite these items, however, choreography does remain impactful and effective in itself, overall. As for Mahatma Khandi, this performer has wonderful facial and upper-body expressivity, especially in solo performances, but I emphasise that such expressivity is restricted to the waist upwards. Her movements are also incredibly repetitive — which will be an exhausting running theme in this review. I think, for example, to her rendition of ‘A Thousand Miles’ by Vanessa Carlton, wherein she simply plays an air piano for almost the entirety of the song’s duration, pointing — supposedly — at two audience members every so often to perform a flirtatious or hypersexual gesture, and doing nothing else of interest. I write ‘supposedly’, because she does not actually fix her gaze or the target of her pointing on any given audience member whatsoever, and what is intended to be a self-mocking moment of intimacy between spectator and performer is lost in a vapid caricatural allusion. During initial performances, we see Dosa Cat regularly enter the stage, overtly intending to upstage Mahatma and steal her limelight. This is incredibly poorly executed, with Dosa being weakly ‘carried’ back off, putting up a half-baked fight. This happens over four times, making this yet another sorely repeated motif. This is also a great example of the sheer lack of corporeal and muscular awareness, tension and expressivity from which most of these performers suffer — I say ‘most’, as this does not reflect Asia Thorne. This is a completely unrealistic and half-hearted display, and to have such a weak ‘joke’ repeated so many times exacerbates this effect, or lack thereof. I should note here, too, between considering Mahatma and Dosa’s performances, that all performers — again, except for Asia Thorne — struggle to mouth the words to their songs in sync, or to ‘lipsync’ accurately, to use the appropriate terms. This is incredibly distracting, illusion-shattering, underwhelming and unprofessional. This is, after all, at least a third of these performers’ respective acts. Ironically, despite this accuracy I have attributed to Asia, her lipsync-ing is far too performative, making for a stark contrast against the other performers: she is overexpressive to an unbelievable and almost desperate degree. On to Dosa Cat. With such a big lead-up to their performance and with such acclaim from fellow performers, I would have expected a great deal more from Dosa. As I shall elaborate below, Dosa’s performance overrelies upon the audience’s pre-existing knowledge of cultural references and forms, as with their quote-heavy text that simply sees them walking from the centre to the front of the stage, pause, mouth [again, out of sync] along with their audio, pointing out to the audience with a sassy and confrontational gesture, and then returning to the middle of the stage. Oh, and a sheepish, stiff lap dance on an unsuspecting [and clearly rather uncomfortable!] audience member, just for the added sensationalist effect. Again, a promising aesthetic from Dosa, but performance is just incredibly lacking. It seems that the mere presence of a drag performer in and amongst the audience members is what makes Dosa’s next performance so exhilarating, as it most certainly is not their repertoire, expression and variation. As written above, Asia Thorne is an excellent performer, expressive, vitalised, skilled. Contrastingly, whilst it is clear that she has a very varied skillset to showcase, her solo performances do not do this fact justice. Again, I shall elaborate on intertextual references below, but Thorne’s solo act is so littered with audio clips and music changes that it becomes an overly fragmented and bipartite display, attempting to incorporate everything in such a way that it really ends up being about nothing. Narrative is completely lost, and the jarring audio seems to inspire a jarring physicality, with movements left half-finished, interrupted by the next auditory material. Prinx Silver suffered from perhaps the greatest lack of impetus and full-body articulacy, which was most disappointing. I can honestly say that I do not know what I learned about this performer or their performance style, because structure and repertoire were pretty much nonexistent beyond ‘serving face and body’. Whilst Prinx has clearly mastered appearance-based illusionism, as I mentioned in the introduction to this review was the case for all performers, this was clearly not their main objective, judging from the attempts at upside-down splits or the narrative-based[?] vicar costume. Furthermore, strumming a balloon as though a guitar and smouldering for an entire song in their next performance alongside the majority of the cast rather loses its appeal and effect, I am afraid, within the very first of three minutes during which this is done. There seems to be an anti-religious theme throughout the collective’s history, referenced by Mahatma herself and, of course, demonstrated in this, Prinx Silver’s first, solo act. This satire would be better welcomed and comprehensible if its relevance, quality and nature were better communicated. Simply entering in a vicar’s outfit and launching a bible and crucifix into the house is not enough to consolidate a working narrative. Similarly, there seems to be an enormous overreliance upon intertextual knowledge throughout this performance, from these satirical religious exploitations to the sassy voiceovers of memes and TV shows, etc., to the popular songs that accompany performances like Asia Thorne’s. Intertextual features are perfectly acceptable, but they should complement and progress the performance, not replace, hinder or outshine it as they do regularly throughout this instalment of Khandi Shop. The rendition of High School Musical’s ‘Bop to the Top’, for instance, or Dosa, Mahatma and Asia’s performance of various songs from Sister Act — again, odd religious themes — have no relevance to the rest of the show whatsoever. They are not introduced at all, integrated well into the programme of the show, or reflected upon afterwards. We are simply to accept these random performances as sensical and fitting. They are not. I must admit that I was incredibly surprised to learn that this performance labels itself as an ‘evening of tooth ache inducing cabaret [sic]’. I cannot begin to fathom what the creatives think High School Musical and ‘A Thousand Miles’ have to do with cabaret… And as for ‘tooth ache inducing [sic]’, I recognise the title of this performance and Mahatma’s ‘surname’ but still have no clue whatsoever as to where the theme of ‘candy’ has gotten to in this performance… Scavenging fruitlessly for any sign whatsoever of how these elements have been worked into this cabaret-less cabaret, I must say that I find it rather headache-inducing, more than anything else… “A shambolic performance; repetitive and in desperate need of structure and theme.”

This is a wonderful and endearing play performed by talented budding actors. A definite treat. All three actors have a great command over their roles, aware of their characters’ intentions, feelings and objectives, and supplementing each with wonderful idiosyncrasies, peculiarities and traits. There is, however, quite a significant lack of naturalism in their performances, which is a skill that will doubtlessly come with time, but this does see a great deal of inappropriate delivery. I shall not provide an exhaustive list of examples but just one: after an argument between Omz (Francis Lovehall) and Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling) about how Bilal is “always cappin’”, Bilal replies with, “Now you’re cappin’!” This should be delivered with the emphasis on you’re, as this refers to this recent argument; Williams-Stirling, however, places his emphasis on the word ‘cappin’’. Moments like this are constant throughout and need to be addressed. Externally, these performers have solidified their roles well, but further attention must be given to intent during delivery. Comedic moments, however, are handled expertly and with great precision — I think to Emeka Sesay’s (playing Joey) quick cheeky protrusion of the tongue when Joey is commended by Omz for his ‘standing up against Bilal’, or to the portrayal of Joey and Omz’s explosive derision of Bilal, mocking him as he denies his love interest in a girl. The performers’ excellent expressivity and vigour are most useful in moments like these. As for the dramatic text itself, this is a very poignant and resonant text, dealing with gentrification, systemic change and the upheaval of homes and symbolic and physical territories. To present this through the eyes of a trio of teenage boys trying to navigate their perspectives and those of their friends whilst also trying to establish and settle into their oncoming futures is a most refreshing and fruitful context to offer us. Characters are wonderfully developed, and each has a clear psychology, traits and particularised desires. Tensions between the characters, particularly towards the end of the play, are also structured and built wonderfully. I would just pay attention to excessive attempts at communicating culture and dialect: having ‘bro’ at the end of every sentence is one example of such superfluity and of a stark and undesirable deviation from natural everyday speech patterns. Stylistically, this is an unsteady performance, seeing a clunky mixture of enclosed action, direct audience address and stylised movement. I shall start with this latter, seen only in transitions. These transitions are completely different stylistically to the rest of the performance, not only in consideration of this movement type but also of the harsh blue/white washes that flood the stage (lighting design by Ali Hunter) and the R&B songs that are played overhead (sound design by Khalil Madovi). The contrast is stark, and we need time as an audience to settle into this new context, but sufficient time is simply not permitted. Sound is cut prematurely, lighting snaps back to its original state, and the actors continue as though nothing has happened. This is an example of a frustrating theatrical convention where creatives intend to invoke a sense of climax, with these tense and dramatic sequences sandwiching each and every scene. These transitions should be re-examined, and timing should be reconsidered. Sound should fade appropriately and not finish suddenly mid-lyric. There is only one effective transition in this performance, as regards stylistic fluidity, and this is after we are presented with a sequence wherein Omz imagines himself as a successful football player. Standing Centerstage, lit by a fading spotlight, Lovehall is still as the music fades, and Sesay slowly approaches, easing him out of his fantasy. This is most successful. An exemplary movement from stylised transition to naturalistic performance. I should note: this is not to say that the material with which we are presented in these transitions is not successful in itself; it certainly is and reveals those inner, personal objectives and desires of our much-beloved characters. I have an issue solely with style and presentation. In fact, these stylised movements, for the most part, are wonderfully executed by each of the performers, each having a great corporeal awareness and excellent expressivity. Their abundant energy and vitality make the busier transitions — seeing Lovehall and Williams-Stirling, in particular, running across the stage or enacting their training — all the more appealing. Lighting and sound designs are also faultless here; it is merely how we move from one state to another that is fallible and unrefined. As I have written countless times, metatheatre does not engage the audience in the world of the play; instead, it forces them to consider the artificiality of the performance space and their relationship to it and to other audience members. As soon as the performance is “opened up” to the audience, they become intensely self-aware and detached from the material. Any audience member during this party scene, which sees the trio interact excessively with the audience, would have certainly felt connected with the performers, but not their characters. Such a disruption of an otherwise completely enclosed narrative leads to a semiotic and stylistic disconnect. This is not warranted or useful in this performance, nor is an apologetic gesture to an audience member who has just been lightly nudged with the football — however, extra measures should be taken to make sure that this does not happen again, for this breaches the separating border between the performance space and the audience’s territory, to no end but severe distraction. With such effort having gone into pretending to be unaware of the audience as they enter during the overture, these scarce but severe moments of direct address are all the more questionable. I should mention here also that the performers handle this overture incredibly well. For well over fifteen minutes, these performers remain engaged in their respective activities, busy and preoccupied. This is most commendable. In terms of the set (designed by Amelia Jane Hankin), its simplicity is most facilitative and effective, communicating not only the concrete brutality of the characters’ hometown but its pre-development ‘stagnancy’ or stasis as well. To have the entire performance set on the pitch is most symbolic and evocative of our characters’ fixations, and this is intensified by the final symbol of the worn-down, half-deflated football that sits Centerstage in a shrinking spotlight at the end of the performance — a beautiful image. Other minimal props and elements are just enough to allude to the world beyond the pitch, such as the graffiti around the low walls of the stage, or the Morley’s takeaway bag. However, I would just recommend further detailing: a light touching of oil to add realism to this bag, for example, or carvings into the bricks and further weathering to add texture, age and even more history. A final note: this flat and vacant stage allows for a great facilitation of physical activity and for a heightened focus on the characters swamped by their hometown’s imagined expanse. Overall, very successful visuals here. “A gripping, endearing and resonant performance; definitely a must-see!”

This is a very rocky performance, failing to juggle astutely its various subplots and sociopolitical/cultural themes. From families ripped apart by war to homophobia to children navigating their parents’ separation, there is a LOT going on in this performance, which is most promising on paper but rather disappointing in execution. I shall start with acting. These actors each perform with faultless energy throughout and are clearly recognisant of their character’s intentions and objectives. However, naturalism does not come easily at all to these characters who seem unable to emulate natural speech patterns and physical human behaviour. Andrei Maniata (playing Amir) is perhaps the most refined in terms of his acting style, yet perhaps this is because his character hardly says anything...as when the time finally comes for his lengthy monologue about his personal history during the ongoing war in Syria, any credibility is totally thwarted by an exaggerative and overdramatic outpour. I would recommend extensive work be done so that these actors’ performances might be remotely convincing. Taofique Folarin (playing Roland) has obviously given extensive thought to the external appearance of his character, emoting well in terms of expression and physicality. However, his vocal expressivity is incredibly flawed, with almost every line being delivered with the same intonation and intensity. Overall, his performance is robotic in this way. Though partly caused by a significant issue in writing, which I shall address below, Kaine Hatukai (playing Gary) fails to shift fluidly between emotional states, suddenly bursting into rage, for example, with no perceptible lead-up, corporeal tension or appropriate behavioural changes. He could also benefit notably from incorporating the behavioural and vocal 'essence of a 'teenager' into his portrayal, as the profile he offers us is slightly too collected, especially given how emotionally unstable his character is supposed to be at the thought of his parents' separation. However, I must note that he performs tenderness very well, indeed. Maniata's portrayal, as I have already written, is rather credible until his lengthy monologue, but the extremely nervous individual that we see early on in this performance completely vanishes by his second appearance. In this respect, Maniata's profile is incredibly inconsistent. The more extreme moments must be reworked to avoid overdramatic flailing and unnatural wailing and to concentrate on portraying more realistic moments of breakdown, terror and collapse. Folarin and Maniata each perform the stylised movements rather well, with Folarin, in particular, demonstrating a great fluidity in his physicality — and perhaps a background in dance? Given how well these are executed, my issue here lies, rather, with not just choreography but the significance and integration of these movements themselves. The decision to represent the 'couple''s sexual encounters through stylised movement sequences is a peculiar one, given the stark absence of stylised expression elsewhere in this performance, and one that could, at least, be more attractive if choreography was not so repetitive and…in places…just strange. There are countless lifts of the limbs that feel out of place and awkward, and the second sequence we see is practically identical to the second. A slow, semi-animalistic encircling prowl, then to the floor for the performers to arch their backs whilst sat on one another [a series for which the audience's view has clearly has not been considered, with almost every audience member beyond the first row visibly straining to see whatever is obscured by the members in front], then some 'leg play', and back up again for what I shall refer to as Folarin's standing worm dance. Again, odd and repetitive, and not 'odd' in a way that draws out the unique and special in their relationship; just 'odd' as in clunky, awkward, unappealing. In fact, I find the very notion of their sexual encounters strange in itself, given how Roland pursues and perceives some kind of sexual chemistry with Amir, despite the circumstances they find themselves in: terrified by the sound of helicopters to the point where he has micturated uncontrollably, suffering from PTSD and implying a desire to be left alone does not make for the grounds of a particularly erotic and impassioned love story. Amir is also clearly uncomfortable, for various reasons that are later divulged, during sexual interactions with Roland, yet he is pursued, regardless. Somehow, we are meant to see this as a heart-warming tale of gay love? This is only worsened by the age gap, which is not posed as an issue until Gary implies that this is perhaps the very thing that has drawn them together, which would make quite a lot of sense in light of the lack of magnetism elsewhere between the two. Roland is not particularly loving but overly tactile and rather pushy, and I fail to see why the creatives would think this is a story with which one could profoundly connect. And this is without mentioning the dysfunctionality we experience through their physical altercations. These items simply are not congruous with Roland's character, a loving father who, really, rather has his life together at the age of forty. I believe the characters of this play are also difficult to identify with due to the severe and extremely rudimentary manner in which they are presented. For example, trembling at the passing of every helicopter, frenzied by the loss of his watch, furtively disappearing after every scene, falling to the floor with fear at every possible moment — and somehow cured of all anxieties after merely recounting his story to Roland... It is simply too monotonous and monolithic, not to mention slightly overdramatic in its unnuanced presentation. We do not need so many expressions of fear; we need humanity. This sense of rudimentariness and repetition is also palpable in Gary's character and in his relationship with Roland. Gary's constant...winging, for lack of a better word, that Roland left him and moved away, constantly asking him why he did it — which is all rather strange, considering that he already knew about his father's sexuality and reasoning behind his departure — and his begging him to come back becomes extremely monotonous and predictable. These supposedly 'deep' conversations, or rows, with his father seem to come out of nowhere and offer little to no variation each time. Overall, very little happens in this text (written by Bren Gosling), and anything that does progress the plot or develop our characters is wrung dry through constant regurgitation of unchanging information and material. A weakly written text, bland and failing to consider neither momentum nor fluid progression and climax. In terms of set (designed by Justin Nardella), the ‘deconstructed’ and minimalist design of the door frames, though attractively designed in itself, does not coincide with the busy and rather naturalistic set piece and prop arrangements we see in the bijoux room Downstage Right and around the main stage. Furthermore, actors seem to forget that their characters should not be able to see through the imagined walls around these, as when Roland, a regular perpetrator of this, watches Maniata changing or Hatukai playing the violin. Great attention has been given to areas the cast rarely enter or furniture that they rarely interact with, and then, there is the blunt and brutal folding bed chair and the overly eclectic, chaotic basketball court / lounge / bedroom. As I mentioned before, Roland seems, through various superficial implications, to be doing rather well for himself, all things considered, and if he has a spare bedroom for his son to stay in — which negates his claims that he does not have enough space for Gary to come and live with him... — I imagine his own bedroom would be equally adequate. It is not represented thusly. Finally, I must also comment on the bulky lights that are attached to the phones Folarin and Hatukai hold whilst portraying their characters' FaceTime conversation. These are far too unrealistic. To simply have the phone display a bright white screen would have been far better than these unrealistic and bizarre-looking attachments, given that this is not how phones light the face during such video calls and that the screens of these mobiles are quite noticeably switched off. This is without mentioning the fact that Gary notes that his father is holding the camera too close to his face, providing him with a clear view up into his nostrils, yet Folarin holds the phone in no such fashion and, in fact, holds it exactly as Hatukai does. These little details are those that gradually amount to complete destruction of illusion and subtraction from credibility and realism. “Chaotic, unstructured, ill-conceived, crude.”

Overall, this is a rather sensationalist performance, relying on its characters’ conflicting points of view and life experiences to confuse the audience; its stylised sequences to add flare and mystery, and to communicate the non-physical aspects of Kayode’s (Fode Simbo) curse; and its [erroneous] metatheatrical techniques to “launch the audience into the narrative”. It remains, however, a humorous and light performance, despite the nature of its material, and this is due to its caricatural representations from its endearing performers and to its witty cultural references. I shall begin with writing. Themes of denial are certainly very poignant in this performance, from Layo (Lucy Vandi) denying Kikiope’s (Teri Ann Bobb-Baxter) access to her heritage and to tacit cultural knowledge, to the disbelief aimed at Pastor Matanmi (Mark Springer) for his methods and wisdom, to the characters’ denial of Kayode’s lived experiences and perceptions. Truth, in this way, is instrumentalised in a most mind-boggling manner, to interrogate, challenge and obscure the real and the subjective, the physical and the spiritual. Dialogue is actually rather well written, and scenes are structured well, but content is rather repetitive, overall. There are many scenes that deal with similar issues, especially those wherein we see Kikiope coaxing Kayode to lead as normal a life as possible, despite his current state, and those wherein Itan (Selina Jones) is constantly being resurrected — supposedly, much to our surprise, but, in reality, this becomes most predictable. These ought to have been either cut by director Taino Lawson completely, embellished and deepened, or simply replaced with refreshing and altogether different material. This variation is desperately needed to enrich this text, I feel. On to acting. This is certainly a talented cast, showing great promise and good ability, but there is a certain lack of particularisation and skill across all performers. I shall start with Bobb-Baxter. This performer seems to have a background in spoken word, sporadically and randomly altering her delivery to perform in an overly stylised and poetic manner, entering into a persona different to that of her ‘principal’ character. To mark such ‘altered’ deliveries, we see Bobb-Baxter extend her hands forward slightly and becoming robotic in her movements and speech. She seems to latch on regularly to the poeticism underlying her lines and delivers this accordingly, instead of delivering her lines with a naturalistic approach that better reflects the intentions and circumstances of her character. Of course, doing this latter would produce the desired poetic effect on its own. Bobb-Baxter does, however, have a great ‘coolness’ on stage, and performs with great attention to timing and delivery. Her attention is concentrated wonderfully on other cast members; great thought has been given to her engagement with them. I would just favour more expressivity and urgency in places, and, again, a more focused and steady expression of her character’s intentions, psychology and circumstances, as opposed to her character’s mere feelings and external responses to stimuli. Selina Jones performs with an excellent corporeal awareness, moving fluidly and attentively. Her movements are precise, calculated and conscious. Certainly, Jones proves her skill in physical expressivity and malleability. When it comes to the delivery of her lines, however, we see, again, a characterisation intending to incite reaction and to produce effect, not a naturalistic or relatable representation by any means. Jones has a palpable talent but further skill is needed to sharpen intonation and expression to better equate her portrayal to natural human behaviour — which must still be palpable and discernible despite her portraying a spirit, especially as this spirit is chiefly humanised within this text. Notably, the dramatic and the stylised come naturally to this performer, as with her coughing blood or with her stylised movement routines with Simbo. Out of the cast, Jones is the most particularised and refined when it comes to her characterisation, and her constant busyness and preoccupation — arranging candles and flowers, reading books, and spectating and reacting to the motions and conversations of the other characters — bring great richness to the physical and external aspects of her character. However, vocal expression is mechanical and too heavily reliant upon convention. Simbo lacks a great amount of corporeal tension when this is necessary — I think to his getting out of of the water pit or to the ‘motifs’ in his stylised movement solos that I shall detail below — but his delivery is certainly the most credible of the cast. He is clear on his character’s intent and objectives, and this is conveyed through a clear and credible characterisation. Though his movements and delivery do gradually become rather repetitive, I can safely blame this on the monotony of his character as it is written. He has, however, found a good deal of variation in his activity in the water pit. Springer presents a wonderful and humorous caricature, with an incessant vitality, and with great thought to his character’s idiosyncrasies. His profile is in danger of becoming too caricatural and artificial in relation to the more understated acting style of the other performers, however. It is also in danger of becoming rather one-note, as I find it does from his scene alone with Bobb-Baxter, upon which I shall also elaborate below. Vandi, on the other hand, rather underplays her character, with few idiosyncrasies and observable traits. She does, however, have a good grip on naturalistic delivery, overall — perhaps the best of the performers in this way, alongside Simbo [but this is still far from exemplary]. In terms of stylised movements (movement direction by Robin Milliner), Simbo’s motifs — seeing him extend his arms above his head after freezing mid-movement, his leg stopped in its sideways motion as though he were about to turn — are too repetitive, I find, and this lack of variation is something typical of all stylised interactions, including Simbo’s fights with Jones (directed by Yaris Dor). Mirroring movements, for example, such as when Jones lifts and bares the palm of her hand for Simbo to copy her, quickly becomes commonplace in this performance, and this is without mentioning that such a practice is most unoriginal and cliché. I would have liked a more creative and inventive demonstration that Itan is within and one with Kyode’s body and that she is governing it, beyond this implied puppetry. The use of disruptive metatheatrical techniques is most questionable in this performance. Yet again, I find a classic example of misuse. Jones directs a monologue to both Simbo and the audience, claiming that she is a positive influence, a beauty, questioning us, “Right? Right?!” The desired effect here is clearly to engage the audience, to get them thinking about their relation to and perception of this spirit, to intensify the dangerous and threatening quality of it in the realisation, upon the ‘breaking of the fourth wall’, that the spirit is unpredictable and can perhaps even affect us. Of course, the real effect is that the audience simply becomes aware of the artificiality of the performance, of themselves in relation to the space, to the performers and to those around them. Indeed, the audience is, rather, taken out of the performance, distracted by its now-exposed mechanical and artificial aspects, by the procedures of experiencing a piece of theatre. This is intensified when we later find that the performers are amongst us, scattered around the house. Not only does this obscure the view of the action for the audience members sat directly beside/behind these performers, but this is also incredibly confrontational in its breach of the audience’s territory. Again, this does not cause an audience to feel ‘part of the action’ but simply aware of their function as an audience of a theatre, especially given that they must be deliberately ignored by these in-role performers. Except, strangely, they are not entirely ignored elsewhere. Performers often face the audience when delivering their lines, and this makes for a great stylistic incongruity: for example, in their first scene together, whilst Vandi plays to Bobb-Baxter, Bobb-Baxter plays to the audience, as though we are Layo. But Layo is clearly not in front of her but beside her, and this confuses topography to an illegible degree, especially considering that Bobb-Baxter then turns to Vandi to continue her delivery later on — so who was she directing this speech to previously? The answer cannot be ‘us’, the audience. Most confused topographical and stylistic decisions. Now, set (designed by Rosie Elnile). Aesthetically, this is a beautiful design, and it is also an articulate one alongside that of the costumes (supervised by Rianna Azoro) and props, with their symbolic focuses. For example, to have Itan surrounded by flowers and candles, and to have her reading ‘All About Love’ by Bell Hooks and later dressed in a bridal gown with a fabulously long-trained white durag, is a wonderful manner both of presenting this spirit, whose virtuousness, beauty and positivity we are made to question, and of romanticising and prettifying what is elsewhere presented to us as a negative, underhand and occult aspect of ‘regular’ Nigerian practice. Although, I do not think that this spirit should have access to such common physical objects as this book; this demystifies and humanises her too significantly. Another successful symbolic element to this set design is the water pit in the centre of the stage, water obviously being symbolic of cleansing, of ritual, and of the source of life — this latter is most notable, given that this spirit is later thought of in the same way, to a significant degree. This water pit is used particularly effectively after Kyode and Itan’s final fight where we see Jones’s body floating lifelessly on the surface of the water for a great duration of time, her face obscured by the rest of the stage. This is handled expertly by Jones. However, Simbo and [especially] Jones’s erratic splashing sends vast amounts of this water flying towards the lanterns on either side of the stage — predominantly those Stage Left. This is incredibly dangerous and ought to be reconsidered. These lanterns are particularly ineffective, regardless, and so a simple solution would be to remove these altogether. Overall, lighting design (by Ciaran Cunningham) is beautiful in this performance, despite its needless complexity in places, and sound design (by George Dennis) is crisp and facilitative. “A coherent and fun performance but dampened by needless caricature, sensationalist elements and a lack of variation.”

This is a bold and poignant performance, written by Benny Ainsworth and directed by Sally Paffett, whose dark material is organised, in theory, very well. However, there is significant work to be done with performance style and, to some degree, with the writing as well, so that themes be conveyed better beyond the mere written word. Michael Parker’s performance style as Stuart is markedly caricatural. He is over-expressive and over-energised, and his style is rather overtly comedic, overall. Initially, this is a wonderful way to enable the audience to bond with his character. That everything is going wrong for him, from technical omissions to extreme nervousness, and that he is clearly being subjected to this performance by his mother are wonderful means of allowing for a sense of victimisation from the outset. We pity this character who brings us joy and laughter, and this is an excellent ground for invoking our extreme empathy later on when material gets darker — in theory. However, because of how extreme Parker’s caricatural acting style is, because of how artificially and theatrically his character is portrayed, it becomes incredibly difficult to empathise with this somewhat inhuman character, to gauge the level of realism in the text, and, ultimately, to digest this dark material. We go from one extreme, caricatural comedy, to the other, dark realism, and a lack of naturalism, of credibility, builds an extreme and thick barrier against our ability to see the human, the real, the raw and, most importantly, the possible, the enactable, the dangers that exist in the real world. Furthermore, this nervousness, characterised by incessant shaking, fluctuating voice, unsteady eye contact and overall ‘jitteriness’, is too severely overplayed at the beginning, given how conscientiously and accurately Parker portrays Stuart enacting the rest of his performance. Stuart’s final breakdown, which, I must say, would be significantly more effective if eye contact was directed not merely to the vague centre of the audience but to each and every audience member specifically as he addresses us, is incredibly intense and rather expertly achieved. The design of sound and tech — again, noting Stuart’s further victimisation in the lack of diligence of “Simon”, the [fictional] tech operator who receives his mother’s relentless support — is immaculate here, accentuating an extreme discomfort. However, the real tech operator, Ben Sorab (also the designer for all technical constituents), rather restricts its effect in allowing for a sense of predictability, audibly rustling in physical preparation in the tech booth and overtly preempting the lighting change by slightly altering the current state with a minor fade before the actual transition. This state must remain completely untouched until the time comes for it to drastically transform. This drastic sense was not achieved where it otherwise could have been because of these facts. On the topic of tech, I will quickly note that the principal lighting state maintained throughout the majority of this performance ought to be a full wash rather than an unfocused spot. Wearing white, Parker’s costume is garishly illuminated on one side of the stage and poorly lit along with Parker himself on the other. This is visually rather jarring — and the idea that this is down to Simon’s lack of skill is not enough to justify what is our entire visual in reality. I mentioned that Stuart’s character was also comedic, and exactly how this comedy is delivered also needs to be addressed. It is performed too deliberately by Parker, and this is further exacerbated by the character of Stuart’s own tendency towards comical lines — for example, his tango/line-dancing joke or the failing Brigitte Jones joke he delivers on behalf of this mother. These are acceptable alone, but not with further conspicuous stress on comedic idiosyncrasies and text. For maximum effect, comedy should not be delivered with the overt desire to make the audience laugh; this is counter-productive and, frankly, embarrassing. Simon should perform the comedic material not with the desire to extract the ‘funny’ out of the text and perform it but simply to stay true to his character’s intentions and circumstances. This sense of true conviction and seriousness will be the credible driving force for comedy, as opposed to the overreliance upon the punchlines he delivers themselves. One good example of this is at the beginning of the performance when Stuart spills his glass of water over his front. This action is far too preempted, and instead of ‘missing his mouth’, Parker simply breaks from the action of drinking and throws it over himself. This is too deliberate, artificial and not at all credible; hence, the comedy is weakened here. I should also mention here that white, under the harsh stage lights, is certainly not desirable for any costume that will at some point be made wet. This is not a matter of whether the performer is confident enough with exhibiting himself but, rather, about the undesired and distracting aspect and visual connotations this needlessly brings to the performance. I would recommend a different colour. Comedy is also slightly weakened by the repetition of certain elements, namely: Stuart leaving the stage to ‘talk to his mother’, his calling out to signal tech cues and freeze-framing whilst he awaits them, his interjections to provide us with superfluous details on characters and his circumstances, etc. On their own, these are managed and delivered excellently but together make for a sense of monotony and unimaginativeness. I would recommend more variety here. Otherwise, this is a good performance from Parker who remains vitalised and invigorated throughout. He successfully differentiates his various characters, demonstrating his great capacity as a transformative actor. He has wonderful corporeal and vocal expressivity and has a confident and bold stage presence. A good performer, and this is intensified by the recognition that he is alone on a bare stage, aided only by one lighting state throughout and yet manages to capture his character and his various contexts well, remaining engaging and absorbing throughout. This engaging quality is also, of course, down to the writing, which is structured superbly. Characterisation and character development are immaculate, and plot is both structured and conceived excellently. This is a most careful and rich text, rather unpredictable where it ought to be so and teeming with challenges and emotional pitfalls for its main character. A gripping text. Metatheatricality is also maintained throughout, which is most impressive and desirable, not only allowing for a greater emotional/psychological impact at the end of the performance and for a removed, more critical observation of Stuart’s victimisation/abuse but also for stylistic continuity and continuous relevance for the comedic elements listed above and others. Finally, still in regard to the text, the idea that Stuart’s mother has written this performance for him, somehow benefitting from this and notably reinventing her own image, and that she is forcing Stuart to perform her script is a subplot that is left to remain rather strange and enigmatic. Why Stuart’s mother, who, despite her abusive tendencies towards gaslighting and condescension, seems to be rather affected by what happens to Stuart and his childhood sweetheart, would have something to gain from this production is not sufficiently detailed or, most importantly, made clear to us. A few asides that he no longer wants to perform for her is not enough, I am afraid, to ground her in the overall narrative. In short, the mother we are presented in the play ‘she has written’ does not reflect the ‘true’ mother of which we are constantly made aware. And this needs to be addressed. The character of the mother, her intentions, and items that expose her will for fame and renown off of Stuart’s labour [which are currently nonexistent] need to be evident so that the entire concept retains a degree of logic and sense. A needy, entitled, manipulative and controlling mother does not equate a mother who will instrumentalise her son for her own success. This is a character discontinuity. Overall, this is a challenging and thought-provoking performance that confronts both the audience's morality and their hedonistic pursuits. Ainsworth proves himself here as a versatile and intelligent writer with a skill for exploiting and deconstructing the dark and the harrowing. “A challenging and profound performance but one suffering from stylistic discontinuities.”

Starting on a positive. As regards the writing itself by Jonathon Crewe, who also directed this play, this dramatic text utilises a fortunate range of techniques to make for an engaging and fluid script. Dialogue is conceived and structured exceptionally well; it is most naturalistic, and conversations are generated and maintained with fluidity and ease; clichéd character speech types are mostly avoided, and speech feels unhindered and effectual. The overall plot is well-conceived. However, fundamental incidents and events that lead to its progression ought to be better addressed and reconsidered. Character development is also rushed, particularly for Lee's (Eleanor Hill) entire character but also in Captain Martin Christensen's (Nicholas Anscombe) breakdown. Martin's profile does remain fairly consistent throughout, otherwise. As regards the performers themselves, I must say that the acting for this performance is most impressive, and this should not be taken as a light comment. The two performers are both credible, energised and, for the most part, astutely aware of their character intentions. Characterisations are strong, convincing and clear. However, I would pay closer attention to Anscombe’s chosen accent for Martin, which still needs considerable refinement, faltering regularly. At times, characterisations are unignorably clichéd and overly caricatural, such as Anscombe's bizarre breakdown at the end of the play — which really ought to end as soon as Hill touches his shoulder and not with a delay of a few seconds. Although, I do recognise that this is rooted in certain stylistic inconsistencies and extremities in the written text itself, and so this is negligible, overall. Nevertheless, these are most confident and driven actors with great emotional ranges. My commendations. Turning to Hill’s portrayal of her character’s drunkenness, upon which I must elaborate, given that this is an incredibly important detail of this performance and her character's story, ultimately leading to her unsuspecting death. Expressivity seems to be limited to the face for the most part of Hill's characterisation here, and yet we are still in desperate need of those characteristic heavier eyes and sloping mouth, and we certainly need more fluidity and lack of 'agency' and control as regards corporeal expression. This is somewhat achieved much later, towards the end of the first act, but must creep in far sooner and ultimately be intenser, more apparent — especially if Lee is to be so objectified with no recollection in such a manner as she is. I should also note here that whilst Hill conveys the potency of Martin’s alcoholic drink for the first few swigs, and notably whenever this is marked in dialogue — when they cheers and drink in unison, for example — she seems to forget to demonstrate this consistently, often swigging it down with complete ease, no hesitation, resistance or sense of recoil. Admittedly, she could slowly become accustomed to its potency, but then we still need to see this gradual acclimation; moreover, this cannot be the case, regardless, because we see her recoil in the same manner once again later on. I will note here, however, that her drunkenness is most intelligently worked into the script itself, with stage time coinciding sufficiently and realistically with the amount of time full intoxication may take. Regarding the text and Hill's character once more, I do not particularly favour the fact that Lee shares the same problematic relationship with her own distant, powerful father. The effect this has on her character's psychology is not worked into the narrative well enough at all and feels like a cheap reasoning as to her troubles and challenges. I would recommend enriching her backstory considerably, as it currently feels as though this trait has been included merely to add a sense of a shared past between the characters, and this is without mentioning that the similarity in their stories feels unimaginative, as though the emotional scope of the characters is limited and simple. Far more complexity is required here to make Lee's character more engaging and, above all, more human. She currently feels like the facilitative representation of the archetypal subject of a feminist's rhetoric: a female unable to change her destiny or reach autonomy, chained to her father's successes, and not a complex human being or character. I mentioned above that this text suffers from certain stylistic inconsistencies and extremities, and this is observable when comparing the first and the second acts, amongst other items upon which I will not elaborate in this review, for brevity. We go from what is first an attempt at naturalism to a completely satirical, farcical and exaggerative caricatural skit, which only becomes more and more ludicrous as Lee's lifeless body becomes animated, culminating later into a mere talking head. This latter style is most extremely incongruous with the former and is in danger of alienating the audience from what has been, thus far, an otherwise passive, slow and calm drama. Humour seems to have no role in this performance beyond witty remarks and minor antagonisation from the characters; this transformation of style is far too extreme. Most importantly, however — and this point should not be overlooked — this caricaturisation becomes incredibly insensitive when we realise that this is a fictionalisation of the true murder of Kim Wall by Peter Madsen. In fact, this story is — skeletally, at least — an exact retelling. Gilded by its sociopolitical themes, this entire play can be seen as somewhat of a glorification, a facetious melodramatisation. It lacks a necessary degree of seriousness in its whimsicality, absurdity and humour-based techniques. To turn Lee, representative of Kim Wall, into a mocking talking head, overly expressive, and quick-witted, with flippant lines like 'I'd go away, but I have no legs', is most deplorable. Furthermore, this is also counter-productive, given that one aim of this performance is to force us to 'explore' [more on this wording below] our social duties for compassion and understanding towards victims of such heinous crimes. Overall, the message communicated is that Crewe merely enjoyed the dark goriness of Kim Wall's murder and wished to create a comparatively sensationalist rape-revenge tale that shields itself with apparent sociopolitical agendas in order to exist, ironically, 'under the radar' of otherwise socially mobilised audiences who would, consciously, be resistant to this form. I would urgently readdress how these so-called underlying sociopolitical themes relate to, function within, impact, shape and affect this performance. As it currently stands, it is merely insensitive and abhorrently facetious. I wrote that more seriousness needs to become of this text, and this comes hand in hand with needed coherency, which is also lacking in this performance. From Martin's sudden, and later recurrent, use of profanity, which is most unbefitting of his character who otherwise remains intellectual and meticulous in regard to his idiolect and vocabulary, blending with Lee’s more direct and emotion-based manner of speaking, to Lee’s gullibility and lack of resistance in moments where we ought to find this, in keeping with her personality type, incoherency is a huge issue for this play. I shall detail this latter example further: Lee is a very strong character; she is stubborn, strong-willed, self-assured and direct — perhaps even arrogant and rude. The mere revelation that this is all a front, that she is insecure about her talent and place/future within her industry, is not enough alone to justify her later malleability, extreme vulnerability and her emotional outpour to Martin, seeing her perform such actions as detailing her inner sorrows, secrets and emotional history [as superficial as these are] or even asking if he finds her attractive and then flirting with him! And this is without mentioning that this revelation is not a particularly gradual one, either, as the alcohol kicks in, for example. There is a great discontinuity when we consider that this individual, who expresses her drive for her career and her stubbornness against others to achieve her professional goals, is the same individual who, whilst in a professional context, immediately concedes to alcohol and forgets all about her fiancé, unexpectedly allowing herself to let her guard down around someone who is distinctly different from her in every way imaginable. That all of this should be later exposed, or proposed, by Martin to be one of many fruits of Lee’s alcoholism and promiscuity is much too unrealistic. Martin seems to expose quite a lot about her, in fact: that she seduces her subjects to extract her stories, cheats on her fiancé on a regular basis, and, again, has an alcohol addiction. We see here the insipid trope of a psychopathic genius 'reading' his victims in an all-encompassing manner approximate perhaps to Sherlock Holmes. This is too superficial, unnecessary and, most of all, unrealistic; we have had no indication whatsoever of any of these items until now, and their reality thus seems completely unlikely. There is also a great stylistic and rhetoric-based discontinuity. It is written in official descriptions of this play that it is a 'dark comedy exploring gender, consent, power and violence'. 'Exploration' is used far too uncarefully here. This is not a play that ‘explores’ anything; ‘exposes’ or 'alludes to' perhaps, but not ‘explores’. The mere repetition of male vs female and the recurring motifs of Martin’s obsessive fixation on her female body is not enough to substantiate an exploration of gender. Consent is certainly something that comes to mind, but merely because of external sociocultural teachings that might colour our reading of Lee’s rape; it is not something that is expanded upon or even considered by the text itself. Violence is definitely a palpable theme in this latter part of the play, but, again, this is not incorporated intelligently, either in the characters’ actions or conversations, but merely exaggerated for its sensationalist effects. Most importantly, however, in considering what we might refer to as Martin’s superobjective, is the nuance between 'power' and 'power thirst'. Martin does not lord his power over Lee, beyond perhaps his supply of alcohol. But even in this example and beyond, he never actively forces her to do anything or dominates her in any particular way — which is what makes her sexual abuse all the more thorny and unstomachable — until, again, the start of the second act where he makes his accusations to bring her down. But even this is not lording his power over her but mere intimidation, backing her into a corner with derisions and suppositions of what her ‘vacuous’, 'boring' future might be. Power is not analysed or expressed in this way; lust for power is something very different, however, and this is certainly noteworthy in this performance, considering again Martin’s quest to share his father’s renown. I mention these items to expose what this play intends to communicate and what the creatives imagine it communicates or achieves vs what it actually does, and how these two are inappropriately misaligned, misunderstood, misconceived. This is precisely what I mean by gilding a sensationalist horror-fanatic play in sociopolitical themes in order to make it seem intelligent, inspired, relevant or poignant. With Under the Radar failing to meet its sociopolitical objectives, all political objectives can be neglected or omitted, or, at the very least, diluted by the caricatural comedic style and themes, and what are we left with but frivolous, naughty [and hence insensitive] comedy? Whilst I am glad the creatives recognise their work as a 'dark comedy' when merely considering its potential genre classification, the role of this comedy, its function and significance ought to be better understood and worked into the text so that comedy might be a true vehicle of such 'exploration', a complementary aspect, and not a mere embellishment. A few final notes. Transitions are atrociously long, especially for such inelaborate set changes. Deciding to see exactly how long they lasted by the latter part of the play, I counted one transition of 45 seconds, another of 49 seconds, and another of a colossal 53 seconds — almost an entire minute that the audience must wait in darkness and silence, for the thousandth time, for the set to be changed. This is a lifetime in theatre, and this should be urgently addressed. As regards aesthetics, I must say that this is performance has an awfully conceived set design. The makeshift gauze is an altogether strange decision that does not facilitate or complement the aesthetic in any way whatsoever. In fact, it rather subtracts from the work. Taking up a huge amount of space, tripping up cast members and getting caught on its rail whilst stagehand Jaymie Quinn-Stewart attempts to open and close it, this gauze is also left transparent throughout, and this is a significant issue amid transitions during which the stage remains much too brightly lit, permitting us to see all of the preparation for the scenes to follow in all of its unfortunate glory. Most notably, we see the entire preparation for Hill’s talking severed head — which is otherwise perhaps the best and most refined aesthetic feature paired with Quinn-Stewart’s legs peeking in from the wings Stage Left — and this is absolutely illusion-destroying. The only time this gauze is actually left opaque is at the very beginning of the play, which is pointless, given that the set pieces are concealed with black fabric, anyway. Location changes and scene changes can be denoted merely by blackouts and slight reorganisations of the set alone. And this brings me on to the other set pieces. The submarine hatch is…terrible. Half-coated with cheap and streaking metallic paint, this hatch is far too cartoonistic and artificial. Spinning its thin, papery wheel, Anscombe does not communicate Martin’s genius but rather that he is a deluded and childish individual playing with make-believe toy machines. From his awkward miming of cutting Lee’s breakfast — which ends up being a full and untouched sausage, so why the cutting motions? Moreover, surely this would be too hot for Lee to eat there and then, having just been cooked, but she seems to wolf it down with ease — to the poorly applied stencil, ‘UC3 EDEN’, a painful precursor for the insensitivity to follow, visuals in this performance are much too neglected. Finally, I must also consider how Lee’s murder is handled. The ‘knife in the armpit’ trick is not sufficient alone to draw the audience away from the artificiality of the movement and into the land of illusion, especially given that this particular technique is most effective when seen from the side, not head-on from an audience that can see the activity clearly from most angles. Imagination is already strained enough, with our being forced to visualise that a pool of blood has now covered the floor and sheathed the knife. It was an intelligent decision not to use retractable knives, however, as these have a habit of failing to retract, and this is dangerous; I would not recommend these. I would recommend richer and broader distractive movement, though; the goal is to distract the audience’s eye with greater ‘decoy’ movements so that imagination might fill in the blanks once we see Lee falling slowly to the ground. Perhaps even as he forces her into a kiss, he could lift his hand behind her shirt, out of our view, and in this way stab her from behind, with the knife concealed by her clothing. Depending on how intense this scene should be — I imagine melodrama would not be amiss here, given the caricatural work that follows — a stroboscope or pulsing spot, or, my personal favourite, simple darkness with auditory cues, can then aid the repetitive madman stabbing that ensues. Otherwise, beyond her breathing that remains far too harsh and conspicuous — further concealing techniques required here: a constantly puffed chest and solid core will help this — Hill portrays Lee’s death and limpid body very well, indeed. I would just take extra care to make sure she slumps her head to the centre of her chest; she currently slumps it to the side whilst sitting on the chair, which would inevitably cause her unresisting body to fall off, if she were actually dead. Ironically, however, it should be noted that this should be taken as advice for the creatives’ future performances, due to this aforementioned extreme bloodthirsty insensitivity. “An insensitive, uncareful and stylistically inconsistent dramatic text, failing to marry objectives with execution.”

Written by Benny Ainsworth and directed by Michael Parker, this is a very unique and darkly entertaining play. Its characters are most original in their quirks and lusts, and plot, for the most part, is coherent and well structured. I shall start with acting. Benny Ainsworth (playing Billy) and Sally Paffett (playing Rachel) have a great command of their roles, are sure of their character intentions and credible in their approaches, particularly Paffett. Their characterisations are wonderful, and expressivity and emotional range are most impressive. However, more action is required from Ainsworth when Paffett is delivering her monologues alone. When Ainsworth delivers his, Paffett still remains attentive and energised, engaged in his words, paying extra attention to include characteristic shakes of the head, smiles and movements; during hers, however, Ainsworth stays inert and somewhat expressionless, to the point where one could argue that he is actually no longer acting. I should also note his failure to conceal the blood bags he uses later in the play appropriately. Nevertheless, Ainsworth is an excellent performer, overall, energised, confident and captivating. The two also demonstrate great attentiveness to naturalistic vocal delivery, as far as the text will allow, and both have great vocal expressivity, too. The written text is most unique and offers explicit, detailed and enriched grounds for a promising performance. Whilst naturalism in dialogue is not entirely achieved, as alluded to above, the relationship between and the detailing of these characters is superb. I would just pay greater attention to plot development and character development, for the reasons I shall list below. Comedy is gory and sensationalist, peculiar and original. The nonlinear fragmentation of scenes and subplots is also most effective here, allowing for dynamism and variety in the material. Direct audience address is also consistent throughout this performance and the performer-audience relationship is maintained throughout whilst the characters' stories are recounted to us, leading to excellent stylistic continuity — which seems standard, but this is actually denotative of great talent and skill, given how rare this stylistic awareness seems to be amongst playwrights today. I should also mention that audience address is handled wonderfully by the two actors, too, who do not restrict the ambit of their gaze and who address all audience members consistently. A wonderfully conceived and written text. In terms of staging, lighting states (tech design and operation by Ben Sorab) are minimal, and this does not pose a problem for this performance, as the use of space, the expressivity of the actors, and the material itself, which remains extensive in its range of topics, memories and contexts, are enough to enliven the stage. Costume is appropriate for these performers, coinciding with the text’s natural propensity to humanise and naturalise these characters, which is most befitting for such villainous and murderous individuals from which it might be otherwise easy to detach. Topography is well-conceived, and the simplicity of the two chairs and their utilisation is sufficiently facilitative and grounding for this performance. I am also most impressed by the music composed by Sorab that precedes this performance. This music is most congruous and preparatory as well as well-composed. On to the negatives. The greatest issues for this performance are continuity, the structuring of provocative elements, and tempo management. I shall address the former first, which mostly refers to Rachel’s character. Starting as a peculiar and unique character, sharing in Billy’s dark interest in the suicide of the man at the train station in the beginning of this performance and in the murder of Jeff the Cat, Rachel suddenly transforms into a rather weakly defined and amicable character at the appearance of the first rat. She becomes somewhat of a cliché, rather predictably replacing the spirit of her stillborn child with that of the rodents she befriends, aggravated by her layabout husband, his ignorance towards her and his obsession with tools. Poisoning him at the end, one could say that she rather redeems herself, but I am afraid this ending is rather unoriginal, and not to mention predictable, especially with the conspicuous colour change in Billy’s commonplace cheesecake. Put bluntly, I remain rather disappointed with how her character turns out and disappointed by the ending which feels cheap and slapdash. To go from miming with explicit verbal detail the cracking of the back legs of a neighbour's pet cat with garden shears and mircrowaving a rat to its explosive death to a subtle poisoning that we do not even see beyond Billy’s coughing blood is a great anticlimax. And why her suicide? This ought to be better elucidated. We really gain an insight into Billy's character, and his fondness for chicken nuggets and tools should not be forgotten her, but further detailing of Rachel's character is needed to ensure that she becomes more than this maternal cliché. I should also mention here that this disinterest that Billy demonstrates and to which Rachel draws our attention during the discovery of the loss of their child is discontinuous with the plotline; at this point in the relationship, the two were madly in love, and Billy was as concerned by the miscarriage as Rachel was, as evidenced by his subsequent inability to even hear the child’s name. I do find it bizarre that either of them, especially to such a degree as Rachel, should be so emotionally invested in a child at all, given their apparent psychopathy. Conversely, I should expect they would be perhaps thrilled at the morbid idea of losing a child. On to the second issue, which I should prelude with the elucidation that I personally had no issue with the darker elements of this text; I found them rather rich and imaginative. However, a dark text still requires two things: 1) we still need to be eased into material if it is to be considered comedic and [paradoxically] lighthearted, pleasing or cathartic, and 2) dark material needs to serve a purpose for the text itself and not just for the sensationalist instrumentalisation of the audience’s squeamishness [in other words: not merely for punchy, gory dramatic effect]. Jeff’s murder is far too extreme to include so early on. Again, it weakens the final scenes, but it also stops us in our tracks too prematurely in the performance from developing a bond with the characters. We must still understand Billy’s actions, if not enjoy them, and the later revelation that all of this is due to some sort of OCD feels like an afterthought or a retrospective justification, not a clever aspect of his psychology. This explanation ought to come before, to allow a humanisation of the characters to prepare us for and ground us in their dark compulsions and desires, to give us a reason to tolerate being subjected to the horrors and an understanding as to why it is necessary to our reading of this story. The added vulnerability and likability of the average pet cat is also a factor that works against our enjoyment of the characters here. So early on in the play, we do not want to feel detached from and uncomfortable with these characters whose actions we must still observe for the best part of an hour. It is worth stressing here that whilst it is Billy specifically who details this event, Rachel is not exempt from our detachment, given that she enjoys, condones and encourages it: “My favourite.” Again, the problem is not that the material is “too dark” but that it is poorly organised, and the creatives will find this apparent when re-studying the silence that befell the house that had previously comprised an entirely engaged and laughing audience up until the elaboration upon Jeff’s murder. This collective discomfort and reticence is a driving factor to simply destroy any subsequent comedic aspects of the play. Perhaps the story should be left with the bird, and the story of the cat should be ‘kept for later’ once we have learned more about Billy’s character and the context in which these characters later find themselves. Finally, tempo management. Also an editorial issue, particularly in the beginning, where the back-and-forth between the two characters is rather too structured and hence inorganic, rhythm is a recurring issue in this performance which is in danger of becoming too univocal. Disruptions, where one character tells the other to stop talking to let them deliver their part alone, for example, are a good way of breaking this up, but their number becomes too significant, and the emotional effect this request has on the characters becomes too predictable and samey. More variation is required here, and such disruptions alone should not be relied upon to add rhythmic range. Furthermore, the actors, at times, speed through the text, and [this is mainly true of Paffett] do not allow enough time for audience laughter, leading to the repetition of their lines that the audience might not have heard. The two need to be better aware of their pacing and its naturalism and of these moments of respite where comedy can be permitted to settle in the house. As one final, somewhat pedantic note, if the actors are to stay back to thank the audience for coming and to detail the future aspirations of their work, etc., I should recommend that Paffett's demeanour be rectified during this. She seemed, for some reason, deflated and dejected, and this is by no means a desirable final energy with which one wishes to leave an audience. All of these things noted, this still remains a most enjoyable and intelligent performance. It is well-conceived and performed marvellously. “An inspired, rich and sensational performance.”

This is a clever playtext, self-aware and cunning, instrumentalising its satirical and risqué comedy to facilitate its sociopolitical objectives. There are, however, notable areas both in the text itself and in performance that need considerable work. I shall start with these areas. First, pacing. Timing is crucial to comedy, and this performance suffers quite significantly from dragging momentum. This is particularly the case for scene transitions, each of which provides too great an interval between actions. Scenes ought to move one after the other in rapid succession; as soon as two performers exit, the next two should enter without delay. This note is very important. Furthermore, there is a sporadic tendency amongst the actors to pause briefly after delivering their jokes, to hold for laughter. This should be avoided. Whilst allocated laughter space is good practice, this must not be scripted or rehearsed but rather felt by the actors at the time of the performance, studiously aware of their audience and whichever relationship they have established with them. However,I should note here that when actually delivering their lines, these actors do perform with the correct speed and intonation. There are a few inconsistencies in this performance, like the purportedly ‘out-of-character’ Hannah-Cait Harrison (playing Maggie and Donald Trump) chastising us for ‘aww-ing’ Hitler (Peter McCrohon) but continuing herself to play characters, especially Trump, who commend Hitler and his strategies. However, most significantly and most unignorably, the overall ‘plot’ to which we are introduced at the beginning of this performance, seeing Hitler and his ‘Nazi chums’ starting their new life in England, having escaped their deaths with Joseph Goebbels's (Marcus Churchill) cunning propaganda stunt, is completely forgotten by the halfway point. The performance seems to function upon an entirely different basis as more and more characters are introduced to us, starting with Michael Goodwin-Grist’s appearance as Eva Braun, and we lose this initial plot altogether. In its place? A mere parodic series of various historical figures. There is nothing 'wrong' with having this series alone, without too 'traditional' a plot. A simple 'Hitler and Friends' might have been a better context for this performance, rather than a missing shot at needless linear narrative. However, if there is to be such a chronological plot, this must aim to contextualise and ground the narrative and rhetoric of this performance. The plot should not serve as a mere, elaborate, means of introducing us to Hitler and the other characters, and nothing more; it should fundamentally complement our reading, not simply embellish it. However, despite these aspects, the issue of the faltering plot being a significant fundamental flaw, this performance retains its humour and direction. Its characters, if not its plot, are coherent and established well by the text. This leads me to another problem: this enclosed plot-based narrative, which sees the characters living in a world from which the audience is removed, is in direct conflict with recurrent metatheatrical techniques. This allows for confusion amongst the audience as to their function as either onlookers or participants. Whilst I understand the necessity of keeping the audience at a critical distance, they must be reassured as to whether their participation will be purely intellectual, removed from the work and analysing it to themselves, or whether they will have a more active and action-based role. I imagine that the more direct and invasive audience interactions, most notably: McCrohon standing amongst and even sitting directly beside audience members and watching the performance with us, were intended to intensify this critical thinking, to make the audience feel as though part of the action, watching it through Hitler's eyes. The effect is something very different, however. Such invasive interactions and quasi-physical interactions, such as flirting with audience members or brushing past them, standing over or behind them, do nothing but awaken an audience’s defensive temporospatial awareness and actually removes them from the performance altogether. It forces them to be aware of their own bodies and selves and those of the Others surrounding them, the mechanics of theatre and performance itself, and the topography and architecture of the space; they become to some degree disengaged and too self-conscious to benefit from the performance in any profound way that would benefit their critical reading. Audience interactions and, to some degree, participation should be better considered: invoking joy, forcing the audience to ‘aww’ and, paradoxically, to empathise with Hitler, and causing them to laugh are altogether different notions to brushing shoulders with them, outwardly flirting and moving through and around them. The former examples are more insidious and have greater psychological effects. Currently, the role of the audience is undefined and undernourished, and this is a problem that echoes the lack of plot and coherency in the text. On to the acting itself. These are energised and confident performers, aware of the material and its boundaries. Each performs with a knowing self-mockery, paying attention to tonal delivery and overall expressiveness. However, there is an intense subtractive disparity amongst acting styles. This is most notable when we compare Goodwin-Grist's exaggerative and overly expressive caricatural style that he applies to all of his characters throughout against David McCulloch’s (playing Hermann Göring) more relaxed and later more realistic style, or even Churchill’s presentational, calmer style as Goebbels against his own exaggerative and hyperexpressive style as Winston Churchill, for instance. For this performance, I would recommend, and urge, this former acting style uniquely. I shall elaborate on my reasons for this further below. Though slightly more variation is needed from Goodwin-Grist, he notably stands out due to this stylistic disparity, and the energy that he funnels into and the distinctive characteristics that he attaches to his characters merely intensify his separation from the performers with whom he shares the stage — until the middle of the performance, at least. I would urge that the rest of the cast study how he embodies his various characters: their postures, traits, locked facial expressions, etc., but also that they and he go even beyond these, for maximum and much-needed comedic effect. He is by no means exemplary of the extremity that this performance really needs but is a gleaming starting reference point. Style is a huge issue for this performance, and this is notably due to the manner in which comedy is instrumentalised. Ultimately, this is a performance that utilises comedic techniques to illustrate how powerful and successful yet corrupt political leaders pass through the public eye with one-liners, dance moves, outlandish idiosyncrasies and laughable backstories, their beliefs founded terrifyingly upon a lust for domination and negative systemic change. In order to be successful, this performance must cleverly balance its seriousness with its ludicrousness, and this is something that McCulloch, also the writer and director of this text, clearly knows well, making efforts to include asides and segments that justify the play’s self-reportedly ‘questionable’ use of such an abominable historical character. The performance must demonstrate that it is not taking the figure of Hitler with too much personal interest, glorifying his acts, unashamedly and celebratorily bringing him back to life. There must, then, be a degree of seriousness and care. However, this performance also depends on comedy for communicating and establishing its sociopolitical objectives, and for performances like this, comedy relies upon a ludicrousness and an obscenity that is equally credible, engaging, exaggerative. The serious-ridiculous balance must hence be extremely well managed, and it seems as though this needed sense of carefulness has restricted the creatives in some way. I compare, for example, McCrohon’s Hitler flirting with audience members to his grotesque and violent, and actually rather impressive, representation of Hitler’s lecturing. The first is simply understated, comical but not too over-the-top as it simply must be; the second is extreme, intense and shocking. This is an example of the comedy-seriousness disequilibrium to which I refer. The comedy in this performance feels uninvigorated to some degree and is limited as to how far it is willing to go, despite the offensive one-liners McCulloch has thrown in. Characters are too understated, and the performance suffers from a lack of direction and context. Far more extremity and conviction are thus needed. I would urge that the creatives rest assured that the comedy will not offend for a few facts to re-consider: an audience who deliberately purchases tickets for a comedy about Hitler is not a type likely to be offended by jokes about and caricatures of Hitler; these aforementioned self-conscious passages and segments remind the audience that this is all deliberate and calculated, not a mere glorification or commendation of the Nazi regime; and, finally, the work is founded not merely upon ignorant hilarity but upon significant, poignant and resonant political beliefs, and this will inevitably come through, whatever the actors do, so long as they internalise and remember throughout this fundament as the guiding voice of this performance. These items alone justify this work and defuse arguments about its impropriety. With this noted, I stress: more extremity and daring are required for this performance. The facts I list above should not be overlooked; they are the artistic licence for a performance like this. However, I feel they have been forgotten to a considerable degree. The seriousness of the underlying political agenda should not outweigh the comedy we receive but should match it. Not only this, but the characters should share an intensity and aesthetic, not only for consistency and coherency in character and style but also so that the ‘mood’ and nature of the performance may be truly perceptible. The performance must be a shamefully enjoyable guilty pleasure of sorts, and this is actually touched upon and understood by McCulloch who writes his Hitler as playfully teasing the audience with a line approximating ‘You know you secretly like this! Doncha?!’ However, this is the only reference to our guilty pleasure, and this needs to be expanded upon. In order for the sociopolitical messages of this play to really ‘hit home’, to be seen as a strong, reflective and resonant warning, it is necessary to invoke a sense of guilt, of shame, of self-repulsion. The creatives will find that if they invigorate the performance with further extreme caricatures, the ‘messages’ of the play will be far intenser, more readable and more effectual. The aim must be to encourage the audience to be engaged in and even enjoy and celebrate the underhand sexism, racism, homophobia and Naziism, sold invitingly as mere inconsequential satire at first and, later, revealed to have a far deeper psychological significance. Still on this serious-comedic topic, I must state that this comedy must also retain a sense of seriousness itself. Comedians must not treat their material as funny, as something that will inevitably make the audience laugh; they must treat it as something they truly believe in and truly live, convinced of the reality of their onstage circumstances themselves, however absurd. I write this statement in order to contextualise the following: certain actors have a tendency to break character to laugh at one another or, as most perceptible with McCrohon, to smile on at the action transpiring around them on stage, chuckling away to themselves silently as though overjoyed to be part of something so magical as theatre. Any enjoyment of one’s own performance should be internal and should not leak its way into the performance, especially as much as to replace it as is the case here. Despite my more critical comments, this is certainly a commendable and engaging performance. It is, in essence, daring and unique. Once the caricatures of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have entered the stage — flawlessly represented by Goodwin-Grist [Boris] and Harrison [Donald], despite the need for more vocal variation between their respective characters — the energy, nature and vitality of this performance are crystal clear. Ludicrous comedy finally achieves its title as a vehicle for invaluable audience exploitation and the communication of sociopolitical objectives and themes. The entire performance needs to meet this comedic extremity. The ending is particularly poignant and well-executed, with sound design by Hannah Wood being equally impressive and most facilitative here. A good, enjoyable and fundamentally challenging performance. “A unique performance whose daring and informative rhetoric is compromised by certain disparities.”

NB: In this performance, actor Ric Renton plays a representation of his past self. Therefore, I must make this distinction: any mentions in this review of 'Ric Renton' or 'Renton' refer to the actor himself, whereas mentions of 'Ric' refer to the character, Ric within this play. This is a rather chaotic performance. It appears that the creatives intended to make it a quick-paced, dynamic and energised one, with its fragmented narrative, multiroling and a huge mix of 'physical theatre' and metatheatrical techniques. However, the result is a sheer lack of consistency in voice, rhythm, performer-audience relationship and aesthetic. I shall start with physical movement. Performers, whilst energised and invigorated when performing character-based work, showing good transformativity and range, lack a considerable degree of corporeal tension and vigour, which is required to drive physical movements and to convey a sense of deliberateness and autonomy. Currently, the performers seem to be going through the various motions required of them without a perceptible personal relationship to the movements they are making, which would, indeed, be perceptible if this tension and vigour were successfully incorporated. This is most problematic when I consider the more extreme movements repeated by Ric Renton (playing Ric), symbolic of either his character's breakdowns or his beating up other characters. Renton inhibits his kicks prematurely, and his punches lack force and impetus, the angularity of these undercutting punches reminiscent more of formalised punching bag practice than beating up another person. The repetition of these movements also fictionalises them too distinctly into a rehearsed repertoire. This needs to be addressed. I mentioned that the performers enacted well their character-based work, but these characters were slightly more caricatural than naturalistic. To have such caricatures is a good decision as regards the pacing of this text that rather rushes through its story's various locations and contexts. With such caricatures, we can immediately understand and identify the characters we are presented and their circumstances, aided by marks in dialogue such as one of Marième Diouf's characters announcing herself as the 'school counsellor' at the beginning of her scene. However, as useful as this method is, there is a tendency among the actors to overexaggerate certain characteristics, making these caricatures more comedic than neutral as they should be. To exemplify, I shall remain with Diouf: in an early scene where a group of adults discuss Ric's behaviour, conspiring that he is selling drugs in school, Diouf's expressivity is garish, overstated. Miming digging morsels out of her teeth, embellishing her role with a strong African accent shared by none of her other characters, idiosyncratic tuts, wide-eyed gasps and shakes of the head, rather than breathing life and humanity into her character, she performs the external impression of one, as do the other performers in this scene. From Olivia Onyehara's shocked and disbelieving profile to Michael Jinks's character's quirky fixation upon uttering a vast list of existing drugs, these caricatures subtract from the naturalistic integrity and, most importantly, the relatability of this scene. The reason why this becomes such a significant issue surfaces when we realise that the entire play consists of such quirky caricatures and fleeting imagery. With this realisation comes another: having little or no depth whatsoever, these characters generate for this performance an overall sense of superficiality, of oversimplicity, of shallowness. This allows for the danger of the audience not being able to bond, connect or identify with the characters, as well as for a sense of inaction and monotony, despite the rapid succession of events and circumstances. I should also use this scene to exemplify another issue: pacing. The actors immediately start delivering their lines in this scene, without allowing us to settle into its tense and quiet atmosphere. This lack of timing further compromises any realism and emotional forces in this scene. This brings me on to aesthetics. Sticking with this exemplary scene involving these three performers, it is worth noting its topography: a diagonal line of chairs lit by a narrow, slanting rectangular sidelight. This is a thrust stage, meaning that this diagonal alignment of the chairs, which are also placed far Stage Left, obscures the view of a great number of the Stage Right audience. This effect occurs repeatedly throughout the performance, when Jinks's character slides the dictionary to Renton's, for example, or when Renton's offers the drugs in his pocket to Onyehara's. The creatives have not considered topography well at all in this performance. I mentioned this sidelight above, and lighting is certainly a key element in generating this performance's 'aesthetic'. The number of lighting cues, however, is simply colossal. Lighting states change with almost every scene and, for the majority of the performance, are different every time. Whilst there is a sense of continuity with the use of 'natural' lighting, the shapes of the spots, from rectangular to faded circles, the castings or omissions of shadows, and, most importantly, this frequency with which they are changed mean that there is no established and coherent lighting design for this performance. We are unable to settle into the atmosphere of any given scene, for it will too quickly change before we can. Sound design, however, is particularly consistent. It has a particularly foreign effect, making use of an abstract library that communicates relatable, whimsical concepts and applying them well to those taking place on stage. I think, for example, to the sound of fluttering birds when this aforementioned dictionary is slid across the floor, or to the snapping sounds we hear whilst Ric is restrained for the stapling of his skull-exposing wound. I particularly like this library of disembodying and alienating, seemingly irrelevant sounds that draw from visceral associations, but disembodiment is yet another theme that makes this performance's material somewhat inaccessible. In this way, this sound design becomes yet another means of disrupting the narrative and our reading of it, supplementing it with yet another conceptual and artistic layer that we must break through in order to understand the material The use of microphones is another example of this theme of disembodiment, disembodying the actor's, and the character's, voice from their body, which is an effect that is rather needless in this performance. I do understand the significance of and reasoning behind this theme of disembodiment, and I do think it could be useful for this performance. However, currently, its misuse dampens the efficacy of this performance and acts against the narrative, as opposed to complementing it. It would be beneficial perhaps to consider having Ric continue to be represented rather naturalistically as we admittedly find him in certain scenes [but only an insufficient few], whilst the other characters are consistently caricatural, alienating and foreign. For this, Renton must remain on stage for the entirety of the performance’s duration so that we are reminded of the effect the abstract material is having upon him but must also remain in constant contact with the tempos of the other performers until the resolution at the end. As it stands, it is easy to think of his character as separate from the things that happen to him. I would also recommend when actors speak as though the angels and the devils on his shoulders, representative of the [mis]guiding voices of consciousness in his head, that this be an address type aimed exclusively at Ric alone. Namely, towards the end of the performance during the funeral, we see Diouf speaking in this way to Jinks’s character and not Renton’s, moving unseen by the others. This confuses the significance of these voices and takes the focus off of our main character; we stop experiencing the material through his perspective altogether, and this is most detrimental to our reading of the performance’s overall context and of his character. I should also note here that this rather clichéd and unoriginal technique is far too overused in this performance. It seems that the creatives have tried every possible means of creative expression, without really considering their overall cohesiveness, i.e. how all of these creative elements and styles come together to create one coherent performance. Sitting amongst audience members and addressing lines to them is yet another example of this lack of stylistic congruity. Invading the audience's territory and directly interacting with them can only remove an audience from a performance intellectually and emotionally, forcing them merely to become self-conscious, aware of themselves and the Others with which they share the space, of the space in general, and of the artificiality of the art of theatre itself and its form. This is a needless and subtractive incorporation of metatheatricality here. Overall, this is a promising and poignant text, but its staging here is simply confused and unrefined in its eclecticism. The underlying narrative is both resonant and emotional, but the overly fragmented style, overdressed with clashing theatrical techniques means that we lose its voice amongst an excessive stylisation. Performers are perceptibly confident and vitalised, talented, but currently lack the required skill to infuse the excessive repertoire of physical movements with the appropriate impeti and legibility. “An overly eclectic and fluctuating performance held together by driven performers.”

Readers should note that I saw this performance one day early, when it was still in its preview stages. This review will consider SAD, a play written by Victoria Willing, directed by Marie McCarthy and staged at the Omnibus Theatre. Firstly, the set. This is a truly beautiful set design by Alys Whitehead. It is intricate and detailed, hyperrealistic and, most importantly, appropriate to the text. Because of how immaculate this design is, however, elements that are not so refined stick out sorely from the rest. One such element is the pair of chairs Stage Left. These chairs are far too corporate and clash violently against the otherwise homely and tattered pieces around the stage. Another such element is the trees we can glimpse behind the apartment block. If we are in the attic, we should not be able to see the lower trunk of these trees but merely their canopies. Then, we have the floorboards that ought to be extended further downstage. Finally, the door to the attic is far too thin and flimsy, which is less of an aesthetic issue and more of an issue regarding practicality; the actors make efforts to shut this door gently, often compromising momentum and mood in the process. Other than these elements, a fabulous and exemplary design. The same cannot be said, however, for the video graphics (designed by Dan Light) projected onto the back wall of the stage. Both bearing absolutely no relevance to the performance or the rest of its visuals and inconsistent in their own fluid visuals, the inclusion of these video graphics is entirely debatable. They are subtractive, visually unappealing and simply confounding. Personally, I would remove them altogether. On to the performance itself, starting with the dramatic text. This starts off as a very endearing and somewhat original concept. Its characters are inviting, and the context they are forced into due to Gloria’s (Debra Baker) bizarrely manifesting seasonal depression is most engaging in its peculiarity. However, because of how particularised and interesting the setting in which this performance takes place is, it is expected that we will learn a lot more about it and the characters within it. Truly, we do not. My first disappointment was the lack of naturalism between Debra Baker and Kevin N Golding (playing Graham), and this was mainly down to issues with expressivity, which pose a huge problem for these actors, though in different ways. Firstly, Golding. Golding’s movements are repetitive, to the point where they almost entirely alternate between aggressive finger points and forcing the hands forwards before the chest, the fingers closed, as though presenting an argument or idea. These are presentational gestures that are rarely used in natural everyday communications. On top of this, his intonation is incorrect, his speech too structured and artificial, and his overall expressivity practically nonexistent apart from in his stiff presentations of rage. Baker, however, has great vocal expressivity and understands her character’s intentions well in this way, but corporeal expressivity and emotionality are far too underplayed. She lacks vitality and vigour in her performance — and not in a way that suits her character’s lethargy or depression. I should be more specific, however, and note that she handles naturalistic speech adequately but only when addressing her lines to other actors; when portraying Gloria’s voice recordings, naturalism is far from impressive [though this is also an editorial issue]. The strength of her character — in the very early part of this play only — is conveyed uniquely through the vocal delivery and the writing of Gloria’s lines. It is the first scene between Daniel (Lucas Hare) and Magda (Izabella Urbanowicz), however, that disappoints me the most. From this scene onwards, the play’s material becomes eclectic, unfocused and, frankly, rather vapid. As I shall continue to explain, the text becomes an incessant and uninspired political rant, directionless, shallow and overly artificial, and we lose the intimate setting and any depths in the relationships between the characters. The shift alone from Gloria’s attic into Daniel’s office is incredibly disruptive, and structure in narrative must aid the performance’s visual and contextual multifariousness in this way; alas, as I shall detail below, it does not. A shining light, however, is Urbanowicz. This actress has wonderful command over her role. She is wonderfully expressive, has great diction, and portrays Magda with confidence and vitality, conscious of her character’s emotions, objectives and motivations. Next, Hare, clearly an equally talented actor, has developed, too, an excellent profile for his character. However, the insipidity of the character he plays, and the manner in which this character is represented initially in his first scene vs hereafter overstretches him. The character profile he eventually assumes is far too caricatural and lifeless, and Hare seems unable to breathe sufficient life into it. I should like to add here as well that his fighting with Golding is simply awfully managed. Completely unrealistic and uninvigorated. This sense of insipidity persists from this scene between Daniel and Magda onwards, and for various reasons. Arguments ignite far too early, are all much too similar and each reveal very little about our characters. Any new information that we do learn about the characters, such as that Graham once shoved and shouted at Gloria when blindingly drunk or that Magda grew up in a confusing and abusive household, is just thrown carelessly into conversation, without a leadup of any sort, not growing organically or in line with the natural progression of human conversations and with natural patterns of human speech. This aforementioned example of Graham’s ill-treatment of Gloria is one that illustrates how this information tends to come too late, remaining too superficial and hence ineffectual. This information certainly alludes to deeper backstories and troubles between the characters, but only towards the very end of the play, by which point we should already understand their shared past and emotional history and be expecting a resolution or closure of sorts, or, indeed, the opposite: a tragic downfall. Willing attempts to blend this conflict and resolution into one instance, with the characters bonding once again shortly after, and this is most unsuccessful. This is without mentioning the terrible attempt to portray Graham’s jumping out of the window. This was ridiculously artificial, lacking the correct corporeal tension and vigour and exposing the lack of skill and direction of the actors. Usually preceding the oft-employed discourse marker, ‘anyway’ in this performance, this manner of injecting random pieces of information is rather endemic to this performance whose writer clearly wants to infuse her text with depth, detail and richness. The result, however, is a disruption of naturalism and of momentum and thus a complete destruction of credibility. Graham’s story about the homeless man on the train, for instance, seems to come out of nowhere, following this rule of introducing a story, providing seemingly insignificant and overly specific details — like this homeless man’s tie — then proceeding with an ‘anyway’ to return to the main story at hand. We then return back to the main ‘narrative’ or conversation as though nothing has happened. More significantly, the characters, especially the males, seem to hyper-fixate on cultural and sociopolitical issues but to little avail in adding depth to their personalities or psychologies. Topics such as police brutality, anti-capitalism, sexism and classism…these are all relevant and contemporary issues, but how are they complementing and colouring this text and its characters, beyond allowing, or forcing, us to choose the antagonists and the heroes of the dramatis personae, the likeable and the contestable, the anarchists and the peacemakers? Merely recounting memories of sexist fathers and abusive authorities does not add weight, relatability or profoundness to our characters; we must see how these items have shaped them into the people they are today, how it makes them see their world, how their world treats them because of and via these external forces. More importantly, we should not only be informed of these effects through the characters’ conversations; we should be able to observe them in everything the character does — for this is the true hallmark of profound psychological trauma. Graham’s incessant groaning about the higher powers ruining the world for those below, or Gloria’s claim that the world is a horrid place of poverty, famine and disease, are not enough to contextualise or enrich either of these characters. We understand that they are frustrated at the world, yes, but we must go beyond this. We do not. We earn no understanding of them whatsoever beyond that these are pessimistic ‘social justice warriors’ of sorts. We can thus perceive in them no originality or individuality, as these are rather commonplace rhetorics in today’s society; they are not new or fresh takes on life, and this further dampens the psychological significance of these perspectives. These characters quickly lose the identities that they once had at the very beginning of the performance, becoming mere mouthpieces for the sociopolitical perspective of the playwright, and this is most destructive of illusion and depth. Furthermore, we have certain inconsistencies that compromise the credibility of the action. One such inconsistency is in the realisation that Magda is willing to give a hand job to a housing officer in a desperate attempt to be relocated, and yet she does not bother to approach the authorities about the figurine that his son had clearly stolen from her house in the burglary, despite having blackmailed him with it initially, which seems like a simple and practicable solution. Furthermore, sticking with Magda’s character, we can observe little character development that sees her change her mind about going back home, the greatest challenge for her. We are simply just to accept that she has made up her mind, despite having seen nothing that would lead her to do so, beyond one supportive comment from Graham — but surely this would not be sufficient to encourage her to leave the country and set off into the unknown…? As written above, these characters are far too shallow; we have to do our own, independent digging to imagine their complexity, as rich details like the ones omitted here are simply not provided by the text. On a similar note, we have the dance routine carried out by all of the actors but Hare. We must read into this further ourselves to understand that this is a symbolic representation of Gloria reliving her past memories, enjoying her friendships and her past pleasures. Textually, this dance routine is simply not introduced, and the incongruous transformation of performance style here further intensifies this scene’s lack of relevance to and consistency with the rest of the performance. This scene has far too great a contrast from the others. And this is without mentioning how the actors merely seem to be going through the motions of the routine, awkward and almost embarrassed, as evidenced by Baker’s self-acknowledging and flippant facial expressions. I mentioned above that the writing has a tendency to see the characters recount stories and memories in great detail, without giving thought to naturalism, compromising the characters’ credibility. Another similar notion is that Willing also provides us with less extreme and fleeting minor details to add a sense of depth and backstory to the characters. One example of this is Gloria’s comments that one should brush one’s teeth in an up-and-down motion, not in a circular motion. The former will certainly abrade the surface of the teeth and cause the gums to recede over time; a circular motion is certainly recommended by dental professionals. It is also incorrect to suggest that a breath that ‘smells of aluminium’ is ‘the first sign of decay’; in fact, this metallic quality — iron in this case, not aluminium — is not common at all for those with bad oral hygiene. It could be symptom of gum disease, however, and a dental receptionist who is so keen to impart their acquired knowledge to passing clients would certainly be aware of this nuance in terminology. That Willing wishes to include such passing details is commendable; they add richness and quality to characters, in theory. However, it is essential that these details are accurate, that extensive research is done by the writer to make sure that they are both factually correct and contextually appropriate. Otherwise, the effect is quite the opposite: credibility is lost, and the characters seem more unrealistic than before, becoming mere embodiments of uncareful writing. “A lacklustre performance lacking depth and originality, though initially and visually appealing.”

NB: The 'characters' presented to us in this performance have been left unnamed. For purposes of distinction, forenames will be included to refer to the actors' roles, and full names or surnames will be included in reference to the actors themselves. This is a fun, quirky and unique performance whose peculiar comedy is endearing and refined. It lacks, however, a great sense of underlying structure In an official promotion of the performance, the creatives write, ‘Set in the dying embers of the 17th Century in the North of England, follow a company of tragic actors failing to live up to their onstage personas.’ Unfortunately, this context is simply not clear at all, and only by motivated perception after being informed externally of the creatives’ intentions here can one understand the context of these characters and the narrative of this play. The play is certainly thematically consistent with its lewd, gory, self-indulgent and sexual humour, but theme alone is sometimes not sufficient to unite the various materials in a performance, as is the case here, and when narrative is confused, the play suffers a further downfall. Whilst seeing them attempting to ‘live up’ to their onstage personae is certainly not communicated at all, it only becomes apparent towards the latter part of this performance that we are dealing here with ‘tragic actors’ as our main characters, though a few references to representations have undeniably been included. This is due to the fact that the overall context is left esoteric, with early allusions being limited to Laurie Coldwell’s ‘You’ve come to see me’, as one example. Lines such as this one are particularly ambiguous, given that we are, indeed, watching a performance in reality. As opposed to seeing these as fictional struggling actors, it is easy to confuse these as mere clown-like representations, metatheatrically aware of the true environment of the performance space, of the presence of the audience, etc. In this way, the differentiation between fictional actor and metatheatrical actor needs to be concreter and expanded upon. Furthermore, it is unclear as to which ‘reality type’ these characters exist within at any given moment, for they are represented so differently with every appearance. For example, the same characters who take off Laurie’s nose or pull ridiculously huge clumps of pus from their undergarments [more caricatural, fantastical] are supposedly those who forget their lines and argue amongst each other [less extreme, more realistic], this time using language as opposed to almost slapstick physical movement and caricatural expression as their means of communication. There are no definitive or, more importantly, consistent characteristics that differentiate the ‘tragic actors’ from their ‘tragic parts’, either, allowing the two worlds to bleed too seamlessly into one another. I am afraid that more than merely putting on a wig is needed for such a differentiation. Part of the problem is that the characters are never entirely introduced to us but, after a short display of embarrassment and hesitancy, merely begin their ludicrous presentations, expecting that we simply come along unquestioningly for the ride. In this way, this performance currently relies far too heavily upon the audience’s pre-existing understanding of the play’s setup and has no explanatory voice of its own. Further complicating how we are to read these characters, there is also a lack of consistency across the acting styles of these performers, with Susannah Scott’s expressivity being intensely and predominantly facial and physical; Codwell’s, vocal; and Ellen Wilson’s, rather unextreme compared to the other two. I would recommend a greater familiarity across the actors here. Whilst this need for familiarity is certainly understood by the creatives, seeing the characters assuming similar poses, very similarly dressed with similar fashions of speaking, this needs to be far intenser where the performers' characterisations are concerned specifically. It is the individual objectives and fixations of the characters — Laurie’s vanity and Susannah’s adoration for Ellen [Ellen's own is unidentifiable, which is an issue] — that will must then be used to individualise them as necessary. However, there are definite positives to this performance, which make it a most delectable and enjoyable performance. Though theme is not enough alone here to render this performance coherent and legible and to offer it purpose and direction, it certainly provides it with a clear, recognisable and captivating aesthetic. Lasciviousness, jealousy, diseased bodies, sensuality and lavish decoration certainly call upon the risqué, disobedient and indulgent themes of Restoration drama and the Stuart Restoration period in general. Costume is wonderfully designed for this purpose, and the set in its simplicity has been intelligently and imaginatively incorporated into the performance. Most multifunctional. Set decorations — the makeshift clothesline looping around the entirety of the performance space, holding wigs and dress pieces — continue to evoke this unstable sense of multiplicity, however: that the actors represent various personalities and caricatures united by the theme of the Restoration, as opposed to these fictional ‘tragic actors’. Although, in retrospect, I can see that if context was better introduced and content better structured, this set would be appropriate to allude to a dressing room of sorts. Having the set protrude into the audience's territory is also a good means of uniting the audience with the work, given that this is a desire of the creatives. Perhaps more importantly, the performers are also sufficiently invigorated and present in this performance. They have excellent awareness as regards comedic timing and, overall, perform their various activities with commitment, integrity and credibility. Intimacy work, seeing the characters jump on, wrestle and passionately make out with each other is also handled with great ease and unrestraint. What could be rather awkward and extreme actions are executed brilliantly. The performers also have great command over their physical interactions with set-pieces, using them much to their advantage. Interactions with the audience, though debatable formally, are also handled well by the cast, bold and unforgiving. This brings me on to metatheatricality. Whilst the use of metatheatrical techniques are somewhat consistent in this performance, how this metatheatricality complements the material is questionable. Ellen accusing random audience members of having an affair with her lover, or Laurie 'masturbating' over another, are most disruptive means of ensuring that the audience become aware of the space and of the artificial mechanics of theatre, of themselves and the Others around them, and, more generally, of their relationships to their overall environment. This performance does not benefit from such interactions, which are equally poorly introduced and contextualised. Regardless of this lack of structure and unity, the comedic material is certainly well-conceived in its ludicrousness, outlandishness and extremity. For the most part, the performers also execute this with excellent expressivity and vigour. Extremer material, such as the aforementioned detached nose and clump of pus, are revoltingly hilarious, and their further extremifications, e.g. Ellen passionately licking the imagined hole where Laurie's nose used to be, is bold and inspired. This performance has a long way to go, but I would certainly recommend it as a performance to watch. “An enjoyable rollercoaster performance but one requiring further structure and transparency.”

I shall start with this performance's most impressive feature: its aesthetic. The set for this performance (designed by Miriam Nabarro, constructed by Mercury Theatre Colchester) is incredible in its multifunctionality and malleability. It allows for a distinguished and refined visual for each and every one of the performance's various locations. Though simple in its foundations, the barrenness and inelaborateness of the sterile setting of this play are successfully communicated through this set's winding maze of metal. This is not to say that this set design is perfectly incorporated into the performance throughout, however. I think specifically to the use of the trapdoor at the end of the play. Somehow, though Subhi (Yaamin Chowdhury) has never set foot on the roof, he has a stash awaiting him there under its tiling. I would also note that having Subhi draw around the stage floor and walls with chalk, observed by a group of awe-inspired onlookers, though I understand the symbolism of this, is rather hammy and consistent with the fact that his drawings actually become irksome to his family and have very little to do with the characters’ salvation and the final resolution of the play. These are achieved principally by Jimmie’s (Mary Roubos) appearance and the love between her and him. Insofar as the video graphics (designed by Daniel Denton) and imagery projected onto the back wall of the stage, these are most congruous with the themes and symbols presented to us by the text. Some are perhaps too detailed, and other times too cartoony, the overall aesthetic is certainly maintained through these dynamic visuals. Lighting (designed by Ben Cowens) has its highs and its lows in this performance. For the majority of this play's duration, it is consistently facilitative, well dispersed and well designed, but in highlighting specific areas, it is most inadequate. I think primarily to the spotlights that fail to light The Shakespeare Duck (puppeteered by Jummy Faruq, directed by Alison Duddle) appropriately, unsynchronised with its appearances and exits. I do understand, however, that Faruq may be to blame for failing to remember her exact mark upon entering the stage. Sticking with puppetry (puppets made by Duddle and Marc Parrett), Faruq's animation is chiefly underwhelming. Whilst vocal characterisations are well executed, The Shakespeare Duck remains far too inert and hence lifeless. Only being able to rotate its head, it is important that more extreme and exaggerative movements are made with the bulk of its entire body. Also, when holding this puppet in her arms, Faruq’s hand is visible through the opening between its neck and chest. I would recommend a yellow glove be worn here to conceal the hand entirely — failing this, a black glove. Seeing her bare hand throughout is far too destructive of illusion. In her own characterisations, however, Faruq is a credible, expressive and competent supernumerary, developing and taking well to her various roles. As for Jimmie's ancestors, these puppet costumes are very well designed, if perhaps a little uncanny and eerie-looking where they ought not to be. However, choreography in their scenes is simply awful. Action is incredibly limited, and the impressive design and mere presence of the puppets themselves seem to be relied upon over the puppeteer’s corporeal expressivity. Such moments of intense or surreal action are regularly downplayed in this way, in fact. I think also to the protest and fight scenes here. The final uprising, seeing the actors running aimlessly from side to side, jumping up onto the ‘prison walls’ and back down again, is simply bizarre. Far too chaotic and, more importantly, far too purposeless. All action must be executed with a contextualised and comprehensible aim. Running in circles alone does not communicate an impressive and coherent busyness. The same can be said for fighting scenes (directed by Kenan Ali), as these also lack credibility. I would recommend that further attention be given to movements that distract the audience's eye, as opposed to these mimed hits and impacts, to have the audience fill in the blanks for themselves. And this brings me on to acting. There is a notable range of talent and abilities across this cast, seeing acting styles range from naturalistic to caricatural to simply unclassifiable. Standing out as having the most developed profiles are Mackenzie Scott (playing Beaver), Roubos, Devesh Kishore (playing Harvey), and Elmi Rashid Elmi (playing Eli). Whilst Scott notably forgets which leg to limp on towards the end of the performance, soon remembering and correcting this, and whilst his character verges on caricature, Scott portrays Beaver with the utmost integrity, certain of his character’s intentions and motivations, performing clear and invigorated movements and with refined characteristics. His Australian accent is also the most accurate and thus the most believable by far. With a slightly more faltering accent, Roubos is the most expressive and vitalised of the actors, presenting a clear and well-established profile. Though intonation and vocal delivery are sometimes inappropriate, Kishore remains perhaps the most convincing of the cast, though vast improvements could still be made, and certainly presents the most earthly character. He also distinguishes his characters very effectively. A most transformative actor. Elmi has wonderful diction and stage presence, confident in and sure of his role, despite his sometimes overly caricatural quirks that I can safely attribute to direction. Beyond these, all other actors are adequate performers, if extremely caricatural and histrionic in places. This excludes Siobhan Athwal, however, upon whose performance I shall elaborate below. Chowdhury’s caricatural acting style persists throughout the entire play, and whilst his characterisation is fair, he eventually contrasts far too greatly against actors like Elmi for this reason. The overall accuracy of accents (voice coaching by Yvonne Morley) is, frankly, abominable across this cast. I was actually surprised to learn that the cast had been coached at all. All actors also perform with an overly artificial and unnatural speech type, coinciding with a general tendency to perform the sentiments and symbolisms underlying lines and movements, as opposed to having characterisations and deliveries be led by character psychology and the significance of the contexts in which characters find themselves. A fine example of this is in all aspects of Athwal’s portrayal of Queenie. Athwal’s performance, especially in the former part of the performance, is a demonstration of what was once termed exploitative acting, meaning that the actor performs not believably or authentically but merely to feel a connection of sorts with the audience, glaring out into the house and into the potential eyes of audience members, infusing their role with clichéd ‘theatricalities’ and oversentimental expressivity that dampen the credibility of the role and merely exploit the audience-performer relationship [hence ‘exploitative’]. In fact, Athwal is by far the weakest performer, unsaved by her terrible diction and failed attempts at an appropriate idiolect. However, I do recognise that this very inauthentic acting style, which adds a gross artificiality, especially in scenes where all other actors are performing only to each other, ignoring the existence of the audience altogether, may actually be a directorial issue, as Kiran L Dadlani (playing Maa) performs the more sentimental and ‘dramatic’ lines of her final monologue to the audience, too, whilst directing the rest to the actors with whom she shares the stage. This is an awful decision. Audiences cannot emotionally connect with such metatheatricality as strongly as they certainly would in observing the characters enclosed in their own world, regarding them as true sentient and passible individuals, as opposed to actors faking a character. Thinking that this direct audience address will stir something in the hearts of the audience denotes naïveté and inexperience. In terms of the story, I must admit that I am not familiar with the book by Zana Fraillon upon which this play is based (adaptation by S Shakthidharan), and so I cannot comment on its accuracy or decisions to omit or expand upon its components. However, I will comment on the plot and narrative presented in the play itself. Once Jimmie is introduced into this story, plot developments see an increase in momentum, and a sense of direction and urgency rears itself for our characters. Before this, however, the theme of stories and storytelling is rather exhausted very early on in the play, with Subhi asking every single character with which he comes into contact to recount one to him. As alluded to in the first paragraph of this review, though the stories have very significant emotional relevance for Subhi and successfully pretext the imagined wonders of the outside world and communicate to us his keen observational skills and poetic reasoning, they have very little significance in terms of the overall plot, and this is a great shame. Referring back to the character of The Shakespeare Duck, I understand that this figure is supposedly used as a guide to deepen our understanding of Subhi and his story [although, again, I have not read the book, and this may be an exaggeration of its integrity]. However, in this play, he is merely a quirky passing feature. He certainly encourages or discourages Subhi occasionally when new developments crop up; otherwise; he is a mere endearing, clown-like embellishment. Because of how extremely distinguished this imagined entity is from the rest of the characters, having such a minor and actually rather negligible significance, he, too, stands out far too distinctly against the other characters and the reality of the play. He is underused, his significance underplayed, able to be reduced to the mere description, ‘lonely Subhi’s imaginary friend’ and nothing more. However, whilst this theme of stories and personified rubber duck themselves are weakly incorporated, they do fall in line with the play’s mystic, superhuman or superstitious qualities, which are maintained throughout its entirety: the bone sparrow itself, the religious beliefs of the characters, the characters’ unending hope and faith, puppet costumes representative of Jimmie’s immediate ancestors. As regards family, though, the small familial structure we are presented for Subhi is rather unoriginal and overly stereotypical — the older, aggressive and wise sister; the distant, troubled but learned mother. Better representation ought to be conceived. However, I can recognise this as an issue relative to this original text. The text could also benefit from incorporating more factual details into its narrative. Currently, it feels like a mere dystopian play with no historical grounding or significance. We learn nothing of the Rohingya crisis, upon which this story is based, and this is a huge downfall, becoming almost insensitive in its lack of profound reference and its hyper-fictionalisation. "An enjoyable and engaging performance but lacking originality and sufficient detail in places."