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.”

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.”

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.”

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: 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.”

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.”

The atmosphere as the audience enters is clever, artistic and well-constructed: beams of yellow and blue splitting through a hazed dim stage, and two simple white fabric flats. A simple set design by Cheng Keng but a dynamic one. With the accompaniment of relaxing music (composed by Grace Joy Howarth), the creatives have created the perfect environment to settle, calm and relax the young audience but also to prepare them to take the material slightly more seriously, open-mindedly and receptively. But then we have the stagehands enter Upstage, milling around, moving odd-bits and set pieces. This is hugely destructive of illusion and is a subtraction from our first [and what should remain our] still, untouched and peaceful visual. I fail to see what preparations are needed here that could not have been executed before the audience enter, as they should have been, in order to keep the stage fictionalised and, in this way, uncontaminated. Most unprofessional. An effective set and tech design here is completely compromised. It is imperative in children’s theatre that aesthetics and visual semiotics take priority, that they are conspicuous and transparent, and that they serve as storytellers in themselves. This is not merely for colourful visual appeal but due to an undeveloped capacity for abstract thinking, which is still the case even for the children at the highest end of the target audience age range: ten years old. Visually, this performance is very lacking, however, and not only have simple solutions been omitted here, but there are various visual elements that actually contradict the sociopolitical messages of the play that we are meant to take away from it. First, these simple solutions. Costume (designed by Sophie Aubz) is simply awful, a huge issue in this performance. Even as an adult, I could barely discern which animals the actors were portraying until this was explicitly detailed in speech or discernible [a posteriori] from the characters’ contexts. More than mere ears on a headband is needed to signal the specific animals these actors represent. Following on from this, further extremity in the actors' portrayals is needed to communicate the morphological and physiological particularities and the individual identities of the characters that they are representing — much more than locked bodily positions, twitches, changes in vocal pitch, and limps are required here. I shall elaborate upon the acting below. Similarly, an increased number and frequency of sound effects — waves for the ocean, cracking ice for the polar bear’s habitat, tractors and baaing/mooing/etc. for the farm — would better communicate context, which is currently undisclosed in the majority of scenes, except, sometimes fleetingly, in dialogue. On to this second point: that certain aspects of this performance contradict its overarching sociopolitical aims. This performance, quite honourably, aims to teach children the importance of keeping our planet safe through a specific critical lens that observes the impact of human activity on the animal kingdom. Providing various snapshots of animals during the Anthropocene, the performance aims to expose the dangers, struggles and tortures that animals endure today at the hands of both our dominion and carelessness, and it aims to do this through an imaginative fictional narrative, seeing our animals speaking and anthropomorphised, and through song. It is a promising text, presenting a great range of contexts and abuses from the ill-treatment of household pets to the mass pollution of the sea. We are presented these through the [so-called] ‘compassionate’ eyes of our titular character, Birdie (Ana Chloe Moorey), who is flown to the various settings of the play by her newfound best friend, Robin (Gabe Hampton-Saint). It is a sweet, endearing and magical premise. However, it is what happens when we arrive at the various settings that allows for this sense of contradiction. Each animal explains its troubles and sufferances and then proceeds to elaborate upon these through song. Often, these songs are campy and filled with humour. Choreography (by Hampton-Saint) facilitates this comedy, too, especially for Vikram Grover’s song as Cluck the Turkey or during Amy Margareta (playing Monty the Monkey) and Grover's (also playing Ellis the Elephant) duet. Ironically, despite the overall significance of lyrics, and the skeletal narrative, the animals seem to be mocking their own fates, with Cluck humouring the idea of being a Christmas dinner with a campy Christmas medley, and with Monty rolling about the floor, joyously dancing with Ellis whilst singing about the destruction of his habitat. There is a certain lack of seriousness in this play in which the animals seem far too gleeful and upbeat despite their distress. This not only dampens the effect when Birdie finally 'saves' each of the animals by the end of their respective scenes [how exactly is never truly elucidated] — for if they were happy to begin with, what has she really changed? — but also discredits and delegitimises the animals' experiences and sufferings. We should see these animals truly miserable and pained, only to have their hope reignited once Birdie identifies the issues they face and sets out to save not just these individual animals but the entirety of each of their species. More significantly, this contradictory reading is intensified by the background presence of Birdie and Robin whilst the animals are delivering their songs. Throughout the entire play, except for in the scenes including Buttercup the Cow (Charlotte Swarbrick) [more on this below], we see Birdie and Robin either smiling or laughing as the animals detail their trauma or misery, merely enjoying sharing the space with these magical animals, or completely detached from the action altogether, playing their own games with one another, passing and interacting with theatrical properties and mimicking the animals. With Birdie and Robin being our guides through this play, with their actions and reactions signposting the audience to the best treatment of and respect for animals and the planet, this display completely obliterates and ridiculises any cogency, seriousness or urgency that this play intends to communicate. We are taught by these characters to feed the mere narrative that we care whilst, in reality, flippantly enjoying and selfishly profiting from the contexts of animal cruelty and suffering that we are presented here. We are taught, in fact, to laugh about the fates and actualities of the animals with which we share this planet, and to see them as mere pathetic caricatures that mock and, paradoxically, take pleasure in their own despair, singing, dancing, seemingly having the time of their lives. This performance struggles severely to elucidate the realities of the animal kingdom but also to re-animalise the characters that we are presented. We access and empathise with these characters only through the characteristics that we share with one another, and this is detrimental to our reading, especially when we turn to the character of Buttercup the Cow. Devoid of seriousness and true emotional stimuli, this play then presents us with a farm animal who has had her calf taken from her by humans. Whilst the other animals — the fish, the polar bear, the monkeys, for example — are affected indirectly by humans, by deforestation or by air or sea pollution, this cow and Cluck are the only animals that are directly targeted by humans, bred, farmed, tortured and killed specifically for their bodies and their products, and whilst the latter is just as ridiculised as its precedents, Buttercup has a far more relatable and earthy character, maternal and emotional, unlike the rest of the animals we have been presented thus far. It is most peculiar that the creatives have chosen to treat this animal type and her suffering with more humanity and solemnity than the others, and, whilst this remains a powerful section in itself, put beside the more ‘playful’ [or careless] scenes, it is clear as to which narrative this scene inevitably promotes, and it is not a narrative that coincides with the performance’s underlying aims. Supported by thematic clauses such as 'The love that a mother feels for her son', with which the audience type can more readily identify, our reading becomes that her trauma and experience are somehow greater, intenser, rawer because its attributes are profoundly relatable to us humans, and, more importantly, to the parents and children that compose the audience. Birdie and Robin both treat her circumstances with seriousness, sorrow and sympathy now, too, expressing these earnestly, joining her in her doleful song, and acting immediately to help her find her child. This is, by far, the most emotive, impactful and hence efficacious section of the performance, and it is very well constructed. However, we learn nothing of the dairy industry, how these animals are exploited and affected beyond having their children taken away, and nothing about what they must endure. In this, the only scene that truly demands our empathy, feeling and seriousness, is a failure to acknowledge that which separates these animals from us humans. We are not taught to feel empathy for the living sentient beings that we might find foreign or otherwise inaccessible. Thus, the undesirable connotation here is that we should only care profoundly for animals displaying what we consider to be human characteristics. this can also be applied to our understanding of Birdie's relationship to Steve's (Paul Bruce) puppy. However, I should point out here that even the ending of this scene with Buttercup is ridiculised to some extent, with the comedic appearance of the puppet representing her calf. The above is not to take away from the efficacy of this section itself — it is certainly an impactful and charged scene, as evidenced by the stirring of the young audience, rising from their seats to get a better look, visibly invested — but merely to highlight, when found amongst the rest of the material we are presented in this performance, being so distinguished thematically and stylistically from it, how the overall communication of the underlying sociopolitical agenda becomes confused and misaligned in this way. Having a similar effect, descriptions of ‘The Destroyer’ [until he is portrayed by Bruce], representative of humankind, are far too fictionalised and exaggerated. That The Destroyer eats burgers, drives cars and litters everywhere is most relatable and realistic, understanding that this is us. However, having long sharp teeth and pointed fingers, as described by the characters and depicted in what I shall refer to henceforth as the shadow sequence, is so monstrous that it subtracts from the reality to which the play refers us. All spectacular, descriptive and aesthetic features should aim to complement, sharpen and concretise our readings, not to embellish them beyond recognisability. In this way, our own everyday actions are separated from the narrative of the actions of 'humankind'; we lose our sense of personal action and duty. Sticking with this 'shadow sequence', this is by far the most impressive, memorable and enjoyable feature of this performance, seeing an assortment of representations, achieved by both static and active shadowing bodies. I would just recommend that these bodies are not repeated, such as the sad cloud symbolic of air pollution, for example, and that the song’s campiness be toned down ever so slightly, so that the dark intensity of this ‘character’ can be better understood as wholly negative and not in any way enjoyable, quirky or inviting. It seems there is a resistance in this play against scaring the young audience or presenting a world that is too ‘doom and gloom’; this is a naïve decision. Considering the language use in this performance, specialist vocabulary such as 'greenhouse gases' ought to be better elucidated. Other than this, however, this text is certainly accessible to its target audience. When it comes to elucidating the core principles and phenomena this performance addresses, meaning is not so readily conveyed. Rory the Polar Bear (also Grover) offers us as an explanation of global warming, and he might as well have offered us nothing. Using a whiteboard and marker for his demonstration, one expects that his diagram will be enlightening, a clear and simple visual reference; instead, he merely draws a 'greenhouse' and squiggles on it whilst explaining the process verbally. This is a wonderful opportunity to teach the children about the planet itself in a focused and particularised environment, where empathy and emotion can coincide with intellect and reason; erase this initial drawing, now that the similarity has been understood, and draw the ozone layer and the rays of light that it has trapped within it. Again, there seems here to be a certain resistance to elaborate, replaced by oftentimes needless campy dances and quirky one-liners. Three separate groups of children (nine altogether) expressed that whilst they “enjoyed the performance” and “had fun”, they had no profound idea of what the story was about or what they had learned from it, and it is clear as to why this is the case, with almost totally indiscernible animal types, an underplay or subversion of negative subject matter, and a sheer lack of detail and expansion where imperative and necessary. Visual representations that serve as aids to enhance our learning are simply lacking and underdeveloped, from the lifeless puppet of Steve's dog that the actors regularly discard and leave unattended to the infinitesimal recycling logo on the cardboard box into which Birdie throws Steve's paper cup. These are important signifiers and should not be used so lightly and with such little care. We should believe and have constant confirmation that Steve’s dog is alive and thus worthy of our emotional and temporal investment, and it should be emphasised with extremity that we are not throwing Steve’s cup away but recycling it, not downplayed in this manner. As for acting, I remain most impressed by Margaretta's portrayals of her characters. She is incredibly expressive and transformative, confident in her roles and vitalised. I would just pay better attention to diction when portraying the Mouse, as the pitch of her voice often interferes with comprehensibility. Next, Grover is wonderfully expressive in his caricatural portrayal of Cluck, but his other characters remain indistinct and uninvigorated. All other actors are adequate in their presentations, but energy and intensity are hugely lacking, generally. Also a choreographical issue, musical renditions especially lack dynamism and dimensionality, overall. As alluded to above, character profiles are limited to locked bodily positions, such as Hampton-Saint's stance of pride or Swarbrick's hunch as Buttercup, and are in desperate need of variation and vitality. Where singing is concerned, however, these performers have immaculate voices. With only a few vocal mishaps, the performers manage to maintain wonderful harmonies and crisp notes. Howarth's music and lyrics are just as efficacious, clear, catchy and well composed, communicating the ethics and messages of the play well. Overall, this remains an endearing and well-intentioned performance with an effective storyline. However, not only aspects of the staged performance itself but also the ending of this text focus our attention too significantly on the human and diminish the extremity of and our culpability and new duties in regard to animal suffering, which is in contrast with the text's aims. Revealing that Birdie's Mother (also Swarbrick) was actually the Queen of the Animal Kingdom at the end of the performance, removes us and our responsibilities from the play altogether, focusing our attention on Birdie's closure and peace of mind. By the end, it feels as though all of the material that we have been presented, all that we have learnt was merely for Birdie's own development alone, all to enable her to find and become her true self. The focus must remain on the animals if the political agenda underlying this performance is to bare itself successfully and work upon the audience in any substantial and significant way. A mere one-time statement, "You'll help us, won't you?" does not critically engage and mobilise an audience, or make for a very successful and congruous audience integration. “An endearing text with honourable objectives but compromised by an unruly and uncareful execution.”

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."

NB: The character played by Conor Lowson is never named in this text and so shall be referred to simply as 'Lowson's/his character' in this review. Overall, this is a very impressive one-man performance written by Luke Stapleton and directed by Jamie Biddle. With a well-defined and coherent plot and characters, this play is wonderfully brought to life by performer Conor Lowson and his powerful, gripping and somewhat unique portrayal of our principal character. Starting with the text itself. This play has a dark premise, yet, overall, the gorier, more graphic and more violent material is not merely sensationalist but complements the telling of this vivid and mysterious story. In this way, it has a distinct and intelligent voice. Admittedly, there is not a great number of events and developments in this performance, but the events we are presented are certainly sufficiently fleshed out to remain both substantial and intriguing. Stapleton has also developed a logical and coherent main character, and it is his emotional response to stimuli and his secondhanded experience of and almost flâneur-like interest in others and their circumstances that make this performance so engaging; we observe the dark and the enigmantic through his eyes. Stapleton also paces this performance very well, allowing for intrigue and a rise in suspense and tension, but there are still certain aspects of his text that signal discontinuity or unnaturalism — one example being that Lowson's character spends a good amount of time studying Omar's dog tag, holding it in his hands, and yet it is only towards the very end of the performance that he realises that Omar's name is engraved into it. Nevertheless, this remains a strong and logical story. Particularly strong in this text is the slow and careful manner in which information is revealed, with Stapleton providing his audience with allusions and fragments of information throughout, like playing catch ‘with his head’ or the ‘pineapples’. This former piece of information is particularly intriguing in its extremity, also consolidating theme and the text’s nature early on. The audience's function within this performance, outlined by Lowson directly interacting and conversing with the audience, is facilitated excellently until the latter half of the text when they are slowly forgotten. This must be urgently readdressed. I imagine that these interactions are not written in the text, given their somewhat extemporaneous nature, but such ad libs, as successful as these initial ones are here, must consider how they combine with the rest of the material’s entirety. Interactions are first explicit and unnegotiable but soon turn nonexistent, and how we are addressed and what role we play —participants, witnesses, interlocutors, active listeners, etc. — must be consistent. With Lowson's character's speech becoming more and more enclosed and indirect, his relationship to us and our role as listeners becomes completely questionable, and it is easy to feel in this performance that the audience's presence is more and more neglected the deeper into this performance we get. We can observe a disjointedness of this nature when we consider Lowson's casual and natural entrance against the very stylised blackout ending. The character offered by the text and the one offered by Lowson are in direct conflict in this way [and in this way alone]. This brings me on to acting. Lowson is certainly a talented actor. He has a distinct ability to command the space, is confident, has excellent stage presence, and is energised and invigorated throughout his performance. His transformativity when portraying the various other characters that his encounters does, indeed, range from adequate to excellent, depending on the specific character represented, but representations are sufficiently distinguished such that this is not too severe an issue. Lowson has a good emotional range and corporeal expressivity, but whilst his diction is superb, I would just pay greater attention to volume. Without an abundance of theatrical properties and set pieces, the White Bear Theatre is quite an anechoic space, and this compromises somewhat Lowson's audibility, particularly when his delivery is directed to the opposite audience section. Lowson should work on slight adjustments to his vocal delivery in this way, increasing the volume of his voice accordingly, noting, of course, the difference between shouting and projecting. Lowson demonstrates an excellent — actually, exemplary — awareness of his audience, overall, responding well to their movements and reactions as well as to the general atmospheres that consume the space itself. However, as the performance progresses, there surface undeniable moments wherein Lowson is focusing too much upon the audience’s potential response, as opposed to upon the life and psychology of the character and, where this is necessary in direct address, the audience’s actual response. It is clear that he increases his volume at times and performs swifter movements, becoming more erratic and even lunging towards audience members for the extra shot at a jump scare, all in an attempt to invoke emotion or shock within or to directly target audience members such that they remain invested and excited by the material. This sensationalist decision, most likely a directorial issue, quickly becomes rather cheap and ineffective and compromises to some noticeable degree the credibility and integrity of the performance. This is without mentioning that the actuality of the audience response is rather opposite to the intended one: it completely removes them from the material of the text, merely awakening self-preservative instincts and temporospatial awareness, both of which are needless in and subtractive from this performance. A greater, less negligible problem is the excessive structuring of both the text and of Lowson's portrayal, the latter of which is concretised by the second half of the play. From halfway in, with every single clause and phrase, Lowson's intonation changes and he addresses the audience sections alternatingly, presenting a different emotion or tone with every turn of the body or lift and fall of the head. This becomes so structured, in fact, that it becomes entirely predictable and hence robotic, unnatural and overly rehearsed. It becomes clear in this way that Lowson is hyperfocusing on his delivery and his external representations as opposed to on the psychology of his character and his experiences. As for the text itself, Stapleton relies far too heavily upon simlies in his writing, which are most effective at times, such as with the graphic descriptions of Keith's infected head wound [which does, unfortunately, reveal another discontinuity, given that nothing becomes of his head infection] or with the rather romantic and literary descriptions of his handcrafted wooden boat, but when these similes are used alongside every other description, especially when these descriptions are of fleeting moments and objects, their effect wears off, and the text feels monotonous, univocal and unimaginative stylistically. There are other aspects that are far too often repeated, too, and one worth mentioning is the use of the phrase 'with that': "With that, she disappeared", "With that, he was gone". Unless specific phrases like this are left peculiar or unique, illuminating the character's individualised idiolect, their constant repetition ought to be avoided. On to staging and design. Biddle and Lowson have decided to keep Lowson's character sat down in one spot for the vast majority of the performance, and I believe this is an efficacious decision, drawing our attention away from needless spectacularities and towards this character and the material and specificities of the text alone. However, this intense focus type is another reason as to why the text itself must be sleek and refined in its communications, profound and entirely interesting. Whilst story and plot developments certainly are varied and engaging, Lowson’s lines become far too repetitive in the manner listed above, and repetition does not equate to profundity. Whilst I find the alcohol in the back a good symbol and foreshadowing for the revelatory conversation to come with Keith about Omar's fate, the manner in which it is implemented into the performance is subtractive and underwhelming. It is clear that the creatives wished to break up the soliloquy, to give the audience a breather, but this respite should either be present in the written text itself or should feel relevant and necessary, not just for us but for Lowson’s character itself. Breaks should not feel deliberate but organic, not coming about because the character has finished this segment of the story but because he has become sensitive to an aspect of the story he is telling, for example, uncomfortable or confused, or perhaps he is excited about his story and wants to celebrate in some way, such that the drink is necessary to calm or free him. Including in these scene breaks, there are multiple instances throughout this performance where Lowson stands up, rather unnaturally, once even atop his chair, only to sit back down again almost immediately after, once the following line has been delivered in the aforementioned erratic manner. There is no clear and natural motivation behind these excessive movements, and I would recommend limiting his movements to the chair entirely. The creatives should not fear boring the audience with a sense of stasis or inertion. The alcohol itself could, and perhaps should, just be placed beside him, on the floor by the chair. His drinking it will still enable for the lengthy pause that getting up and walking over to the table at the back of the stage would permit. This is all without mentioning that the particular table upon which the bottle sits is also aesthetically jarring against the otherwise barren stage. On to lighting (designed by Can Bitirim). Given its naturalistic style and the relaxed environment that this performance provides, the individual colours used in this design, beyond red, have little symbolic or logical relevance to the text. However, the manner in which lighting is combined cued and operated for this performance is otherwise clever and well-executed. States change gradually and almost unnoticeably throughout, and this complements the natural flow, momentum and themes of the text. I would just reconsider the fading of the blue and the green overhead lights Upstage Center towards the very end of the performance. These only seem to be able to fade in distinct and blatant phases and, in doing so, draw far too much attention to themselves. I would recommend their fade start much earlier, so that this staggered effect may be less noticeable, or that the lantern itself be replaced by something more suitable and discreet. Nevertheless, seamless operation by Bitirim. “A gripping story vitalised by a talented performer.”

I must, unfortunately, start this review by detailing some negative initial impressions walking into the house, somewhat immortalised by subsequent happenings. As I entered the house, two members of the crew were gossiping, one lounging over the seats, another stood broadly at the control desk, talking across the distance with her. Loudly skindering, relaxed, ignorant to the now entering audience and to the mood with which they were imbuing the space, the creatives made for a markedly hostile ambience, in conflict with the silent and tense atmosphere that the performance itself attempts to have settle. I then notice the two performers shrouded in darkness but still clearly visible, Caidraic Heffernan (playing Mason) and Kate Valentine Crisp (as Esther and Edward). The two, with great emphasis on Crisp, are restless, stretching, yawning. Either their presence on the stage here should be deliberate, intentional, their purpose clear, their actions coherent and established, or they should not be present at all. Even if the intention is to present these characters as relaxed, languid, which is most notably not the case here, a degree of muscular tension as well as focus techniques should ground the actor in the space so that they remain present, aware, enlivened, awake, not sleepy or detached in their external inactivity. It is not until the end of the performance that I am reminded of this trend of disconnection from the work and its integrity. Loud, frantic and chatting, the creatives clear the stage with an uncareful urgency, completely disrupting, yet again, the tense and quiet atmosphere of the space that their performance has, supposedly, taken nearly an hour to produce. The final, concretised impression is a slapdash performance for experience or money, with no care or integrity from the creatives’ part, completely destroying any hopes of illusion and ambience, careless as to the sentiment with which they will leave their departing audience as an important souvenir of their work. Appallingly unprofessional. I hope this comportment is reconsidered appropriately for future performances. Moving on to the performance itself. Partially an editorial issue, Izzy is portrayed well by Amelia Paltridge, but characterisation remains inconsistent in places. Our very first impression of Izzy, as Paltridge [needlessly and incongruously] stares into the audience’s eyes, her glare and movements determined, calculative, directly contrasts with our next impression immediately after this overture: she is anxious, awkward, perhaps even terrified of us. This second impression is all the more surprising for another reason. That her book club ‘audience’ should have such a crippling effect on her as she requests we interact, awaits our responses — both to no avail —and censors herself in the descriptions she offers us is confounding, given that her ‘audience’ never actually existed; the book club fell through. Nervous and perhaps distracted throughout, she is, without offering us an introduction or any coherency and logic, somehow completely comfortable with Esther. In their scenes together, her constant anxiety seems to have disappeared altogether, and she is now entirely collected, laidback upon her chair. We can surmise, perhaps, that this is because she is in love with Esther and feels at ease in her presence, but this is only a retrospective surmise, given that Paltridge maintains this anxiety in her portrayals during precedent interactions between her character and Esther, and that Esther is never appropriately introduced as a potential love interest, to begin with — in fact, it is never truly made clear as to who she is at all. In this way, the character of Izzy with which we are presented, at first filled with passion, love, interest, fond of a little ‘befriended’ rogue mouse she has named Charlie, and later cold, spiteful, and plotting Charlie’s death[?!], all without presenting any logical development, is completely inconsistent and hence incomprehensible. Emotion, distress and trauma are some of the running themes of this performance which presents our main character’s parasocial relationship with fictional character Edward Cullen as a coping mechanism to bear the complexities of the world in which she lives as well as those of her seemingly unfixed sexual identity. A sound premise with which to work and from which to consolidate Izzy’s character, it would seem, but such clarity does not extend beyond these details. These themes and most other aspects of the text remain somewhat impenetrable in their superficiality, lacking credibility and particularisation. The text itself is most repetitive in the tripartite structure which consumes its majority and in its reliance upon the same recurrent themes: [homo]sexuality, identity and disconnection, and its constant reliance upon emotional aspects of the characters, ironically, forces us away from bonding with them, as they seem inhuman, monolithic, unidimensional. Moreover, the characters are all holding onto something from the past — Mason onto Naomi, Esther onto her childhood bully, and Izzy onto Edward — and this furthers the sense of a lack of depth and variation. Izzy’s monologic book club scenes and the constant proverbial wrestling in her interactions with the other characters in every single other scene, even during the mouse’s death scene, lends this sense of unidimensionality, also. Izzy’s circumstances are never fully explained; we are never allowed or made to fully understand the reasons behind her emotional dispositions, beyond one mention that she was bullied in her youth and felt isolated as a result. Consequently, we have no reason to care for her; we have no questions, for we know we will receive no answers; we, rather like her, are enabled to feel disconnected from the world of the play. Whilst the fragmented narrative successfully communicates well the disorder of memories, relationships, impulses and emotions in her mind, I believe this, too, confuses and complicates our reading of her chronology and her development [or perhaps regression]. After this persistent sense of stagnancy and repetition, in the structure of scenes and in the text’s themes, is a notable shift in the text’s voice and subject matter towards the very end…but it is not a positive one. We are allowed no clear understanding as to why Edward has now left Izzy, especially after having given into biting her wrist, but, most significantly, we are now introduced for the first time to Izzy’s mother (also Crisp) in a short seaside flashback including the two. This is a most peculiar scene, following shortly after the mouse's death scene, both including a hitherto unseen reliance upon an abundance of one-use theatrical properties, meaning that they are aesthetically and stylistically incongruous, and neither overtly consistent with the material we have been offered hitherto. Again, it feels as though some deep emotional memory, trauma or disconnect is being referenced here but remains superficial in its inaccessibility and transience. A sense of depth is referenced, for example, in the inclusion of jam in the mouse’s deathtrap as something tempting but fatal, reminding us of Esther’s account of the sweet-smelling jam-like breath of her bully, and in the inclusion of Izzy not being touched by [the memory of] her mother, after Edward’s fixation on the fact that no-one has ever or does ever touch him. However, these references remain, once more, shallow and far too esoteric. Absence of reason and significance is even observable in the presence of technical elements. The significance of the microphone and its usage remains confused in this performance. Initially a signifier that we are in the book club, the microphone is used sporadically by Crisp’s characters too, and its purpose thus becomes confused, destabilising our mode of reception and needlessly stylising and depersonalising extracts of the text. I should also note here that the microphone is slightly too high, obscuring Paltridge’s face, and that Paltridge fails to speak her lines into it consistently, often continuing to speak when her head is slightly turned or tilted, allowing, most jarringly, for most of her words to be projected by the microphone and some not. When Edward says another character’s name “like that” — something I shall return to below — we see the LED spots light up…and this is their only usage beyond creating a starry background for Edward[?] — or Esther? Potentially even Naomi? — and Jacob’s[?] (also Heffernan) dance. I add these parentheses because who these characters are exactly remains completely unclear, as charming as this scene is in itself, which is something that three other audience members happened to voice, as well. Unfortunately, the red scarf work by Crisp is not enough to ground our reading here. I digress… The relevance of this use of the spotlights is left unmarked and unknown. Again, the umbrella at the end: pretty but for what purpose? Completely incongruous with the technical style of the rest of the performance which remains technically featherlight, beyond these LED spots. Perhaps the only successful use of tech is the use of the spotlights and washes to distinguish scenes, but this is too rudimentary an inclusion to really commend. Perhaps the saving grace of this performance is its performers, who remain invested and energised throughout, despite the aforementioned minor hiccups during the overture. They remain certain of their character intentions and motivations, even if we cannot, and are confident in portraying the bold, graphic, profane and sexual material offered by the text. For the most part, they are credible actors, but none have conceived particularly strong profiles for their characters. Idiosyncrasies beyond Esther’s holding a Peroni bottle [which is clearly not filled with Peroni or a comparably coloured liquid but with clear water — attention to detail is important] are nonexistent. Nevertheless, physicalities have good vigour, and expressivity is above adequate. I would just urge more extremity in Paltridge’s physicality, particularly in more extreme scenes, and that Crisp pay closer attention the differentiation between her characters; lack of distinct profiles and idiolects often means that her characters are indiscernible unless explicitly named by the written text itself. I mentioned above the manner in which Edward says other characters’ names, and whilst this is clearly an important feature in the text, Crisp fails to mark the names with any notable peculiarity, in tone, enunciation or expression. This ought to be addressed. Ultimately, however, the problem here is not the performers but the material they are performing. Overall, this is an eclectic and confused performance whose text must be significantly reworked. The performers demonstrate good promise but are not able to salvage its general esotericism and superficiality. Character developments are incoherent, and story and plot require the audience to read too intently into subtext. Intertextual references are minimal; in fact, the purpose and significance of Twilight to Izzy — the entire premise of the play — is, overall, underplayed. Unprofessional dispositions, whilst these do not particularly alter my criticism here, certainly leave me with a sour taste of this performance, moreover. “A confused, incomplete and incoherent text made merely watchable by good performers.”

This is certainly a captivating and thought-provoking performance, tackling well its themes of responsibility, pressure, self-depreciation, unrequited love and mental illness. A most articulate and profound piece of theatre that I would certainly recommend readers see. Joe Marty (playing Brendon) and Ruth Page (playing Fran) have an excellent and palpable chemistry, evidenced in their shared humour and endearing secretive winks and smiles of encouragement at the end of the overture to prepare one another for the performance to come. This is an excellent ground for their work together. They remain throughout unfazed by and confident in their interactions with one another, demonstrating eye contact and engagement with one another throughout. The two also do a good job at welcoming the audience, increasing awareness of their presence and the space. However — and the following are significant points — this metatheatricality and subtextual chemistry actually work against our reading of the performance. Not once again is the audience addressed, meaning that we have become needlessly self-aware and recognisant of the mechanics of theatre, the Other, the performer and our relationships to these, whilst the performance will otherwise remain enclosed and fictional. In this way, the audience-performer divide is dismantled, only to be reinforced immediately as the play begins. Then, the characters themselves that Page and Marty proceed to present to us remain, overall, distinct and isolated from one another — by their own harsh spotlights, by never touching, by offering only the odd retort and a distancing eye contact as forms of address. Whilst playfulness persists for a while — with Fran voicing her opinion that Brendon could never, despite his self-belief, feature on the front cover of GQ magazine providing us with a good example — by the beginning-middle, we have lost any sense of relation, togetherness and shared experience. It feels, in this way, that the overture with which we are presented is one intended for an ultimately different performance, setting us up to read in these performers, and hence in their characters, a direct relationship to us that will never be consolidated, as well as a belonging and solidarity with one another that we ought not to perceive. Of course, we can connect the characters’ experiences indirectly by theme, their loneliness, their frustrations, etc., but this is a very different matter. I should also note here that whilst Page and Marty are confident in these initial audience interactions, addressing each audience member respectively, their script remains somewhat limited, focused on the so-called “energy” or “vibe” of the room, how we are all feeling, and what beverages people have brought into the house with them. This is somewhat unimaginative, communicating a lack of extensive preparation, and better interactions, and perhaps interactions that are notably congruous with the material to follow, ought to be conceived here. This is our first impression of the performance; it ought not to be repetitive or lacking in any way. The two do make more elaborate jokes, encouraging us to dance at any point if we wish [again, when during the performance would this be appropriate?], roaming the corridors to spot latecomers, etc. More varied interactions of this nature are needed here, but, again, with thought to congruity. Integration of composer-musician Joe Strickland, also the director of this performance, feels distinctly incomplete. Clearly not trained as a performer, his unnaturalistic expressions and responses to the material are both distracting and subtractive. For example, his mouthing, “Oh no!” when it is revealed that a ‘dead’ man is lying in Brendon’s bedroom [I should also note here that this extreme development seems to be glossed over and forgotten, where it ought to be better communicated and expanded upon. I remain completely perplexed as to who this dead man is and as to what relevance he has to the progression of this text.] Strickland’s extreme responses minimise the credibility or integrity of invaluable moments in this performance. Page is the only one of the two main performers to really address Strickland, laughing and talking with him, whilst he seems invisible to Marty beyond Marty’s early reference that he would like the music to pause and resume at a specific point in time. This interaction he shares with Page is heading in the direction of better inclusion, but there are instances where he informs her [in pretence?] of cues or upcoming decisions, directing her attention to his grid controller. This interaction type defictionalises the performance far too emphatically and ought to be avoided. Strickland’s relationship with his own music is also rather distracting at times, seeing him bopping, tapping, ‘lost in the art of it’ whilst the topics addressed by the text are supposed to be far calmer or intense, demanding our emotional investment or stricter attention. This is particularly distracting and artificial during scenes where the music we are offered is merely a repetitive percussive beat. In fact, tech overall proves itself to be quite incongruous with the performance, providing us itself with rhythms that do not coincide with the emotional quality of the scenes we are offered. Beyond this, the music’s volume is far too loud, combining with the volume of the microphoned actors, their oftentimes extensive physical expressivity, the fast pace of the music and the intensity of the material, all to allow for an unwanted sense of chaos and busyness which persists throughout the entire performance. This also minimises our appreciation of the final scene that is executed in silence, as it is easy to be absorbed, finally, in the peace of the music’s absence as opposed to in the intensity of the isolation of the text and story alone in its retreat. On to the text itself. This text, poetic and literary in some aspects, and conversational and naturalistic in others, is excellently structured, gripping and well-conceived. The fragmented and achronological narrative with which we are presented provides great intrigue and dynamism, keeping Brendon’s story, in particular, esoteric and erratic, which communicates successfully these qualities of his personality, frame of mind and actions. The story we are presented is unique, expanding profoundly upon often-overlooked emotional relationships with otherwise fleeting and short-lived life events. Its characters are also well-defined and excellently developed. In regard to its theme of mental illness, this play also successfully and commendably humanises emotions from which we are often taught to distance ourselves: desperation, vulnerability, neediness, despair… I would just pay closer attention to the writing of Brendon's character. Whilst I wrote above that the esotericism of his narrative is effective, it is also slightly excessive in its constancy. It is not until the middle-end of the performance that any humanisation or understanding of his character and circumstances are permitted. Conversely, his mention of Joyce Vincent seems to come too late, feeling as though a much-too-conspicuous foreshadowing of his own death. When addressing Fran, 'you' and 'her' are used almost interchangeably, and this ought to be addressed, also. Beyond Brendon's narrative, abject descriptions are also somewhat repetitive: 'paste', 'spit', etc., and the same can be said for the use of onomatopoeia, namely 'boom'. Other than these items, this is a solid, sleek and sound text. As for the performers themselves, Marty and Page remain energised and invigorated throughout the entire performance. They are confident, eager, and aware of their respective characters' psychologies, feelings, motivations and intentions. More of a directorial issue, I would just reconsider how the two react to one another's monologues. As alluded to above, there is a playfulness turned sour and removed as the play goes on, without particularly well-communicated reasoning as to why. Oftentimes, their responses to one another are too artificial and extreme, seeing the actors bursting with laughter or delivering their lines without regard to natural intonation and pacing; these moments feel far too rehearsed in this way. Nevertheless, they have great command over their roles and excellent awareness of one another and the audience. Pacing and variation in delivery, without which this play could become too bipartite and monotonous, are also immaculately handled. Diction becomes a notable problem for Marty as the performance draws to a close, however, and I imagine this is due to a mischannelling of nervous energy and to the lingering effects of an [efficacious] erratic physicality. Most important to consider is his enunication when delivering his line about this aforementioned dead man: the line, 'he sits up', was delivered rather awkwardly as 'he shits up'. When his character is calling his ex-partner and ends up stuck on her voicemail, his repeated line is delivered consistently as follows: 'it call [sic.], it rings'. This performer has wonderful facial expressivity, as does Page, but conceals it with his microphone, which he holds at far too high a tilt; it ought to be held perpendicular to his face. I should also mention here Page's propensity towards manual expression, which is wonderful and articulate but too juxtapositional against Marty's expressivity in the first scene, limited exclusively to his face. Both performers, with emphasis on Marty, sometimes deliver their lines with too great an emphasis on the lyricality and poeticism of the text, altering their pacing and intonation to match its rhythm; this ought to be avoided. Some final trivial notes. Marty forces our attention towards Page when his character describes hers, noting that Fran wears her handbag on one shoulder where, in fact, she wears it on the other and across her chest, which would make it incredibly difficult for someone to quickly snatch from her in an alleyway. Moreover, should she still have this handbag, once the rest of the performance will be dedicated to her hunting it, and Brendon, down? The audience is far too harshly lit, which would be acceptable if this initial metatheatricality was continuous, but, again, it is not. This can also lead to the audience's discomfort, due to the infamous heat of the lights — as it did mine. There is also a discontinuity in the text, where Brendon describes himself running away, seeing Fran at the bottom of a staircase, then being hit in the face with her thrown dog's ashes, but the chronology of this is later revealed by Fran to be different. Finally, I would recommend not having Marty strike the microphone against his head, risking its momentary malfunction, as was the case on the night I saw the performance. Instead, he ought to make the sound himself whilst striking his head with his own hand, which would be welcomed by the play’s aforementioned insistence upon onomatopoeia heretofore. Once more, as with my most recent review before this, I personally thoroughly enjoyed this performance, but the items I have noted above bring me to the rating below. "Excellent actors and a gripping, articulate story, but staging needs further refinement."

This review will consider Hackney Wick Wrestling, a show presented by independent wrestling school and promotion Hustle Wrestling, taking place for one night only at the Colour Factory. In terms of aesthetics, the vast majority of the wrestlers are indistinct at best. Amidst the mere shirtless men, it is difficult to discern any established wrestler types beyond the overly caricatural: the fabulous queer male, the burlesquely female, the villainous duo, the rubber duck mascot, etc. Whilst the former of this list, Cassius, has generally consolidated his profile well, most of the visual motifs and gestures used by these wrestlers are over-relied upon to denote types, and we are offered little else beyond these, meaning that representations remain superficial and repetitious: Nina Samuels's dainty lifts of the arm, accompanied by the drop of a stiff hand, or the triangle Liam Massett and Cairo form with their fingers. These are powerful images in themselves but remain shallow and somewhat ineffective with nothing to compare them to: how can we know that Nina is now truly enraged, if we have hitherto only seen her bitter and angry, for instance? Visuals are an incredibly important aspect of wrestling, especially where narrative is concerned, and such superficiality may compromise intrigue and depth, increasing predictability and formal rigidity. It is important that all wrestlers have a vast repertoire of quirks, gestures, catchphrases and aesthetic attributes, etc., to concretise a more profound, and thus more interesting, profile. Equally, it is important that these characteristic qualities complement the wrestler's performance type: Cassius's screaming when attacking, or being attacked himself, and his somewhat catlike or gymnastic movements, for example, complement his profile's flamboyancy. Unfortunately, I cannot see how Nina’s bitchiness, arrogance and snobbishness outside of the ring come into play in her in-ring performances, or what role another wrestler’s rubber ducks have in his [in fact, he actually left his rubber duck with an audience member — more on this below]. Furthermore, Liam Massett and Cairo's actions as an obvious duo are too few to be noteworthy. These are only a few of the examples I could offer here. In short, more than costume and gestural motif is needed here to consolidate the wrestler’s profile. Sticking with visuals, I shall turn my attention towards technical elements. The lighting design (by the Colour Factory) for this performance is…rocky. Transitional and preluding lighting effects are notably spectacular, engaging and dynamic, and the natural washes that flood the stage during the matches themselves are effective in their perhaps necessary simplicity; anything else for these particular matches would be too distracting and superfluous, especially for the battle royale. However, in wrestlers’ entrances, lighting design is incredibly poor, which is most subtractive, given how important these initial impressions will always be. Spots fail both to illuminate stationary subjects and to follow those moving about the floor outside of the ring. Both an issue of blocking and presentation as well as of tech, wrestlers remain practically invisible whilst roaming this floor, interacting with audience members and, supposedly, making their presence known. Tech here needs to be urgently readdressed. Then, we have sound (designed by Jonathan Woodhouse). Sound is deafeningly loud — to the point where I would rather urge that earplugs be offered to audience members — and this is a problem most significant to KAO’s three performances during the half-time interval. Unfortunately, diction and variety in choreography are terrible between the two, though I will note that music is satisfactory and presentations to each audience section are wonderfully handled, perhaps better than in the main action itself. I cannot comment on the lyrics, due to this issue with diction, volume and indecipherability. Otherwise, music is used excellently, overall, and theme tunes establish wrestlers well. I would just pay closer attention to how music complements and facilitates this aforementioned need for deeper wrestler profiling; as profiles are better established, music may seem all the more incongruous. I would also note the legal concerns of copyright, particularly with Disney songs, though I cannot comment on whether rights have or have not been secured. On to the matches themselves. The well-sought kayfabe is not a term I would immediately attribute to this performance, which is most disappointing to have to admit. The art and desire of any wrestling match is to appear — and perhaps, loosely, to be — unstaged, authentic, genuine; the dreaded adjective, ‘fake’, is both incendiary and catastrophic to a booker’s work. However, the vast majority of the action we see in this show may incontestably be described as distinctly artificial. With this show, there is one main positive and one main negative insofar as realism is concerned: throws and drops are handled impeccably well throughout by all of the wrestlers, particularly when performed by two wrestlers on one; however, stand-alone strikes, kicks and punches are entirely lacking and unfeasible. Nearly every wrestler, besides those I shall highlight below, fails to charge their attacks, i.e. to demonstrate a feasible and observable degree of impetus and tension before releasing their strikes. The result is an unbelievable attack that deals confounding and surprising damage to the wincing, crying and pleading opponents, despite the fact that they ought to be ineffectual with such a conspicuous lack of force. Most significantly, the wrestlers stick far too closely to the rehearsed choreography, failing to 'live in the moment', so to speak. By this, I refer to a shocking number of instances where strikes miss opponents altogether, and yet the opponent reacts as though they have been mortally wounded, nonetheless. I would urge that combatants pay closer attention to the live action of their marches. There is an irksome disregard for realism in terms of continuity outside of the ring, as well. The aforementioned rubber-duck wrestler, for example, having given his jacket and rubber duck to an audience member, as detailed above, first returns to them barely able to stand, limping, wincing, etc. He then returns shortly after the match has ended, unaffected, content, uninjured, thanking the audience member once more for hanging on to his belongings, rather eager for any needless form of audience interaction. Stagehands, as clearly rehearsed, warn audience members that items, or the wrestlers themselves, will be thrown towards them, and move their tables out of the way in preparation for the falls, which obnoxiously emphasises the fictitious aspects of each relative match, in the ‘reality’ of which audience members are desperate to lose themselves. Not only for illusion and hedonistic experience but for health and safety concerns — noting we have a duty as creatives to protect the audiences of our work, of which they cannot know the boundaries — the space should be arranged in such a way that extreme rearrangements and invasions like these cannot take place. I myself was surprised to have to vacate my table altogether to make room for a reversing Max the Impaler, backing up into my table whilst retrieving another table and two chairs from under the ring — a much-awaited moment but one that felt all the more fictitious, given how these items were concealed under the ring: how would she have known they were there? Given the lack of space in the Colour Factory, meaning that audiences have little space to use in their urgent evacuation, danger here is increased to a beyond sensationalist level, becoming quite real, especially given also that their drinks end up on the now slippery floor. Moving on to narrative. Narrative is clear-cut, coherent and well-conceived. However, its execution is poor, overall. Narrative progressions are rather glossed over, by which I mean that pivotal moments in the matches, where one opponent suddenly gains control, for example, filling with rage and attacking their unsuspecting opponent, or where a combatant comes to an opponent’s aid, etc., divide the choreography into distinct segments. With nearly all of the matches, there is no sense of gradual progression or of a significant build-up of tension; instead, the next 'segment' merely begins without introduction, and we must simply infer the narrative for ourselves and merely accept that a drastic change has occurred. One excellent example of this is during the main event match between Laura Di Matteo and Max the Impaler, where, despite all odds, underdog Laura Di Matteo rises to defeat championing beast Max the Impaler, after having been knocked completely unconscious by this formidable opponent. We are to understand that this comparatively small and weak combatant uses speed, technique and accuracy to defeat her terrifying overbearing opponent, but there is such little resistance from Max, and this transformation from unconscious victim to valiant victor is so sudden, that credibility is completely lost here in the narrative’s depiction. It is easy to feel that the creatives are merely presenting the individual story moments without care to consider how these cohere seamlessly and congruously together. My next point is crucial to note: sitting in the Northside audience section, through which wrestlers first enter, I had a wonderful view of every wrestler throughout the entire show, extremely rarely seeing the back of any one wrestler's head. This is a terrible thing for me to note…meaning that the opposite audience section had the complete opposite experience, seeing only the backs of the wrestlers' heads. Almost all action is performed to the north of the ring, and it is clear why: photographers and videographers (Luke Ross, Constantinos Erotokritou and Geoff Alleyne) stay almost exclusively on this side, not only obscuring the audience's view but tempting the wrestlers to perform to them in this manner. Conspicuously inspired by mediatised/televised professional matches and international “lockdown” wrestling trends during the recent pandemic, it is clear that priorities lie in benefitting 'permanent' virtual audiences, as opposed to live ones. Considering it is the latter who constitute physical following and in-house audiences, not to mention monetary support, this is most undesirable. I mentioned that this is also the audience section through which wrestlers enter, and whilst some choose to mill around the four sections in an attempt to introduce themselves and hype up those members of each of the audience sections, most wrestlers simply enter indistinctly, jump into the ring and prepare to begin their match — a problem coinciding with the performance’s overall visual inadequacy. This is further dramatically exacerbated by those aforementioned spotlights that cannot keep up with the entering wrestlers, and by the absence of those spotlights around the auditorium to follow the wrestlers as they prance around the parameters of the ring. By far the most impressive match in this performance is that between Tate Mayfairs and Adriano. This match offers great expressivity from the wrestlers; great profiles [if notably less caricatural than others, which is otherwise welcomed but incongruous with the more whimsical and aesthetically charged material]; much-needed muscular tension, anticipation and release; and a gradual progression through narrative. Whilst Tate's injury is far too sudden, the duration of his first aid support (from Jack Dengel) is most naturalistic. I would just recommend developing further dramaticism by varying the activities during in this first aid support and by changing lighting states and/or stopping music, only to resume once the match does. Also, where was a commentary from the hosts for this 'unexpected' and 'severe' occurrence? From this point on, however, with Tate tricking Adriano and regaining control of the match, we return to strikes that do not actually make contact with the body, subsequent overly expressive wincing, and a sense of rushing through the narrative. Most disappointing are the Battle Royale and the match between Rayne Leverkeusen and Nina Samuels. These needed considerable work. As for the latter, choreography became entirely repetitive, from hair gripping to awkward body locks, with expressivity minimal and narrative shockingly unclear — in fact, this is the only match that suffered complete obscurity insofar as narrative communication is concerned. Similarly, the former is incredibly chaotic, and not in a sensationalist and exhilarating way. It is almost impossible to tell what is happening, and this is not merely because of the sheer number of wrestlers in the ring, but because choreography fails to draw the eye to specific happenings. This was, in fact, noted by several other vocal audience members. Choreography also fails to coincide with the intentions of the wrestlers. For example, there are repeatedly moments where two wrestlers are left alone by the others for enough time to toss one more opponent over the ropes, but the opponent hangs on, unbudging and stiff, refusing to be eliminated. The two wrestlers quickly give up and search for other wrestlers to eliminate... This is completely unfeasible. This is an excellent opportunity for the wrestlers to eliminate this opponent whilst they are vulnerable and on the verge of falling out of the ring; that the wrestlers would not continue to pursue this is most unrealistic — and, again, this lack of realism is intensified through repetition. It is clear that in choreographing this particular match, the creatives relied heavily upon certain wrestlers to be ‘recuperating’, ‘regaining their strength’ or trying to stay balanced on the edge of the ring, barely holding onto the last rope before tumbling to their elimination. Far too often, such weak and vulnerable wrestlers are neglected in this battle, and this is devastating where credibility is concerned. Most notably regularly neglected in this way was Ted Sabine, as an example. Some extra notes. The second referee we are introduced to, Tom Scarborough, is intently engaged in the action, reacting to and commenting on almost everything that occurs, and this is hugely beneficial to our reading and to the credibility of the matches in which he is involved. Our first referee, however, Oscar Harding, takes some time to warm up, initially avoiding sustained eye contact with the wrestlers, delivering his lines to the air, as though it is merely what he feels is required of him. He seems distracted, somewhat disengaged, unsure of his role. That every single count should be broken by the restricted wrestler at the count of two really drives home this unwanted and intense sense of structure, artificiality and rehearsal; variation is required here: a count broken at "one", another at "two", and another broken before "one" has barely left the referee's mouth, for example, would make these suspenseful moments feel all the more realistic. That the ‘hosts’ sit shrouded in darkness in front of the tech board, invisible to the audience whom they address only via overhead speaker, is most underwhelming. In this way, it feels as though the creatives felt compelled to go through the motions of a conventional wrestling match without dedicating too much energy and patience to features like these that actually work the audience and structure their work. Barring one, the hosts lack sufficient energy and fail to command the space, most notably in their introduction. The fact that the padding where turnbuckles meet the ropes at the ring post is so exaggeratively large connotes an overly protective environment, a resistance from pain, blood and injury, but perhaps this is excusable given the nature of Hustle Wrestling's schooling work. Overall, despite my criticisms above, this show has great vitality and variety. Matches see intriguing opponent pairs, overall, and underlying narratives are refined and coherent, if sometimes predictable. I would just pay greater attention to how rehearsal and training might combine with extemporisation; at the moment, there is a rigid fixation upon pre-established choreography that compromises credibility during live performance. The more extreme stunts have clearly consumed the creatives' focus, and I would recommend now that better thought be given to subtler and interstitial action. “A good show but one which misaligns aim and execution and whose wrestlers are disconnected from the live experience.”