fringe theatre

Goodnight Polly Jones, Theatre N16

The wonderful thing about new writing is the potential for discovering unknown gems, perfectly formed and ready for a transfer or a tour, or a piece that is still finding its shape but its promise is evident. There’s also the chance of having to endure work that, though trying its hardest, isn’t ready to be put in front of critics. Goodnight Polly Jones is the latter. In its current state, Andrew Sharpe’s script bears more resemblance to a GCSE issue-based devised piece than a play suited to a professional small-scale theatre. Isolated scenes at key plot points and painfully long transitions with busy sound design and terrible voiceovers turn sexual assault and rape into a banal one hour, exacerbated by a performance matching the script’s clunkiness.

Ben Keenan as the jumped up, inappropriately hired Peter provides some redemption. He handles the awkward dialogue and tenuous circumstances extraordinarily well, adding gravitas and emotional truth to the HR manager with a disgustingly flippant disregard for sexual consent. Polly (Victoria Morrison) at her youngest and most immature supermarket clerk manages to match him, but as the older accountant taking that supermarket into administration, she is self-conscious and awkward.

The root problem of this production is the script. Composed solely of four distinct scenes at different times, they show dramatic change in tone and character development, but the story is neglected. This is potentially an important, character-driven play, but there’s no subtlety to the plot – every progression is beaten to death with dialogue rather than shown. The transitions attempt to fill in some gaps, but they too are overt, too long and too cringy, with am dram worthy voice acting. The resolution is half-baked, and Sharpe’s propensity for signposting (that treats the audience as if they were children with ADHD and learning difficulties) misses a glaring, albeit predictable, opportunity to tie up loose ends in the final moments of the play. The scenes as individual units aren’t awful, but the connective thread between them is most thin indeed.

Goodnight Polly Jones doesn’t completely lack potential, but it is in such an early stage of development that it feels wholly inappropriate to stage it in front of a judging audience. A scratch night or a workshop? Absolutely. Though it needs extensive work, it addresses an important issue with some isolated nice moments.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Skin A Cat, Vault Festival

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Without question, my best new writing discovery of 2015 was young writer Isley Lynn’s play Tether at Edinburgh Fringe. This surprising, diverse two-hander also made it into the top five of my Top 10 Shows of 2015 so I was excited to receive an invitation to her autobiographical play Skin A Cat at Vault Festival. Having been so blown away by Tether, I worried I would find her other work underwhelming, but Skin A Cat is driven by the same sort of quick-witted, emotionally honest characters on a path of discovery that Tether boasts. Skin A Cat’s not about sport, though. It’s a tale of a stubborn vagina and an epic journey of self-acceptance in a world obsessed with sex. Phenomenal performances and humour tell Alana’s struggle with vaginismus and vaginal penetration with refreshingly frank, honest writing.

Theatre (and Western culture) doesn’t shy away from heteronormative sex, but a main character that hates it due to a psychosexual disorder is most rare indeed. Beginning with her first period on holiday at age nine, we see Alana (Lydia Larson) navigate teenage sexual exploits, several boyfriends, university and her twenties as a heterosexual young woman who finds vaginal penetration excruciating to the point of impossible. Try as she might, it doesn’t happen and the older she gets, the more burdensome and upsetting her virginity becomes. Alana tells her story directly to the audience with support by the excellent Jessica Clark and Jassa Ahluwalia, who play everyone else she encounters along the way, sometimes on mics and sometimes in conventional dialogue scenes, seamlessly switching between the two styles. Larson’s fantastic, perky Alana is genuine, funny and grows up before the audience’s eyes; that and Lynn’s unfettered dialogue cause us to feel like we know her inside and out (#sorrynotsorry) at the end of the 90 minutes.

Lynn’s gift for dialogue and detailed characters within a cleverly framed style shines here, and is generally well supported by director Blythe Stewart. Despite the serious subject matter and the control vaginismus has over Alana’s life, Lynn and Stewart use humour delightfully and liberally in both the writing and staging. Sex, attempted sex and orgasms hilariously abound, along with poignancy, tenderness and dogged desperation. It’s a beautiful balance.

Holly Pigott’s set solely consists of a bed; the pressure of its associated activities dominates Alana’s life. Some of the costume choices puzzle, though. The dungarees that Clark and Ahluwalia wear are androgynous and childlike, and rather old fashioned. Larson wears layers of undergarments that creates a simultaneously sexy and exposing, and completely unsexy and concealing effect – a great manifestation of Alana’s inner conflict.

Skin A Cat evokes belly laughs and empathy, nostalgia and wonder. Though it raises awareness of a psychosexual condition, Lynn manages to not make this an “awareness” play. Instead, it’s a story about growing up, loving yourself and making friends with your body’s quirks. Excellent writing and committed performances in Skin A Cat prove Isley Lynn and the cast are ones to watch.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

You Tweet My Face Space, Theatre N16

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David and Charlotte’s ten-year relationship is on the rocks. He’s struggling with an addiction that’s pushing her out of his busy life, but David’s social media and internet habits aren’t allowing him to give Charlotte the attention she deserves. When an indiscretion on a night out is immediately published and Charlotte leaves him, David vows to quit cold turkey. It’s not so easy though. As the personified apps crash his peace and quiet, this romcom takes a surreal, satirical turn. With bitingly funny moments, good comic timing and some good performances, this surprising one-act is a great giggle for those of us enslaved by technology.

Tom Hartwell is the bookish, quiet David who’s frustration becomes real and relatable. He’s wonderfully foiled by characters such as Hotmail (suave, aloof Hadley Smith), self-obsessed Instagram (girl next door Ellie Goffe with a heart of gold) and Facebook (subtly vicious Evan Rees). Tinder (Kate Okello), Farmville (the wonderfully dour Katie Dalzell) and a couple of others join in to try to persuade David to stay in the internet realm, and some glorious clashes ensue with plenty of digital pop culture in-jokes. Pacing is excellent, as is the energy and ensemble work of the cast.

Hartwell is also the playwright; he has good intuition for the relationship story arc that frames and justifies the chaos, though the moral is a rather obvious one and not particularly profound. His dialogue is punchy and fun, regularly inducing laughs. (It would be interesting to see what his serious material is like.) Director Anne Stoffels has her hands full with a large cast in a small space, but usually manages to keep the action moving without messiness.

For a social media comedy, You Tweet My Face Space is well crafted and even though some of the performances are weaker than others, it reminds us to take a break from our online worlds and interact with people face-to-face more often. It’s a fun, frivolous piece with some excellent moments and a bit of post-holiday season fun.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

in/out (a feeling), Hope Theatre

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Sometimes, simplicity in narrative structure is more effective than twists, heaps of characters and subplots. Storytelling has been a powerful medium for time immemorial. in/out (a feeling) starkly depicts young, Eastern European woman Blue working in a London brothel after promised a cleaning job. Her client Ollie is a coked-up, suburban lad out for his mate’s stag do, but their encounter changes both their lives, at least for a little while. This two-hander is a brutal depiction of sex trafficking and its uncomfortable nearness to us all, but unblinkingly focuses on the delicate humanity of these two characters through interweaving, storytelling monologues. Excellent performances and Andrew Maddock’s sophisticated wordplay and use of rhythm both captivates and horrifies in this outstanding production with few, if any, faults.

Nicholas Clarke and Alex Reynolds are Ollie and Blue. Though rarely addressing each other directly, their chemistry is still tangible. Clarke’s character has a more interesting journey, from lad’s lad to articulate romantic to devoted boyfriend; Reynolds’ is subtler but more devastating. Both have fearless, vulnerable presences and expressive eyes that pierce the audience to the core during extended sequences of direct address. This is a small, intimate play in a similarly sized venue, but these performers fill the room with intensity and then some. The audience feels like they really know them by the end: a remarkable feat.

Director Niall Phillips and lighting designer Çağla Temizsoy put the stage/bed in the round with harsh blue and red lighting. The set design, presumably by Phillips, is similarly harsh and animalistic: white paint slashes the black walls, strips of red fabric hang from the ceiling like intestines. It’s a nightmare to us, but it’s Blue’s reality. Small buckets, like the kind children play with at the beach, dangle at head height. They aren’t filled with sand, though. It’s Ollie’s perpetual supply of cocaine that he lovingly shares with Blue and frantically sniffs during descriptions of his all-night binges. By the end of this 70-minute play, there’s white powder everywhere.

Along with the performances, Maddock’s language is the star of the play. Evocative rhyme hints at spoken word at times, at others his prose dances with colours, imagery and Blue’s memories of a happier life. We meet several other characters through their storytelling: Blue’s pimp, Ollie’s friend Connell, and others. The double meaning and repetition of “in, out” innocuously describes breathing, then the other bodily function that dictates the rhythms of Blue’s existence. Maddock’s ability to wow the audience with his facility of word choice, sentence structure, rhyme and repetition easily tips into the terror that these characters experiences; this is proof of an extraordinary gift with words and evocative storytelling.

Though building awareness of the closeness of human trafficking is clearly the primary purpose of this piece (Do you actually know your neighbours’ isn’t a brothel? I don’t.), in/out (a feeling) could be about anything at all and the language would still have it’s power. This is a production that needs to be seen, but it feels it would lose its intensity in a larger venue. A good portion of the actors’ power hinges on eye contact, which is easily lost in a bigger space. But in/out (a feeling) needs to be seen by more people – by everyone. And it’s a stunning piece of theatre as well as a vital one.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Shakespeare as You (Might) Like It, Rosemary Branch Theatre

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Four hundred years ago this April, Shakespeare died. A bunch of academics decided to take advantage of this bizarre anniversary and launched Shakespeare 400. It’s a great excuse for a nationwide Shakespeare celebration, but few of the involved events appear to acknowledge that the celebration is of his death and that he most definitely would write no more. Shook Up Shakespeare hasn’t let this fact bypass them, though. Their 45-minute Shakespearian cabaret mash up, Shakespeare As You (Might) Like It, is a quad centenary wake celebrating some of the Bard’s best female roles and the chaotic spirit of Elizabethan and Jacobean performance conventions.

Performer/creators Roseanna Morris and Helen Watkinson energetically and easily flip from Shakespeare’s verse to contemporary audience banter. Their show doesn’t have a plot, but involves party games, cakes, wine, singing and audience interaction as well as some cracking excerpts. In the intimate Rosemary Branch Theatre, it’s hard to hide but after the initial refreshments, party bags and taking a register, it feels more like a group of friends out for a laugh so people willingly volunteer. There’s a hint of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) but with less structure, though it doesn’t feel like it needs it at such a short length.

Morris and Watkinson, as well as being friendly, charismatic and unintimidating, are excellent performers. They perform three scenes and at a push, the Desdemona/Emilia scene is the best but the other two are still fantastically endowed with a seemingly-easy commitment. Though not the best of singers, they confidently carry the Willow song. They switch their tone on a pin, which is truly lovely to watch.

Shakespeare As You (Might) Like It is their debut show as a company and as fun as it is, it could use some developing. With more material it will probably need more shaping and a more clearly outlined purpose/message, but Morris and Watkinson are natural talents with clear passion for sharing Shakespeare’s work with joy rather than quiet reverence.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Big Brother Blitzkrieg, King’s Head Theatre

Lots of things seem like a great idea at uni. Some of them are genuinely good ideas. A great deal more aren’t. Writing a play about Hitler in the Big Brother House is one of the latter. In 2014, Newcastle University students Hew Rous Eyre and Max Elton founded Bitter Pill Theatre to produce their debut play, Big Brother Blitzkrieg, at Edinburgh Fringe that year. With a couple of other shows now under their belt, they bring their popular first production to London. Meant to somehow satirise Big Brother and Hitler, this stereotype-driven piece doesn’t follow any sort of consistent narrative logic and doesn’t manage to rise to satirical humour. The performances are very good despite the character limitations, but the script comes across as a drunks, nonsensical idea that would have been better off forgotten.

When Hitler fails to kill himself after his final rejection from art school, he wakes up in the garden of the Big Brother House during its final season. True to life, no one watches the programme anymore and the contestants are just in it for the money. Bafflingly, none of them no who Hitler is, even the educated, middle class housemates. Clearly this is a world where WWII never happened, but I’m not sure what point that’s meant to make. Similarly, the plot follows what I imagine to be standard Big Brother events: evictions, competitions, surprises and character clashes that are largely unfunny and offer no new perspective on the show or reality TV format. Though the story defies the laws of Physics through the use of time travel, this element is wholly neglected.

The cast are very good, or at least at playing their respective stereotypes. Stephen Chance is an expressive, quick-witted Hitler with no idea of how to deal with charming, bouncy Essex lad M-Cat (Kit Loyd) and ageing queen Felix (Neil Summerville). He finds kinship in corporate PR and Tory Lucy (Jenny Johns), a delightfully despicable Katie Hopkins homage. The house is completed with femi-gendered Charlie (Hannah Douglas) who has some cracking exchanges with Lucy, and the bland as plain toast housewife Rachel (Tracey Ann Wood), who Hitler immediately distrusts. The combinations invites inevitable situation comedy but again, it’s not sophisticated enough to count as satire, or have any sort of message at all. A shame, as the actors all seem to have great potential but are stuck playing two dimensions.

The show would suit a much smaller format, like a reoccurring sketch as part of a comedy show limiting each slot to ten minutes. About half an hour in, Big Brother Blitzkrieg already feels too long. There were a few good lines, but in 75 minutes, a few isn’t enough to save this play even with the hardworking cast. Despite the commendation these young practitioners deserve for setting up a company whilst still studying and keeping it going for nearly two years, part of artistic development is knowing when to let an idea go. This is a production that needs to retire in favour of more advanced, relevant work.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

The Long Road South, King’s Head Theatre

The Civil Rights movement in America was time of turbulence and violence but both black and white activists retaliated with their passion for equality. The issue divided individual families across generations, recreating the conflict on a microcosmic level. Paul Minx’s The Long Road South recreates this excruciating tension through close examination of the dysfunctional Price family in suburban Indiana.

Stay at home Carol Ann (Imogen Stubbs)is mother  to teenager Ivy (Lydea Perkins) and married to supermarket manager Jake (Michael Brandon). They are the only family in their neighbourhood able to afford “help”, black couple Grace (Krissi Bohn) and Andre (Cornelius Macarthy). On the surface, these characters are aspirational and progressive. That American Dream veneer doesn’t hold up for long, though. The characters’ gangrenous innards seep out, creating a kitchen sink drama with excellent moments, dramatic themes  and characterisation akin to Miller and Williams, but lacks the linguistic sophistication of these revolutionary writers and a few too many twists and turns for a one-act play.

The cast is generally strong, with Brandon outshining the rest when he eventually appears in Willy Loman-esque glory. Perkins has a grating vocal quality that, though appropriate to the lying, manipulative character, was nails on a blackboard after a few scenes. Bohn and Macarthy are good foils to each other with a lovely chemistry and sharp edges that sporadically pop out, adding to the dissonance. Stubbs is the tragic heroine, trapped in her house by alcoholism and the memory of an institutionalised child. This lot are a close-knit ensemble, an extended family with all the complexity of a real life one. Unfortunately, the accents spanned the country rather than uniting this family in a common place.

Director Sarah Berger skilfully uses the irregular playing space and space to enhance tension. Rarely touching or even close to each other, this shows the power of religious belief in these characters constantly aware of Satan’s temptations. Adrian Linford’s sunny back garden with its perfectly mowed grass and pastel BBQ juxtaposes the family’s chaos. Minx has an instinct for conflict, but the production’s subtlety comes from the performances rather than the dialogue. There’s no overt moralising or thickly laid Americanisms, just the characters’ genuine need to do what they think is right.

The Long Road South is a quite the good script by a writer with plenty of promise and a great cast. It’s a good reminder of a crucial period of American history, and that monumental change can wreak havoc on the closest of family units. The cast and the characters’ individual stories are certainly the best features here, but the other production elements aren’t far behind.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Auld Acquaintance, Bread & Roses Theatre

Imogen and Jake are a trendy, young couple with a new born daughter. It’s nearly Christmas and they are at their mother’s house with Jake’s brother Rob and his wife, Natasha. Everything should be perfect, but it’s far from it: Jake and Rob’s mum is dying in a hospice, Imogen has fallen out of love with Jake whilst struggling with post-natal depression, Rob and Imogen hate each other but Imogen and Natasha are old school friends with an intimate secret.

This one act play by Natalie Audley, newly re-worked for London after a 2014 run at Brighton Fringe, still needs some refining. There are some killer one-liners and painfully spot-on insight on fertility and relationships, but an abrupt ending and wordy lines that uncomfortably stumble from the actors’ mouths give the script a weight that goes against it comedic instincts. The pace varies, but feels slower than it ought to. Audley clearly leans towards poetry and language-driven plays, but some trimming here and there would go a long way.

Performances are mixed and take some time to find their rhythm. Charlie Lees-Massey is by far the best of the cast of four as Natasha. Her moment of surrender to Imogen (Emily Ambler) is sexy as hell, and she maintains a consistent energy and believability throughout. Ambler’s best moments are with Lees-Massey, as are Tom Everatt’s at Rob. Matthew Corbett as Jake seems awkward throughout, though this could be a character choice. Director Courtney Larkin deftly moves her actors around the tiny stage without it feeling crowded or blocking sight lines.

There’s still a clunkiness to the script but further expansion and chiselling will refine the dialogue and turn this into a polished piece of contemporary naturalism. The issues presented are crucial ones to examine on stage, especially as they are told from a female perspective and with a 50/50 gender split cast, but more development is crucial to give them the power they deserve.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Top Ten Shows of 2015

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  1. Carmen Disruption 

This Simon Stephens deconstruction bore little resemblance to the opera. Instead, we had a cast of dysfunctional, damaged characters unable to connect with the world around them on any meaningful level. They filled the Almeida with an electric loneliness that grasped the desperate humanity residing deep inside us all before chucking us out, exposed and raw, into the London night.

  1. Pomona

Written by a 27-year-old, Pomona captures the millennial generation in a single play. Frantically set over several levels of dystopian reality and never able to settle, this epitomises those who suffer the consequences of  baby boomers’ past choices.

  1. Light

The first show I ever gave five stars to, after more than a year of criticism. Good intentions and government exploitation address increasing surveillance with stunningly precise physical theatre, object manipulation and light.

  1. Tether 

A two-hander about a blind runner and her guide, this piece is refreshingly unromantic and driven by dialogue and characterisation. This is a simple and powerful piece by a promising young writer set in a world rarely considered by non-disabled people.

  1. Shakespeare & the Alchemy of Gender

A solo performance by veteran Shakespearean, Lisa Wolpe, founder of L.A. Women’s Shakespeare Company. Exquisite extracts of Shakespeare’s most celebrated male roles interspersed with her father’s biography raises important points about performance, gender and family.

  1. Town Hall Cherubs

Theatre Ad Infinitum and Battersea Arts Centre team up to create an immersive, site-specific piece for 2-5 year-olds. Gentle and responsive to the children’s attention spans, this is a bit of a winter treasure hunt around the BAC that stimulates all the senses.

  1. Chef 

Another sharp one-woman show, this one by Sabrina Mahfouz and performed by Jade Anouka. Anouka is a Michelin-star chef who runs the prison kitchen. Part fictional memoir/part foodie homage, this character driven piece cuts an unforgettable character.

  1. This is How We Die

An explosive spoken word/music piece by Canadian Chris Brett Bailey, it defies description and instead must be experienced. A marmite production amongst critics but Bailey’s use of imagery within language is incomparable.

  1. Don Q

A warm and lovely adaptation of Cervantes’ novel, Don Q is an old man’s gleeful adventure story. Four actors multi-role through this story that looks at the way we treat the elderly and the joy of play-acting.

  1. Eclipsed

Set during the Liberian Civil War, the all-woman cast of Danai Gurira’s doesn’t hold back on the experience of women in wartime. This is a brutally raw survival story with the power to leave you shaken, guilty and grateful for the benefits of Western comforts.

Honourable mention: Invisible Treasure

This is an interactive experience that is audience-led, with no actors and no plot. Like a game, the audience is led into a hi-tech room and led through a series of tasks in order to escape. Fun, challenging and frustrating, it makes some powerful points about group dynamics and personal approaches to problem solving.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Lost, Voyager Business Park

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An invitation to review this different kind of theatrical experience landed in my inbox:

Different Breed Theatre invite you to come down to Gary’s Warehouse in Bermondsey and watch an elf (well…he says he’s an elf, the little shit) talk his way out of a hostage-taking situation. Enjoy Anthony Neilson’s hour-long dark Christmas comedy ‘The Night Before Christmas’ performed by West End actors at bargain prices. There’s food from local market traders. There’s beer from local breweries. There’s questionable secret Santa gifts, rude Christmas cards, music, and of course, an elf. You might even get to sit on Santa’s (mildly pervy) knee.

Sounds like fun, right? This will be my last London production before heading north for the holidays and it sounds like a hell of a finale. Instead, what results is a confusing, audience-led, anti-climax with a profound lack of promised food and entertainment.

The press release gives a clear, full address: Unit 3, Voyager Business Estate, Spa Road, Bermondsey, London SE16 4RP. I follow normal procedure by using Maps on my phone when I don’t know a venue. Voyager Business Estate! Sounds exciting, like the spaceship. I rush from Bermondsey Station about 20 minutes before curtain. Time is tight so tension is building prematurely. Surrounded by blocks of new-build flats in the Bermondsey Spa regeneration area, I overshoot the small industrial estate. Consulting Maps verifies this instinct, so I turn around. Triumph! There is a lull in the action driven by success. On the corner by the railway arch, high above my head, a sign: Network Rail Voyager Business Park, Units 5-8. The set placement, in conjunction with lighting, deliberately challenges the audience, particularly if they are short with poor night vision.

The lull doesn’t last long. Five – eight! No! I need number three. The street isn’t well lit and I cross over to check the dark warehouses across the road, as I can’t read the signage. No, they were called something else. It’s 10 minutes to blast off. I ring the contact number on the press release, no answer, so I leave a message. Confusion and stress is rapidly increasing in this immersive, site-specific piece.

Then it dawns on me. This is the moment where the penny drops within the slow plot reveal.

There is no hostage elf. The audience of one is the hostage. A hostage of time, a clever invitation and trendy warehouse theatre. Or am I? That seed of doubt is still present, but I now know that it is the product of years of honest, run-of-the-mill press releases that disclose more to press than they do to audiences. This is a progressive, cutting edge approach to marketing and press management, but one not particularly suited to objectivity.

A ha! Units 1-4, on the other side of the railway line. Another sign stoically sits at the top of the fence. No sign of a spaceship, though. The units are small small, set back in the railway arches. The gates are open so I can walk into the car park with a few vans, strategically using the space to block sightlines and further exacerbate audience tension. Low lighting helps generates a sinister environment.

I face Unit 3. It’s shuttered. No lights. It’s 7:27. The shutter is sturdy and dark, an effective aversion to potential trespassers, symbolizing the shutters around cynics’ hearts in the run up to Christmas. I phone again. Still no answer. I leave another message. I like the agency of using our own phones to make contact and the integration of technology, a powerful reminder of our dependency on mobile phones.

It’s at this point that the experience is a let down. There is no signage, no other characters, nothing. Just me, stood in a dark, empty car park. Do I wait? The plot starts to disintegrate. I explore the space. I even knock on the unit 3 shutter. Is this a test? A puzzle? Will I soon be met by someone who’s running late? Whatever this performance has become, it’s effectively evoking anxiety in the audience. A final phone call goes straight to voicemail. The performance started a few minutes ago but it already feels like it’s ended despite the promised hour-long running time. The sound also seems to malfunction, as there is no music. Stomach growls also pointedly comment on the obvious lack of food and drink. I decide to utilize my autonomy and head home.

As hours pass and puzzlement fails to dissipate, I question the message of the piece. It raises more questions than answers, but perhaps that is the entire point: sometimes, communications and events mysteriously malfunction, but it’s up to us to take control of the spaceship that is our life. A powerful thought.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.