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Fringe 2009 Reviews (37)
The State We're In
By Zia Trench
Assembly Rooms
****
The art of writing political plays is dying so it is a real pleasure
to welcome this new work from former political journalist Zia Trench,
directed by Justin Butcher, himself a good political satirist.
Ostensibly, The State We're In is a portrait of Brain Haw (renamed
Tommy Price), one of those madmen who set up camp outside Parliament.
Michael Byrne is excellent as an eccentric whose heart is in the right
place, sort of. While he would give his life to feed the starving or
prevent a war, by the end of the play Tommy has only visited his large
family twice in eight years and even missed his much-loved Mum's funeral.
Tommy is placed in front of a bank of provocative photographs and messages,
much to the amusement of the public and irritation of politicians. The
latter are symbolised by left-leaning Gayle Saxton (Diana Walker). She
presents the voice of reasonableness but this masks an iron fist until
Tommy becomes a household symbol and she starts to gush praise.
His other visitors are also female. Long-suffering wife, Julie Higginson's
Sophie, deserves our sympathy as she gathers the washing and for the
umpteenth time, reminds Tommy that he has a family.
Budding journalist, Carmel played by Amaka Okafor does her best for
a frustrating subject who wants to use her publicity potential as much
as she needs him to advance her career.
The ending is uplifting but that is not the point of The State We're
In. Zia Trench has surely written it to highlight the 3,000 new
laws introduced by the current Government and the way in which they
are steadily encroaching on our freedoms.
If you care about society and have concerns about the powers of police
and State, pop along to the Assembly Rooms. If not, see it anyway to
learn why you should be concerned.
Philip Fisher
Unit 46
Complete Wellness Productions
C Chambers Street
***
The humble unit is a small box-apartment in a block. Cheap, efficient
and simple but not necessarily the place in which most people would
choose to live. Unit 46 is the home of a proud and bitter man, angry
at a life he disagrees with and which holds little in the way of a future
for him. In unit 36, directly below, a similarly angry woman is curious
about who the man above her is and why he keeps avoiding her. The play
offers the audience a peek into the lives of these two lost and lonely
souls as they go about their evening routines and contemplate their
petty annoyances and the mistakes that have led them to this point.
It's an admirable choice to have the cast occupy the same space, which
itself only emphasises the bleakness and lack of identity these homes
possess. The two players weave in and out of each other's monologues
to tell an interesting if never truly intriguing story. It's a treatise
on loneliness and being unable to reach out to others, but unfortunately
the result is too sporadic and the characters, despite the gusto with
which they are performed, are still almost as bland as their surroundings.
Graeme Strachan
The Unravelling
By Fin Kennedy
Mulberry Theatre Company
The Space @ Venue 45
***
Fin Kennedy's third collaboration with Mulberry School for Girls in
East London produces a glowingly imaginative play about the power of
storytelling. A fabric shop in East London has withstood the encroaching
of modernity on all sides: its seamstress ensnares her customers by
beginning a story for them every time they visit but never finishing
it, "like a hook in the heart". But terminal illness cuts
her short, and she charges her three teenage daughters each to tell
a story, to determine who is most worthy to inherit the shop. The fairytale
setup is nicely undercut by the daughters' extreme modern-ness: one
a Camden goth, one an Oxford Street princess and the youngest still
playing with dolls and being called Squirt. Their "innits"
cut through the narrative's sentiment hilariously.
But sentimental it is, in the best way. With the help of three narrators,
they unwind great rolls of embroidered fabric and with them build cities,
doorways, oceans, forests, and monsters. It's beautiful conjuring: especially
nice is the cut-out London landscape whose shadow projected onto shimmering
orange cloth looks epic. They're tales of death and transformation:
a girl makes a deal with the King of the Underworld (a fearsome ticket
inspector reached by crawling down into the Underground network); another
climbs to the top of a skyscraper where a light, "flashing like
London's pulse", transforms her. The specific places referenced
- Mile End Hospital, Epping Forest - root it in a familiar landscape
and dare us to believe in the existence of wonders on London streets.
Corinne Salisbury
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