Some Day Soon

Hijinx Theatre Company
Coleg Sir Gar , Llanelli
(2002)

You want to see the best Welsh theatre these days?

Then don't go to the theatre. Go instead to a local venue where you can catch any of our community or young people's theatre groups. You will, I guarantee, be moved, stimulated and rewarded far more.

Take, for instance, Hijinx Theatre's latest show, produced primarily for people with learning disabilities. I caught it at Coleg Sir Gar on the edge of Llanelli, where a mixed audience received it rapturously.

And yet it is the simplest of productions.

Four actors play two couples on a few days at the seaside organised by their day centre, the holiday camp. The storyline is straightforward - the days away from families and routine see both couples realise their love for each other.

But the show is pure magic. The sensitive playing (Bethan Mason, Lee Mengo, Gareth Lloyd Roberts and Cler Stephens) is well judged but the key to the success is in the Hijinx teamwork.

This is their 21st anniversary year and three of the founder-members have come together again to create this mini masterpiece - writer Glenys Evans, musical director Matthew Bailey and director Gaynor Lougher (the only one still wholly involved with the company).

What they have made is some thing full of warmth and a massive assertion of everyone's right to make choices about their lives.

Bill and Anne, approaching middle age, have been engaged for years but only when his family decide they will all move away must he decide on his own priorities.

A basic love story like this will be controversial theatre for many parents and carers.

The company's work is supported by Barclays Bank.

This review is reproduced by kind permission of the Theatre in Wales website.

Reviewer: David Adams

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