This gorgeous testament to endurance and community has buckets of charm and space for tears, too
Whilst taking her mother to cancer treatment, Katie meets an older gent, George, who she watches shuffle around the hospital ward for hours on end. A cardio zombie George is not; instead he’s training to run the London Marathon in memory of his dead husband, and enlists Katie as his coach. What unfurls is a gleeful and heart-warming quest for self-improvement and activism in the face of impossible grief.
This one woman(ish – you’ll see) show is the brainchild of Katie Arnstein, a West Midlands writer/performer. Her impressive CV lists a trilogy of award-winning plays and a recently released BBC Three show, and the confidence she brings with it is infectious. The Long Run straddles the line between theatre and stand-up, the thrust staging meaning that Arnstein is constantly on the move, swivelling to address the audience. The bare authenticity and lack of artifice is fresh and appealing.
Arnstein is an utterly charming lead. Sometimes, solo shows can get caught up in “””complex””” characters and forget that, to spend an hour locked in a room with someone, they should probably be decent company; Arnstein very much fits the bill. Her high-spiritedness conceals a wicked, dry humour that cuts like a knife through butter. Some jokes may not be for the faint hearted but I, like many others, were caught out guffawing by the razor-sharp jabs that punctuated the show’s heavier moments. It’s refreshing to see an artist so willing to roam rather than tread around their subject matter.
The show is 70 minutes long – in this reviewer’s opinion, the best runtime for a show there is – and a perfect capsule to deliver its message without fluff or blubber. Bec Martin, in her first year as the New Diorama’s artistic director, directs with aplomb and keeps the show zipping along (with some nifty projections) whilst navigating the tricky staging with ease, and Holly Ellis’ lighting design helps the more theatrical moments sing. This production clearly has love and heart coursing through its veins, and it fills the auditorium with the kind of warm, alluring energy that keeps you watching and leaves you with bubbles in the soles of your shoes.
This could have very easily slipped into a sentimental doomfest but all its component parts – its charismatic lead, speedy direction and buoyant wit – makes it not only a hugely compelling piece, but one that is stuffed with pathos and emotion.
On a final note, this show started its life at VAULT Festival, which announced its closure in recent weeks. The success of this show only makes the loss of VAULT all the more sombre, as yet another home for new writing is lost to underfunding. Without the pub theatres and the fringe festivals, we don’t get the Nationals and the Barbicans. Certain members of our current government could do with a little reminder of that.