‘Grills’ is a witty, fresh take on how lesbian women need a place where they can talk to others in the community, past and present.
Chloe Christian, in collaboration with Olivia Dowd, have created a witty, funny piece of theatre which highlights the importance of finding a place where you can be yourself. The play follows four main characters who are working through the archives of the CLCBLG (Camden Lesbian Centre & Black Lesbian Group) to piece together what life was like for past members during the time of the Clause 28. While also, portraying the parallels of how queer women still have difficulties today.
The plot is centred around telling the stories of the struggles queer women faced with the funding cuts and homophobia deep rooted in society with the AIDS crisis. It was clear the writers and team wanted to highlight the struggles of women of all different backgrounds. It was refreshing to see stories being told about all women – trans women, women of colour and the difficulties they face in the workplaces. The friendship between the four characters, Bee, Mo, Jaz and Mal (portrayed by Olivia Dowd, Ishmel Kirby, India Jean-Jacques and Jaye Hudson) was endearing to see the (slight) character development as they learnt more about the archives. However, this could have been more enhanced.
The scene changes with the lighting (Cheng Keng) and sound (Raf Alero) design was imaginative yet over-powering. It was often slightly unknown what was completely going on, as it wasn’t clear it was a transition, which made them seem very random. In addition, I fail to see how these added to the story or what the significance of these were.
The flashing lights for multiple scene transitions were overdone and unnecessary. However, the playfulness of Cara Evans’ set design with the movingable cabinets and light inside them evaluated the show by adding energy to scenes. Although, the Camden People’s Theatre has a generous stage space for a small venue and it could have been used with more finesse.
Throughout the piece, the actors were multi-rolling several different roles, portraying the amount of women who needed a place like CLCBLG in the past and today. However, the execution of this was clunky and messy. There were no costume changes or changes to make it clear what role the actor was playing. Furthermore, the time jump from present time to the 80s wasn’t made clear from the audience perspective.
Overall, the production of ‘Grills’ is a needed and transparent play which has moments of hilarious banter and is perfectly enjoyable. However, with the chaos of the multi-roling, scene changes and lack of development of the main characters made the pacing of the show at times quite shallow. The relationship between Mo and Jaz was cute but would have enjoyed seeing more development of this.