“A haunting and confident debut from Frankie Lipman”
Working the graveyard shift sounds scary, but what happens when it actually goes wrong? Longlisted for the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Bruntwood Prize in 2022, Frankie Lipman’s debut play Wightwater has landed in the vaults of 53Two Theatre in Manchester.
Cleverly set in a fringe radio station, Whitewater follows a has-been radio host, Terie, holding onto the scraps of her career. Hosting the late night slot, Terie settles into The Paranormal Show where classic spooky hits are played and the public can call in to tell their ghost stories. Everything seems to be going smoothly – colleagues who don’t want to help, a regular telling the same story for the 100th time and a constant supply of coffee and biscuits. That’s until a call that seems to echo Terie past, leaves her feeling more than unsettled and leads to unexplainable events.
Isobel Middleton gives a brilliant performance as Terie. She shoulders much of the play’s emotional and narrative weight, guiding the audience through moments of dry humour, loneliness and mounting dread.Supporting her is Dylan Morris as the young, ambitious producer, whose easy realism grounds the piece and offers a glimpse into a generation that’s already looking beyond the studio walls. Barney Thompson’s Station Manager is both infuriating and familiar, the kind of boss whose indifference adds another layer of quiet despair to Terie’s world.
Lipman’s writing is clever and poetic, building tension through atmosphere, subtext and sound. The radio setting is inspired, allowing the small cast to carry such an atmospheric and intimate landscape. The play makes exceptional use of the disembodied voice, blending the uncanny with the mundane rhythms of late-night work. The pursuit of answers is a key part of Wightwater. In the conclusion of the play, there is a hope there would be more answers, more explanation of the past and the present. Perhaps that shows that there was a desire for more of Terie’s story.
George Miller’s lighting wonderfully layers the performance. Bursts of brightness and eerie shadows build tension and shock, jolting the audience at just the right moments. It is impressive to see what is possible in such an intimate space. The setting of 53Two could not be more apt. Nestled beneath Manchester’s railway arches, the venue’s echoing space enhances the play’s claustrophobic tone and further enhances the production.
Wightwater is a haunting and confident debut from Frankie Lipman. It’s a meditation on the ghosts we carry with us, wrapped in the eerie crackle of a late-night broadcast and a great spooky fix the industry needs more of. This is a production well worth tuning in for.
Wightwater plays at 53Two Manchester until 7th November. Tickets are available here.