An uplifting, delicate piece that moves the heart. Driven by gripping performances charged with sentiment, effortless humour, and piercing moments, the show unfolds like a waltz with each step echoing the push and pull of a cross-generational relationship.
Eager Freddie has been tasked with bringing reluctant Jack up to speed in a one-on-one ballroom dance class. Jack (John Peters) wants to woo his wife, hoping a smooth waltz might be the first step towards mending a strained marriage. He has lived Freddie’s lifetime three times over. Meanwhile, Freddie (Harvey William Brown) craves company, almost compulsively so, as if constant engagement might keep his scattered brain in line. With one of them stoic to the bone and the other wearing his heart permanently on his sleeve, their encounter feels like a recipe for either remedy or disaster.
Written by Miriam Battye (Scenes with Girls, Strategic Love Play, Succession), Trip the Light Fantastic makes its London debut at OSO Theatre.
This is an intimate production staged in a stripped-back stage with nothing but two chairs and a broom (ballroom dancers will know what this one is for). The show runs for 75 word-heavy minutes, with the drama unfolding entirely through conversation. And yet not a moment drags. Brown and Peters have such instinctive chemistry, and their characters’ contrasting personalities spark so vividly, that the relationship bubbles with wholeheartedness.
There is something endearing about watching generations come together in theatre, both in the audience and onstage. In this delicate story of loneliness, love and intergenerational connection, Battye’s writing explores not only two wildly self-critical, borderline self-loathing men, but also the vastly different ways generations metabolise pain. She examines how cross-generational friendship might open up new ways of seeing −and understanding− both others and ourselves. Her words shift from plain and succinct to brutally raw.
And when the cast take hold of her words, colouring them with their characters’ inner turmoil, their interaction shines with unreserved, technicoloured authenticity. Freddie operates with a has-a-feeling, says-a-feeling vulnerability, while Jack armours himself in stoicism and pulls on a tough exterior to keep emotion firmly corked.
As they take tentative steps towards the waltz, they craft a bond so vivid that it carries the audience along on a rollercoaster with them. In their more throat-tightening arguments, the air in the room grows heavy until the disquiet simmering beneath erupts like lava. Yet they pivot seamlessly into softer, uplifting exchanges, offering flashes of warmth that feel genuine.
Director Ella Straus handles the rhythm with great dexterity. She guides the audience through rapid-fire lines charged with sentiment, and allows long, weighted pauses to let the more piercing moments settle. Sound and lighting are minimal, adding subtle texture to the piece.
Brown and Peters give heartfelt performances. Brown as Freddie sets a quick tempo propelled by no-filter avalanches of words that reveal his inner disquiet. His Freddie is charming and loving, yet deeply self-conscious and fidgety. The frenzy is counterbalanced by Peters’ Jack and his stone-cold restraint. Jack recoils from connection, whether on the dancefloor or in life. “I just want to learn the steps. I’m not about this, centring myself. Loosening my aura,” he insists. His arc is the sharper of the two, and Peters delivers it with precision: it is not only his stiff knees that begin to loosen as he slowly learns how to “invite people in” (another one ballroom dancers will get), not just onto the dancefloor, but into his life.
This is an uplifting, delicate piece that moves the heart. It doesn’t parade a sunny, feel-good friendship. Instead, it embraces the messy interplay between two radically different people with strikingly similar aches, both learning to navigate uncertainty in a world where happy outcomes are not guaranteed, but worth pursuing. Trip the Light Fantastic runs at OSO Theatre, London, 26th February -1 March.