An ambitiously searching work that explores the cost behind the story.
Badgers is a haunting and shape-shifting play that captures the ethics of telling a story that isn’t your own, the power of folklore and the grip of family dynamics. Performed alone by its writer, Malaika Kegode and underscored with music by her long-time collaborators Jakabol, we are taken with smooth ease through the play’s twisting turns.
The audience is cast in the role of Meles, a failing podcaster who stumbles upon the story of an unsolved disappearance in her own town on its tenth anniversary. Overshadowed by her prize-winning journalist mum, Dorothy, she has had a string of unsuccessful ventures and the allure of the mystery of folk singer Ben proves too much to pass by.
She becomes friends with Ben’s landlady, Bridget Brock, whose family history and enchanting descriptions of folklore becomes a thread that we quickly become drawn up into. There are some fantastic observations about the power of songs and memory as Bridget seeks to protect the song that Ben sought to record. Meles goes to some lengths to get the story she wants and the web of lies that she has built becomes increasingly difficult to escape.
We reach a rather necessary crescendo in the second half as Meles is forced to confront the fallout of the mystery she is seeking to solve. The gruesome murder of a badger and the words ‘witch’ scrawled on Bridget’s door become as much etched on Meles’ mind as ours. However, the tone of this is perhaps not fully deserved given the stakes built across the rest of the play; it isn’t until later that we fully realised the true toll this has taken on Meles. This peak is accompanied by well-crafted lighting and video design by Mike Gunning, Natalia Chan and Christopher Harison respectively. The folklore that Bridget has described almost bleeds off the page into reality as Meles gets caught up into its myth.
As Meles is searching for one story, we discover that the real story she is searching for is her own. There are particularly touching moments in the second half as she begins to bear the personal cost of her journalistic pursuits. She’s berated by her brother, Jack, when she returns to find her dying mum undertaking a spell in hospital in her absence. It’s a sensitive portrayal of progressive illness as Bridget’s words of memory and remembrance begin to sound closer to home. It is really here when Kegode gets into her stride as Meles is left undeterred to finish her work.
There is no doubt that Kegode is an accomplished writer and poet. It’s an ambitious work that mixes a poetic monologue with pre-recorded audio from the play’s other characters, played to a beautiful soundtrack. But one question we are still left searching to answer at the play’s end is why this isn’t a radio drama; there isn’t anything necessarily theatrical in the play’s performance, particularly given its outstanding use of audio and sound design by Jack Drewry. However, if you’re willing, as Kegode invites us in the play’s opening, to get swept up into her powerful words, it’s well worth a watch.
Badgers continues at Bristol Old Vic until 12th September. Tickets are available here.