Through spoken word and biting insight, Ryan Dre Sinclair explores the
contemporary obsession with capturing and sharing every moment
A man sits in a waiting room, self-conscious and awkward. He trips over a chair, plays with his hands. Time seems painful for him, and here, at Theatre Peckham’s Studio, he seems to have nothing but time as he waits for something or someone that apparently has no urgency at all to acknowledge his presence. His body responds as if he feels unwelcome both in the room and under his own skin. And within the confines of this waiting space, his thoughts unravel in front of us.
Written and performed by Ryan Dre Sinclair, NO PHOTOS explores social anxiety, self-image, and visibility in the modern world. Through spoken word and biting insight, Ryan explores the contemporary obsession with capturing and sharing every moment, and the stories we construct about ourselves for image-led social media. Sudden flashes of light blind him as he wrestles with the question of how to experience a moment mindfully while constantly posing and framing it, never quite content until the picture is perfect.
The reflection feels deeply personal, constantly zooming in on Ryan’s own discomfort with being in the picture. He traces how his self-image took shape in his early years, through childhood friendships, crushes and family relationships. The comments and encounters that leave lasting marks during our most impressionable years become part of the lens through which we learn to see ourselves.
What initially seems like an unwavering critique of online visibility, from the normalisation of sharing private moments with strangers, to the culture of like/comment, and all the way to data harvesting, slowly evolves into a softer reflection. Through recollections of moments with his father, Ryan explores the treacherous nature of memory, opening up another side of photography as tangible points of connection with the past.
Directed by Desree, the show feels honest and heartfelt. Ryan Dre Sinclair’s performance leans on pauses, infusing the lines with the natural progression of stream-of-consciousness storytelling. Stylised movements accompany the emotions that seem to pierce him as waves. Metaphor, rhymes and humour add colour to the piece, although the narrative could benefit from more dramatic drive.
NO PHOTOS is still finding its full expressive force. At times, the movement and storytelling feel tentative, as if certain gestures have yet to emerge organically from the performer’s physical and emotional connection to the material. There is a compelling honesty at the show’s core, and a deeper exploration of the relationships with the people in the story and the text’s layers — from distrust to sympathy, from vulnerability to solace — could allow the journey and its shifts to resonate more fully.
In the end, NO PHOTOS is an invitation. It moves from the personal to the cultural, dissecting what a photograph can mean in our contemporary world through the lens of self-image and connection. With a sharper focus, it shall reveal more of what lies beneath the surface of the image