Category: 2 star

REVIEW: The Murmuration of Starlings

Published on by Ben Breen2 Comments

Rating: 2 out of 5.

A tepid exploration of memory loss that’s easy to forget

The Man, The Boy, and The Girl are hiding from The Predator, a malignant alien that warps their memories and steals their time. The Woman appears to have some sort of protective influence, at least within her house. Whatever its sci-fi thriller marketing might suggest, at its heart The Murmuration of Starlings is a gentle exploration of memory loss, with The Predator representing dementia’s creeping influence. The play’s most affecting moments lie in its intimate domesticity, particularly Jenny Johns’ performance as The Woman, torn between her own reality and The Man’s distorted perceptions. A disjointed narrative fails to tie these moments together, leaving a confused final production.

The use of magical realism – capturing truths about our own world through the fantastical Predator – is original, but only partially successful. In its best moments, The Murmuration of Starlings unpicks dementia’s everyday tragedy. A particularly compelling scene sees The Woman bullied into singing The Man’s favourite song, only for its initial calming effect to backfire into explosive rage. The Boy (Jonny Dagnell) and The Man (Steve Hay) discuss the pursuing alien: “no one sees him coming”, before ending up “trapped in this version of ourselves”. These moments deliver genuine emotion and empathy.

Loose narrative connections prevent this impact from building across the show, afflicted by a lack of momentum. This isn’t just an overarching issue, but a problem within most scenes: it’s rarely clear why characters are in a particular situation, or what they aim to achieve. Perhaps this is an attempt to capture The Man’s inner turmoil, but it comes at the expense of entertainment and engagement. This lack of coherence feels more like a symptom than a choice, leaving scenes unable to build meaningfully on one another. A recurrent theme is unravelling the mystery of a red book and the number 28 bus, which does pay off towards the end but is neither present nor important enough to build a two-act show around.

This is a shame, because some clever ideas are on display. The Man and The Boy wear identical outfits, colour-swapped on their top halves, hinting at a deeper connection between them. An opening scene invites the audience to guess who is really losing their memory, before slowly drawing back the curtain. Behind the stage, a projection screen is put to good use, particularly when capturing the titular swirl of starlings during The Man and The Boy’s first meeting. The fact that no character is named builds an otherworldly, discordant atmosphere.

There’s an irony in a play about losing one’s memory being so forgettable, but that’s the reality of The Murmuration of Starlings. Jenny Johns’ excellent performance, along with some clever design choices, isn’t enough to hold its disjointed scenes together, robbing the narrative of its promised impact.

The Murmuration of Starlings plays at Seven Dials Playhouse until 14th March. Tickets can be purchased here.

REVIEW: The Uncontainable Nausea of Alec Baldwin

Published on by graceboagmatthewsLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

A stylish and ambitious production, scuppered by its self-image.

Written and directed by LeCoq and RADA trained Tommaso Giacomin, The Uncontainable Nausea of Alec Baldwin is labelled an ‘absurdist, existential examination… marinating in the violence, complicity and paradox of modern life’. The cast of five- James Aldred, Stefanie Bruckner, Mathias Augusted Ambjør, Manuela Pierre, and Bartel Jespers, all having trained at RADA or Le Coq- were commanding, skilled, and engaging performers. The company itself, TG Works, is a highly physical theatre company featuring migrant-led and cross-disciplinary work. In the piece, movement was precise, a beautiful spectacle in a beautiful space. The stage was initially covered in a bright yellow fur carpet, with what seemed to be a huge yellow beanbag which later became an absurdly large, red inflated chair and a single plastic chair hanging from the ceiling. A sign upstage left read ‘Smile, you’re on camera’ and Pierri stood downstage left in front of a computer, ready to handle projections and camera work throughout the piece. It was immediately clear we were in for a confrontational ride.

In the promising opening scene, Alec Baldwin (no, not that one – although he was mentioned), played by Aldred, sits with his back to the audience and speaks into a microphone. Projections show an AI bot giving Alec advice on how to deal with his guilt. This section is humorous, a relatable insight into the current online climate. It is intriguing, we wonder if the performers are talking about Hollywood’s Alec Baldwin, and we wonder where this conversation goes. Instead of exploring further, we are plunged into absurdist dream land. A somewhat clown-esque hoover routine and a massive piñata head later, we don’t know where we are. There is a crazed German woman (Bruckner), a confusing but well-observed caricature of her ‘real’ character, and a lot of Pierri filming the stage space, projected onto the back screen. It felt like too many cooks in the confrontational kitchen. Perhaps more time to linger on the particular points made would have made this a more accessible, engaging piece, but long monologues of relative nonsense and skirting around Baldwin’s problem made for a frustrating middle section. The desire to reflect the overwhelm of life in 2026 is understandable, but in this case comes across as somewhat condescending to its willing audience. An enjoyable choreographed dance break ended this dream sequence, it provided energy and a change of pace to the intentional mess.

We returned throughout to the AI advice, getting closer and closer to finding out what really happened to Alec Baldwin. A series of AI generated scenes played out to describe the events. These were interesting, eerily humorous and skilfully played. Bruckner, Ambjør and Jespers created funny characters and showed the ridiculously literal nature of the scenes with ease. The piece then ended with two monologues, describing the true events and closing out the story. These were necessary, as there had been limited clarity throughout the piece, but they were long and static, perhaps overly wordy. It was an appropriately unsatisfying ending considering the play’s themes. This was indeed a piece that confronted the audience’s complicity in the face of war and violence. It was a shame that this was clouded by an over-ambitious amount of themes and self-indulgently elaborate absurdism.

This show runs at New Diorama Theatre until the 24th March. Tickets here.

REVIEW: 1.17am, or until the words run out

Published on by rosagatleyLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

A complex exploration of grief and friendship that never quite takes off  

It’s late. Katie is sorting through her brother’s bedroom while a party she wasn’t invited to thumps upstairs. She’s interrupted by Roni, and what follows is a tense standoff between two old friends in a dead man’s room. Written by Zoe Hunter Gordon and directed by Sarah Stacey, 1.17am or until the words run out is an intimate depiction of grief and friendship that eventually packs a punch.

The production creates an immediate sense of atmosphere: a messy bedroom (thoughtfully designed by Mim Houghton), distant basslines and onstage smoking frame a fraught confrontation between two girls with a long, complicated history. Hunter Gordon’s knotty, fast-paced script demands a great deal from its actors. The challenge with these two-hander friendship dramas — particularly in an hour-long format — is establishing the bond between the characters before the argument takes over. Without that foundation, the audience is left watching a conflict they’re told is important without fully feeling its stakes.

Here, the connection never quite lands. The characters don’t feel fully fleshed out until the final stretch, when key details begin to click into place — but by then the play is ending. Much of Roni and Katie’s shared past relies on distant memories, and the moments of intimacy intended to offset the confrontation feel tentative and underdeveloped. There are pacing issues, too. The play opens at a pitch of high tension, with Katie immediately combative and Roni overly conciliatory. We sense significant history, but are still searching for our way in. After a long plateau, the action only truly accelerates in the final fifteen minutes — and then it’s over.

Actors Cathrine Ashdown (Katie) and Eileen Duffy (Roni) work hard with the material. Ashdown is particularly compelling, delivering a tense, childlike Katie perpetually on the brink of collapse. Duffy takes longer to define Roni, initially leaning on repetitive gestures and hesitations, but grows in clarity as the play progresses. In the closing moments she finds flashes of real beauty and defeat. Again, however, these revelations arrive just as the curtain falls.

This is frustrating because the play gestures toward genuinely interesting questions: what happens when the people we love turn out not to be who we believed they were? How does that reshape our memories of them? Can we ever return to earlier versions of our relationships — and should we want to? These themes feel richer than some of the surrounding material, including brief, underdeveloped references to class differences and controlling relationships. Ultimately, it’s a play with clear promise but an uncertain focus. I’d happily watch the final twenty minutes again.

REVIEW: Absence of Youth at Golden Goose Theatre

Published on by reviewsbymeganLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

An interesting premise – with sadly, an absence of anything new to say

Absence of Youth is a short 45-minute play, centring on five characters who have been thrown together in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, who all have a different experience of surviving in this new world. The show opens on a simple but well-chosen set, table and chairs, blankets and wooden boards to close up the windows; classic hallmarks of zombie apocalypse media. The show utilises an audio track to provide the premise for the zombie outbreak and then we are quickly introduced to the characters who have lost their friend in an attack and picked up a mysterious, injured stranger whom they aren’t sure whether or not to trust. 

From the outset, and the marketing, I expected a tense, poignant play drawing parallels with lost youth of Covid and what it means to grow up in a constant state of fear. However, sadly this isn’t what an Absence of Youth offers in the end. As the play progressed, cracks started to appear and it ultimately led it to a rather lacklustre finale, which left the audience with more questions than answers. 

The main flaw of the play is that it lacks something new to say. In a time when we have an oversaturated zombie apocalypse media landscape, The Last of Us, 28 Years Later, we’ve been inundated with these stories and so, if you want to use zombies you need a compelling reason to do so. Absence of Youth lacks this, and although there are moments you can see it trying, it falters and never manages to stick the landing. The use of the tennis ball, green, luminous, with a smiley face as a symbol of their lost youth, is strong at a point, but is then quickly lost and moved on from. The age of the characters is never made clear, nor how long the outbreak has been going on, so whether their youth has truly been lost isn’t obvious. 

The other problem is the pacing. 45 minutes should feel really tight and like every second of dialogue is being used well, but we seemed to fly past interesting things and linger on moments that didn’t add to the story such as sleeping or lighting a fire. The character of Alex, who disappears at the start of the play, and the acting here by Arinze Eke is a real delight, but we don’t have a chance to get to know him before his departure or understand the history behind his mental torment. 

The play attempts to find conflict between the characters of Sarah and Henry, who have had different experiences of the outbreak, but this never feels sincere or tense enough as we don’t get into the real weeds of the character dynamics and how the have-nots experienced the outbreak. It unfortunately feels rushed and underdeveloped. 

This isn’t to say the show is without merit. There are some really lovely moments between characters, especially when they interact with the minimal set dressing pieces such as the fire, and the aforementioned tennis ball. However, there aren’t enough of them to make us care about these characters, which ultimately means the climax of the show, which should be a dramatic shooting, doesn’t land. With some work on the script, there could be something here, but sadly, it’s just absent, as yet. 

REVIEW: Ghost Grandma

Published on by paddycardwellLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

A promising and ambitious premise is unable to compensate for uneven writing and heavy-handed punchlines

As the audience is ushered upstairs into the theatre at the Hen and Chickens pub in Islington, we are handed a copy of the programme as staff say, “sorry for your loss.” Whilst still finding our seats, we can see the cast silently pacing back and forth at what appears to be a funeral wake, thus setting the scene for Arista Abbabatulla’s new play Ghost Grandma, co-written by Anamika Srivastava and Pallavi Kumar.

The play begins with Dee, played by Srivastava, attending this wake, only to find out that her formerly estranged grandmother has left her a large house in her will. Dee is then forced to reckon with the typically tedious legal processes that come with inheritance, but with the added complication of being haunted by the ghost of her late grandma. The pair attempt to fend off eccentric tenants, covetous neighbours, and conniving council members, all the while attempting to resuscitate any semblance of a relationship they may be able to have with one another.

It is an engaging and thoughtful premise, however all of the interweaving plot points unfold in such a sudden and slapstick manner that they leave little room for emotional depth or exploration. For example, the character of Dee is not given the development she deserves and is instead reduced to near-caricature, with an insistence on melodramatic and unrealistic gags and what feels like a dated obsession with selfies and social media. The supporting cast suffer a similar fate; most of their stage time is taken up by exaggerated punchlines or clichéd misdeeds, allowing them neither the space to come across as a genuine villainous presence nor to provide effective comic relief.

And therein lies the main issue with Ghost Grandma. Marketed as a comedy, it struggles to maintain any consistent comedic impact. Despite the cast’s evident commitment, the script and direction leave many jokes falling flat, and the actors’ often overstated delivery of punchlines makes the tonal shifts that come later in the play all the more jarring and uneven.

Despite this, Selina Patankar, who plays Grandma, stands out as the most engaging and consistently funny character, with much of her humour stemming from quick quips and retorts in her conversations with Dee. These quieter interactions provide the show’s most effective moments of laughter and pathos, and the play would have benefited from more of them, as opposed to the loud physical comedy relied upon by the supporting characters.In her conversation with A Youngish Perspective, the play’s directors and writers stated that “in the UK, South Asian culture is often known for its food and places, but the way people actually live is frequently misunderstood. We wanted to bring these authentic experiences to the stage.” This commitment to telling a distinctly South Asian story is a welcome one, and it is refreshing to see a play that endeavours to portray the lived experiences of British Asians without relying on stereotypes, while still retaining cultural specificity. Unfortunately, over the course of its hour-long runtime, the play is not quite able to make its characters feel fully fleshed out or to grant them the humanity and tenderness it valiantly aims for.

REVIEW: BIG Gospel Choir at Christmas

Published on by anulichangaLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

An underwhelming church gospel service that falls short of festive promises. 

BIG Gospel Choir at Christmas promises to be heart-warming, with stunning vocals. With some shining moments, it ultimately underdelivers.

Kings Place’s wood-panelled Hall One feels like the perfect setting for a gospel concert. The BIG Gospel Choir enters in black robes with graphic yellow markings, later revealing black formal wear. Interactive from the start, the choir encourages the audience to their feet, clapping and two-stepping to gospel classics. Whilst the audience seems to really enjoy this, the shallow rake in the space means shorter patrons and those less able to stand are immediately left with an obscured – or no – view.

With just eight singers, BIG Gospel Choir’s energy levels are impressive. Accompanied by a mixture of backing track and live guitar, drums, keys and electric organ (Musical Director Ainsley Johns), the sound is ambitious. Frequent technical issues mean the volume levels of the handheld microphones are discordant, impacting the blend of harmonies. This shows all too clearly on the faces of the singers, pulling the audience out of the festive setting.

Most of the first set is church gospel in style, with a soloist leading repeated choruses in each song, ad-libbing and belting their hearts out. Choir Director Gail Windrass promises “the church experience”, inviting audience members to speak and interact with each other. Whilst this is wholesome, the performance feels too much like a church service and not enough like a concert. With the repetitive call and response, there are very few songs per set, and transitions feel under-rehearsed or rushed. Most disappointingly, on multiple occasions singers appear to sing different lyrics to each other, or blatantly not sing at all, as if they don’t know the words.

There are very few Christmas songs in the set, but the undeniable standout is their performance of Silent Night. The singers bring a groove and gospel flair to the lullaby, displaying a rare moment of cohesion as they move together.

An unexpected and rather confusing shift to love songs lacks inclusion at what is billed as a family show, with a section of songs dedicated to couples. However, Jurdine Leonie’s rendition of Alicia Keys’ If I Ain’t Got You is absolutely flawless.

The second set is a combination of African songs, gospel classics (When Jesus Say Yes), and primary school bangers (This Little Light of Mine). This show tries to be too many things, and is only successful in some. Simone Brown leads a deeply soulful Joy to the World that stands out. Brown also shines in her rendition of Amazing Grace, bringing a true hush to the room, only for it to be revamped with a blend of African beats that gets the audience moving again.

Ahead of the finale, the eight singers leave the stage for yet another costume change, promising the band will treat us to a musical interlude. What follows is most of the band watching the organist play, while attempting to get the crowd clapping along. The wait is far too long, allowing much of the energy built up in the room to go cold. The costume change to beige and gold, intended to emphasise the BIG acronym (Because I’m Golden) is not worth the prolonged delay.

BIG Gospel Choir at Christmas is a well-intentioned, optimistic evening that sadly chooses entertainment and interaction over soul and performance.

REVIEW: Precipice

Published on by jaketurnerchanLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

“A very interesting premise is not expanded upon, only explained” 

A tower in Greenwich overlooking the Thames sits at the centre of Timelapse Company’s debut musical Precipice. Following two distinct timelines—pre- and post-apocalypse—and set to an “electro-folk” score, its premise promises something original, exciting and potentially innovative. Unfortunately, the originality begins and ends there, as the show spends much of its two-hour runtime explaining what has already been written in the programme.

After a sombre recording of a person tracking their own survival and stumbling upon the infamous tower block, the show begins on a slightly jarring note: it jumps straight into a makeshift living-room concert where we are somewhat introduced to our cast of the future—a cohort trying to live out of the tower block, giving us a ham-fisted rendition of the events that have come before. Some musical numbers include lyrics listing Monopoly pieces; another relies on a chorus repeated four times. It feels as though the show’s lyricism, especially in this first half, lacks precision.

The audience is initially addressed directly, giving the impression that we are part of the room—an interesting idea that is, unfortunately, abandoned immediately after this opening moment. What follows is an interweaving of this ensemble singing to explain the plot with a present-day timeline following a couple moving into the apartment.

This couple are believably unremarkable and comfortably middle-class, with one-liners about Waitrose and Pret subscriptions that seem intended to carry the weight of the show’s promised dark comedy. I must admit, when the setting was described—paired with the poster design—this was not what I imagined. We spend a large amount of time with these characters, meaning that a play with the potential to look to the future, to humanity, and to our present ultimately rests on the familiar laurels of contemporary life and contemporary musical theatre. The music, too, rarely leans into its “electro-folk” identity, instead gravitating toward well-tested, repetitive musical-theatre forms. Musical theatre is at its best when inner lives and worlds are revealed; here, attempts are made, but they feel underbaked, resulting in an unmemorable soundtrack.

The second half is stronger in most respects. The future ensemble experience conflict when the power goes out, and for the first time I found small moments where these characters resonated. This was largely due to performance: a brief moment where Eric Stroud’s character lifts a plant in a particular way tells us more about him as a greenhouse worker than much of the script does. The intimacy of these moments made me realise how much characterisation had been left unexplored.

Holly Freeman is the unquestionable standout. Her performance is understated, and her tentative approach to the difficult situation Emily faces makes her a character you can genuinely feel for and understand. Her singing is also incredibly smooth. The on-stage instrumentation, too, hints at what the show’s sound could have been. The cast are unquestionably multi-talented, playing multiple instruments and generally singing well; it’s a shame the material isn’t focused enough to make the subject matter of their songs as expansive as their abilities.

It feels as though the team came up with the concept of Precipice, and the result is an effort to fill in the blanks. I wanted to know who these characters were, what brought them to the tower, how they coped, whether Emily truly left the city. Some of the more questionable science of the post-apocalyptic scenario would be forgivable if the play spent less time justifying itself and more time fleshing out the characters and the world they inhabit.

This show runs at New Diorama Theatre until 13th December. Tickets here.

REVIEW: Shiraz

Published on by Natalie BorensteinLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

An unimaginative tribute to an imaginative festival

The Shiraz Arts Festival took place in southern Iran between 1967 and 1977. Instituted by  Queen Farah Pahlavi, who is now 86 years old and still living in exile, the festival was  designed to function as a “a melting pot of nations… a meeting place of East and West.”  It was extremely popular while it lasted, featuring everything from traditional Persian  passion plays to fruity American jazz. Performances started at 10am and continued until  2am the next day. But the festival died with the onset of the Revolution. Ayatollah  Khomenei issued a fatwa against it in 1978, declaring the whole affair “culturally decadent  and un-Islamic.” All surviving records remain inaccessible in Iran due to the ongoing ban.  The rest have been destroyed.  

Staging a dance tribute to this controversial festival, as Armin Hokmi has done, is in itself a bold gesture deserving of praise. When Queen Pahlavi was interviewed by British media outlets in 1969, they asked her why she chose the city of Shiraz. One of the reasons she gave was that Shiraz had “survived like an oasis, and an oasis in our region is really a  gift.” These are, once again, precarious times for both Iranian nationals and members of the Iranian diaspora, so the fundamental significance of Hokmi’s decision should be acknowledged. He has attempted to restore a piece of the oasis in Sadler’s Wells, London. Bravo – truly.  

All this being said, Hokmi’s choreography is sadly unimpressive. After five minutes you  have seen everything there is to see: a handful of dancers pulsating to a percussive rhythm within the confines of a white square. In the programme notes, this is presented as a revolutionary form of hypnotic minimalism. In reality, it is an avant-garde cliché pushed to a repetitive extreme. As another (somewhat indelicate) audience member put it:  wiggle wiggle wiggle. These kinds of arthritic configurations are nothing we haven’t encountered already. Shiraz might be marketed as a “new vision”, but it fails to reinvent the wheel when it comes to modern aesthetics. Stockhausen, Xenakis and associates had their moment of glory back in the 60s. Hokmi’s avant-garde imaginings are no longer avant; in 2025 they are now regressive.  However, an emphasis on percussion and trance does make Hokmi’s piece a fitting tribute to a bygone Persian festival. Persia is the culture of the whirling dervishes, Sufis of the Mevlevi order who performed spiritual dances in order to connect with god. It is also the culture of the tombak (or zarb), a versatile drum used in centuries of folk and classical music. Since ancient times, there has been a connection between the Persian people and the divine mysteries of rhythm. During Yalda, a pre-Zoroastrian celebration of the sunrise after the longest night of the year, Persians beat their drums and danced. If nothing else,  Hokmi’s Shiraz succeeds in recalling such traditions and reviving the memory of a fascinating festival cut short by political upheaval

REVIEW: Get Down Tonight

Published on by Ke MengLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Nostalgic funk beats meet unconvincing plot

Sunshine, sweat and sound. When Harry Wayne Casey, a record shop staff in Hialeah with an obsession for rhythm, he didn’t know Miami would become the centre of disco and dance music because of him. Now almost half a century later, J. F. Lawton (book) and Lisa Stevens (director and choreographer) transforms the story of KC and the Sunshine Band into a musical.

Initially performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 under the name Who Do Ya Love?, this musical features the love and friendship between Harry himself (Ross Harmon), his good friend Dee (Paige Fenlon) with whom Harry makes a musical with, Gina (Annabelle Terry), and Orly (Adam Taylor) who are both Harry’s love interests. 

The jukebox goes well in a way of seeing it as simply a night to enjoy the playlist with some narrative scenes providing background information.  Almost 30 grooves are played beautifully by a band of four: Kevin Oliver Jones as the keyboard and guitar, Otto Williams the bass, Toby Drummond the drum and percussion, and Nik Carter the reeds. Don’t worry if you can’t recognise all of them, because the ensemble (Aaron Archer, Eve Drysdale, Rachel Kendall Brown, Finley Oliver), together with Stevens’s choreography, immediately transforms Charing Cross Theatre in to a groovy dance hall.

However, if you do have some expectations for the narrative – for how to tell a story in theatre – it remains chaotic and unsettled. Its meta narrative of Harry and Dee making musical with “conventions” may bear an intention, but whatever that intention could be, it fails to deliver. The supposed necessity of those conventions has no clear effect on the narrative, whether it is Harry’s early career life or his friendship with the rest three. The meta loses its justification. Compared to shows like Showstoppers, it neither slightly teases their audiences, nor even just parodies the musical theatre canon.

Put aside the meta element for one moment, the narrative per se is equally problematic. It seems to display multi facets of Harry’s life: his early career in a record shop, his sexuality, friendships and romances with the rest three. However, these “big events” are just simply showcased in a linear order, loosely stitched by songs or the musical -making dialogue between Dee and Harry. One scene rushes off to another like running water with little depth and no grounded character portrayal. There might be one scene or two, e.g. Gina’s “I Want to Be There”, that carries greater emotional volume. But again, without proper build-ups towards that moment, this scene also feels hasty and lightweight.  

Ultimately, while the music and performances shine, the show falters in delivering a coherent or emotionally resonant narrative.

REVIEW: Space Karaoke at Baron’s Court

Published on by Aaron WeightLeave a comment

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Flailing and unsure, a bloated exploration of cosmic awkwardness with fleeting and infrequent moments of excellence. 

The very first impression is strong, a shining silver paneled wall, an actor already on stage quietly reading a book, and droning spaceship sounds to imply our location. The atmosphere is then immediately shattered by – presumably – a member of the production’s team loudly directing their friends not to sit in the bad seats. 

The story gets underway similarly awkwardly with a clash meeting of the characters in the ship’s observation deck, featuring a button that does literally nothing except add more inanity to the already quite heavy handed and clumsy dialogue. Not the best of starts, and it doesn’t improve much either. The badly concealed exposition continues as we watch the pair looking out at the sudden (convenient) asteroid on a collision course with Earth – before it hits, with the lacklustre impact of the lights changing colour, suddenly and unceremoniously. Apocalyptic premise: tick.

A lot of the show consists of tedious separated conversations where we can never tell if the characters are actually speaking to each other or not, or indeed who they even are. I gather (or guess) that was the intention, but it’s done in such an indecisive way that it just ends up being confusing and alienating. The more it happens, the more it starts to grate, unfortunately. I think obfuscated form can be forgivable if it has a resolution later, but here it doesn’t. 

The show muddles on, via a few stumbles in the lines and one very conspicuously missing prop. The intermittent ship announcements serve little more than additional exposition or punctuation; the cliche of the dwindling oxygen supply adds to the tension – just about. 

This might be the perfect venue for this sort of piece, the audience right there at three sides around the stage. This further evokes the feelings of the two space tourists as they get locked in close quarters together, though that nice pre-show background atmosphere doesn’t ever return. The sparing use of SFX and music means that the emptiness of the space setting just pales into literal emptiness behind the performance, sadly. A lot of the scene transitions are clunky too, with only some vaguely sci-fi-ish swooshing sound to underpin the changes, which are themselves swiftly carried out with little grace or consideration, and then everything snaps jarringly back into silence again.

It’s possibly one of the longest 85-ish* minutes I’ve ever experienced, but there are some flashes of brilliance in there too – erudite musings on the nature of human connection and purpose, and some very touching “what is the actual point of us” type moments too. There are some nice laughs dotted through, but there’s definitely more of a lean towards “tragi” for this tragicomedy. Writer Ege Kucucuk definitely has some strong ideas to muse on, but perhaps stronger connecting material will help them land even more impactfully.

As the literal and metaphorical clock ticks by, some of the lines are strange – including a very forced “me too” quip – and there is also a lot of swearing, gratuitously so at times. That said, credit should be given to the two performers, who do the best they can with such a wildly varying script, and both hold the stage beautifully, making nice use of the architecture of the room too at times.

Riain Cash plays the naive and nervy rich boy Dan with conviction and aplomb, though it does waver a little at times. His character’s journey through the piece is nicely considered and demonstrated though, so his arc plays out comfortably and satisfyingly.

Anna Sylvester is fantastic as Mia, the brash brave-faced driving force of the piece. The heartfelt revelations about her tragic past are a clear highlight of the whole show, the raw emotion is right there on display, excellently pitched by Anna. Mia also has a transformation of her own as the story goes on, which is handled wonderfully too.

Eventually it starts to come to an end, with a surprisingly compelling scene, considering most of what preceded it; a vision of an otherworldly space where the two first find themselves, and then each other. Contrary to the flat and uninspiring lighting of everything prior, this cataclysmic scene uses it masterfully. With an unexpected flooding of smoke to seal this ethereal deal, the hazy lights then slowly ebb away unnoticed at first, dimming imperceptibly until they’re little more than candle strength. It’s a nice synchronisation with the story here, making for a really powerful conclusion to the play.

Except it isn’t. There’s another superfluous burst of clumsy exposition and an entirely pointless final scene that references but doesn’t really justify the Space Karaoke itself, and instead just undermines the stark brilliance of the previous scene. Odd and jarring, but then that is the bar set for this piece and I was rather glad when the lights finally did go out completely.