Ethan Doyle Archives - Page 6 of 19 - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“Writers Gareth Brierly and Fiona Creese expertly employ a number of surreal elements”

Sometimes art ends up being startlingly present by accident. Perhaps with how the pandemic seems to have exposed and exacerbated every issue rooted into society, these accidents have been happening more and more frequently, but nonetheless People Show 138: Last Day lands on screens at a prescient moment despite being filmed before lockdown.

This short film from People Show focuses on HR Manager Sidney (Tyrone Huggins) dealing with psychological onslaught of having to make his staff (an ensemble of thirty excellent performers from the University of Roehampton) redundant. As he recounts how he hired his employees, helped them grow, and gave them a voice in the company, the emotional burden of having to now take their jobs away from them consumes him. The guilt is deepened as Sidney is at the same time taking a huge retirement bonus after thirty years at the company, forcing him to grapple with the consequences of whether to serve the interests of the company or its minimum-wage employees.

Writers Gareth Brierly and Fiona Creese, who also directed and assistant directed respectively, expertly employ a number of surreal elements to dramatise Sidney’s burden, such as his employees all handing him clocks to signify how their futures are literally in his hands, or the company’s management board being depicted by villainous sock puppets. These moments help to make the film feel less heavy and elevate the emotional repercussions to corporate actions – a relief as without them there probably wouldn’t be much difference between watching Last Day and just turning on the news.

The film knows when to pull away on surrealism and let reality speak for itself too, aided by Huggins’ weighty performance, Rob Kennedy’s punchy editing, and Jonathan Bloom’s crisp cinematography. The interjection of these grounded moments punctuate the film superbly, delivering a nuanced exploration of the responsibility put on low-level managers to bear bad news while higher-ups never have to face the trauma they cause.

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Apollo 13: The Dark Side Of The Moon

Online via Original Theatre

Reviewed – 11th October 2020

★★★★

“a poignant and prescient story about our connections and divisions”

It’s a little bit mind-blowing to think that last year marked half a century since we first landed human beings on the moon, in technology less advanced than the laptop I’m currently typing this on. It really boggles the brain to think what a short space of time that is in the grand scheme of things, and how exponentially far we’ve come since then.

Or have we? That’s the question Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon asks in this innovative online play from Original Theatre Online.

A mixture of transcripts and dramatic license by writer Torben Betts, Apollo 13 focuses on two different times: the mission itself that took place in 1970 with Fred Haise (Michael Salami), Jim Lovell (Christopher Harper), and Jack Swigert (Tom Chambers), and an interview in 2020 with Haise and Lovell (their 2020 selves are played by Geoff Aymer and Phillip Franks) reflecting on their experience. For those who don’t know or haven’t seen the Tom Hanks film, the Apollo 13 mission became famous after an unexpected fault jeopardises the lives of the astronauts and they along with NASA mission control (voiced by Jenna Augen with impeccable nuance) are forced to abort the moon landing and find a way to get home safely. It’s an inherently dramatic and tense story and Betts’ script knows exactly how to work with it. In using transcripts, it keeps a grounded authenticity to the situation unfolding, reinforcing that these were just real people trying to do a job as we initially see the mundanity of them flipping switches, making calculations, and finding the best way to sleep. It feels as though the fictional elements creep in more and more, building towards the 25 minute period where the ship went round the dark side of the moon, communications went down, and there are no transcripts available. Here, Betts fully flexes the play’s thesis, almost too on the nose: isolated in the midst of a crisis, are there parallels to be drawn between then and now?

It certainly feels like it. Confined and without a sense of control, tribalistic racial tensions begin to spill over between Haise and Swigert, illustrating clearly how little we’ve progressed in some aspects in fifty years, and how high pressure situations have the potential to expose both the best and worst in people.

Our present crisis has allowed Original Online to display stellar ingenuity in the way Apollo 13 has been produced: the actors were supplied green screens and equipment to film at home with provocative remote direction from Alastair Whatley and Charlotte Peters. It’s a testament to the actors’ dedication and generosity in their performances that it’s never even apparent they’re not in the same space, no doubt also thanks to Tristan Shepherd’s tight film direction and editing, driven by Sophie Cotton’s propulsive music.

Apollo 13 could have fairly easily been a dry and dusty retread of a story that many already know. This production capitalises on the context of its development to tell a poignant and prescient story about our connections and divisions.

Online

Reviewed – 18th October 2020

★★★★

“Writers Gareth Brierly and Fiona Creese expertly employ a number of surreal elements”

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

People Show 138: Last Day

Online until 23rd October

Last ten shows reviewed by Ethan:

Reviewed – 11th October 2020

★★★★

“a poignant and prescient story about our connections and divisions”

Or have we? That’s the question Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon asks in this innovative online play from Original Theatre Online.

Apollo 13 could have fairly easily been a dry and dusty retread of a story that many already know. This production capitalises on the context of its development to tell a poignant and prescient story about our connections and divisions.

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by Michael Wharley

Apollo 13: The Dark Side Of The Moon

Previously reviewed by Ethan: