Harry Lister Smith Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“it grips its audience immediately and has us on the edge of our seats”

It’s a Saturday night in April and Anthony is in a flat with eight or so other men that he doesn’t remember the names of. They have been going for eighteen hours – they’re high but not as high as they’ll be by the 36th hour or the 72nd. The twenty minute taxi ride to this flat was enough to start the sound in Anthony’s head, a sound that begins with ticking and then overwhelms. This is what he takes the drugs for to stop hearing. Also to feel his body moving from bone to cartilage. But tonight’s trip holds a surprise. The ghost of George, a young man and former flame of Anthony’s walks across his vision. His body was found the day before on the Tumulus, Hampstead Heath. The police said it was an overdose, that it isn’t even worth investigating. George, in ghost form, tells Anthony he has been murdered. George makes a deal with Anthony. Find my necklace and with it the killer, and I’ll stop the sound in your head. So our thriller begins.

The narrative, written by Christopher Adams, is funny at times, darkly awful at others. The thriller genre is a really original way to investigate the dark underside of the gay chemsex culture, and the dismissive police response to the death of young gay men in a society riddled with homophobia.

Ciaran Owens delivers a strong and convincing Anthony, playful and desperate and driven by something beyond his control. He is joined by Ian Hallard and Harry Lister Smith who create the many characters Anthony meets along his journey. Lister Smith embodies the young boys who go from lovers to victims, and Hallard competently alternates between cheery dog walkers, sinister villains and therapists, all ably directed by Matt Steinberg.

Both Hallard and Lister Smith, in their various guises, wear microphones that echo and distort their voices and lend them a disconcerting plurality. They create a soundscape of audio through objects held against microphones, reminiscent of a radio play made visible (sound design by Nick Manning). Set design (Alison Neighbour) is simple and effective, and Anthony paints the picture for us, making the table and cabinets chameleons in the space.

It isn’t a perfect production – there are moments that feel clumsy and unpolished – but it grips its audience immediately and has us on the edge of our seats, rooting for Anthony’s mission and, in turn, for George and the queer men, murdered but dismissed by the police, that he represents.

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Darren Bell

Agnes Colander: An Attempt at Life

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 18th February 2019

★★★★

“aesthetically seductive with some captivating acting and thought-provoking perceptions”

In an intimate and eloquent production at the Jermyn Street Theatre, an accomplished ensemble of actors and creatives join together to bring to life a long-neglected work by Edwardian playwright, Harley Granville Barker. Using one of his list of possible subtitles, ‘Agnes Colander: An Attempt at Life’, he broaches the sensitive issue of women’s lack of freedom in that era but, more delicately, examines how relationships change when they become sexual. Married at seventeen, Agnes has left an unhappy, respectable marriage to become an artist. When, three years later, her husband orders her home, she moves to France with Otto, a passionate, Danish painter, while being pursued by the smitten Alec.

These three men reflect her emotional struggle and the play follows the considerations and deliberations of a woman whose strength and conviction make her want to shape her own destiny. However, with the examples of writing by Shaw, Wilde and Ibsen freshly censored, he knew that a play which questioned the code of acceptable female behaviour in that society would never be approved by the likes of Lord Chamberlain, so it lay tucked away, unrevised and unperformed, until its recent discovery by Richard Nelson.

This early piece is entirely conversational, consisting of a series of dialogues and sometimes missing a link or background, but Trevor Nunn directs a distinguished cast, engaging our empathy with the characters on a personal level and opening our thoughts on whether it is possible to love with body and soul. Naomi Frederick’s alluring performance as Agnes draws us into her conflicting complexity of thoughts, feelings and ideals and her deeply sincere nature. The ardent Otto is played with increasing coarseness, creating a contrast to Harry Lister Smith’s nuanced, if timorous, portrayal of young and besotted, yet determined, Alec. Emmeline Marjoribanks re-establishes the norms of female conduct in an appealing interpretation by Sally Scott, not without desires but quick to cover them up.

Robert Jones’ set design is an elegant backdrop to his period costumes and detailed props which further combine with the actors’ movements and sublime tones and hues of the lighting (Paul Pyant) to conjure up a semblance of continuous oil paintings. Although this is not a perfectly constructed drama – a little stilted due to the linear form and an ending which is rather too neatly tied up – it is an enjoyable and involving portrait of Agnes. Well-suited to the small stage it is aesthetically seductive with some captivating acting and thought-provoking perceptions.

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 18th April 2019

★★★★

“it grips its audience immediately and has us on the edge of our seats”

The narrative, written by Christopher Adams, is funny at times, darkly awful at others. The thriller genre is a really original way to investigate the dark underside of the gay chemsex culture, and the dismissive police response to the death of young gay men in a society riddled with homophobia.

It isn’t a perfect production – there are moments that feel clumsy and unpolished – but it grips its audience immediately and has us on the edge of our seats, rooting for Anthony’s mission and, in turn, for George and the queer men, murdered but dismissed by the police, that he represents.

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Darren Bell

Tumulus

Soho Theatre until 4th May

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 18th February 2019

★★★★

“aesthetically seductive with some captivating acting and thought-provoking perceptions”

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by Robert Workman

Agnes Colander: An Attempt at Life

Jermyn Street Theatre until 16th March

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: