In the Shadow of the Black Dog

Assembly Rooms

Reviewed – 15th August 2019

★★★

“the authenticity of the content shines through in the script”

Masculinity has been under the lens more than ever in the past few years. What it is to be a man, the dangers of toxic masculinity and the male stigma of expressing emotions are all topics that are explored in Daniel Hallissey’s new show. ‘In the Shadow of the Black Dog’ is based on Hallissey’s real experiences, and the authenticity of the content shines through in the script.

The story centres around Alquist, who loses his best friend and has several near death experiences himself. After this turn of events, he is left questioning how to deal with grief and essentially what the value of his life is. The script contains several gut-punching lines such as: ‘Where do men go to grieve?’ Alquist is lost and we follow him on a journey of misjudged impulsive decisions. He speaks of his emotional illiteracy, as we see first hand his inability to deal and cope with his feelings. Whilst this all sounds fairly heavy, there are moments of dark humour that lift the piece. At moments, you felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Hallissey’s writing and performance do not shy away from the character’s faults, making audiences relate to this flawed Everyman. By far the strongest element of the piece was Hallissey’s ability to flit between past and present, as he re-enacted scenes with intensity. A particularly strong example of this was the recreation of him getting chased by a bunch of motorcyclists who were trying to kill him. Despite there only being one actor on stage, it truly felt like another might pop out and attack at any moment.

The honesty of the storytelling was helped by simplistic set and lighting design (Pete Butler). Soft lighting changes and the utilisation of the whole playing space moved along the action. The sound design (James Nicholson) was effective in displaying the play’s themes as it used text message sound effects between scenes to show Alquist’s continuing search for communication.

In the Shadow of the Black Dog had an important message and delivered it clearly. Hallissey practised what he preached: through his vulnerability we saw his strength. The directorial decision (Conor Neaves) to get the actor to talk to audience members in the pre show was strong, as it invited us to share experiences too. Ultimately, the whole show felt like an intimate chat with your best mate. It shone a light on the difficulties of navigating complex feelings when this has been conditioned out of you from a young age. There was room for development of this work as the pace dropped at times, but overall it was a thought provoking and exciting piece of theatre.

Reviewed by Emily Morris

Photography by Elizabeth McCafferty

In the Shadow of the Black Dog

Assembly Rooms until 23rd August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com