★★★★

“We are fascinated by what Lucas has to say, but it’s the music that truly speaks for itself”

As we sit round an upright piano, we are given an in-depth analysis of the aftereffects of striking a piano key. How the slim slab of ivory trips a lever which brings a soft felt-lined hammer onto a metal string, which, in turn, causes the air to vibrate eventually spreading across the room and filling each of us with the same vibration that we call music. We are inextricably linked and reeled in by the unifying hook that transfixes us. Anoushka Lucas is the one telling us all this, although she doesn’t need this allegory to catch, and to hold, our attention. She is a natural-born raconteur, with a charismatic flair to match.

“Elephant” is written, composed and performed by Lucas. We suspect that there are veiled, autobiographical elements hidden within her monologue, but she is telling us Lylah’s story who, at the age of seven, watched a group of workmen rip out the windows of her family’s council flat to lower a piano into their living room. From then on it dominated her small living space, her life and her love affair with music began. This love of music drives the narrative, but it is fuelled by various pivotal moments in Lylah’s life that shape her identity as a mixed-race, working-class girl who dares to be different. Who dares to cross the class divide. Who dares to defy the white, misogynistic expectations that music executives have for her career. Who dares to challenge the innate and unearned privilege of colonialist descendants.

Lylah is continually drawn back to the piano. Sitting centre stage, slowly revolving as Lucas plays and sings. Entirely acoustic and without the aid of technological trickery her singing is intimate, rich and mellow. The piano is an extension of Lylah but when a song ends, we are back in the narrative and the piano becomes the elephant in the room. Lylah’s piano has ivory keys, and she has a hard time reconciling the beauty of her instrument with the cruelty that went into its construction. The brutal tearing out of the tusks from the elephant’s face, the use of enslaved people to transport the tusk. Lucas is able to revisit this theme with ease without hammering the point. Jess Edwards’ supple direction is sensitive to the crescendos and diminuendos of Lylah’s story; each element played as part of a rhapsody. A sharp piano note heralds a twist in the tale while Laura Howards lighting shifts through shades to illuminate the various phases of her life. We learn a lot about Lylah’s childhood – Lucas is expert at seeing the world through a child’s eyes, and then retaining that unfiltered honesty, bringing it with her into adulthood. Love comes in the form of Leo, a session drummer, who invites her to his family cottage. The ’cottage’ is, in fact, a nine-bedroom country manor, furnished with the trappings of the Empire. Including a mahogany grand piano. Lylah cannot prevent herself addressing the ‘elephant in the room’ – literal and symbolic – and the anger that pours out is heartfelt and human without being sanctimonious or political.

We then return to the music. Then back to another episode of life. But always back to the music. Sometimes the musical interludes are brief, and the show could perhaps do with more performance and less talk. The show is bookended by the observation that the black and the white keys on a piano are disproportionately balanced. It is an interesting analogy at the beginning, but we don’t need it repeated. Lucas has shown us that music is blind to this distinction. We are fascinated by what Lucas has to say, but it’s the music that truly speaks for itself.

CUL-DE-SAC

Omnibus Theatre

★★★

“Ultimately it is a moving piece, that takes us behind the twitching curtains of suburbia”

Northwood Hills. Zone 6 London. The middle of nowhere. With apologies to the residents of HA6, that is where we find Ruth Townsend and company, at a bit of a dead end. It’s not so much that Ruth hates where she lives, she just dislikes the ‘concept’ of suburbia. ‘And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”’ is no doubt a constant refrain in here head. The Talking Heads song does indeed make an appearance as part of the well-chosen soundtrack to David Shopland’s new play, “Cul-de-Sac”. Billed as a comedy-drama it is, more accurately, a comedy and then a drama. In that order. The first act sets up the situation and characterisation with lashings of humour, no holds barred; while Act Two belongs to the very different genre of psychological drama. Both halves, together, make for a long evening and, although we leave with much to contemplate and talk about, we are also trying to think of a ruthless editor to recommend to Shopland.

It is a finely structured piece, nevertheless, zooming in on the secrets and resentments of the characters that have wound up in the eponymous, yet unnamed, cul-de-sac. None are stereotypes or caricatures, but they all do conform to a particular ‘type’. Shopland is a great observer of human nature, and the laughs can sometimes give way to gasps. Shades of Edward Albee, Mike Leigh and Joe Orton are all present, but they compete with, rather than blend into, each other.

Ruth (Shereen Roushbaiani) and Frank (Ellis J. Wells) have been living on the cul-de-sac for three years and have never really got to know the neighbours that well yet. Roushbaiani presents Ruth’s dissatisfaction with a delicacy that we feel could crack at any moment. It is a wonder it doesn’t shatter sooner given Wells’ shouty, cantankerous Frank. Nervous neighbour, Marie, unwittingly wanders into their life and living room. Lucy Farrett, in a bid to sustain the volume set by Wells, sacrifices the subtlety of Marie’s neuroses and secrets with an over-emphasised delivery. Callum Patrick Hughes, as Simon, gurns and twitches his way into the fold as the lovable misfit. Late to the party is Behkam Salehani, as Hamza, a figure that turns the tide and makes us look at the others in a completely different way.

‘What starts as a quiet evening rapidly unravels…’ we are told in the publicity blurb. Only it is the other way around. It begins quite raucously (too raucously) and gradually drifts into quieter, more introspective territory. The cast seem to be trying too hard initially, which hinders our belief in their characters. Emotions run too high too soon. Touches of surreal choreography open each act during which we can see the question marks hovering above the actors’ heads as well as the audience. Shopland, who also directs, is packing in too many ingredients and we are losing our way a bit. A soliloquy about religious and racial persecution seems to appear out of nowhere.

But then the penny drops. Shopland delivers a twist, the true colours show through and at last we prick up our ears. The sadness that has bubbled to the surface is palpable and the performances have settled into a pool of poignancy, its stillness amplifying the emotions. A false ending, however, trips us up. Shopland should have quit while he was winning, but instead the narrative coasts into a kind of group therapy session where they are trying to outdo each other in the trauma stakes. A bit like the Monty Python ‘Yorkshireman’ sketch; “You were lucky…”

Ultimately it is a moving piece, that takes us behind the twitching curtains of suburbia. Occasionally predictable yet with a sharp insight into the complications, secrets and tragedies of seemingly ordinary people. The shift from humour to pathos is powerfully executed, although a bit drawn out. We may be in a cul-de-sac but, at times, it seems it has no end.

ELEPHANT

Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“We are fascinated by what Lucas has to say, but it’s the music that truly speaks for itself”

ELEPHANT

Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 30th May 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ELEPHANT

ELEPHANT

ELEPHANT

CUL-DE-SAC

Omnibus Theatre

★★★

“Ultimately it is a moving piece, that takes us behind the twitching curtains of suburbia”

CUL-DE-SAC

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed on 29th May 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Kat Forsyth

Previously reviewed at this venue:

CUL-DE-SAC

CUL-DE-SAC

CUL-DE-SAC

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