Tag Archives: Maya Ellis

In My Lungs

In My Lungs The Ocean Swells

★★★★

VAULT Festival 2020

In My Lungs

In My Lungs The Ocean Swells

Cavern – The Vaults

Reviewed – 6th February 2020

★★★★

 

“there is also playful joy, real warmth, and two people who we immediately like”

 

This two hander is part tale of growing up, friendship and love, part lament for the fishing industry and part meditation on the sea. It is also wholly engaging and moving. Jenny Walser and Jack Brownridge-Kelly play friends since childhood who become something more. But what happens when one of you is embedded in a place, part of it, and the other needs to get away and build a different kind of life?

He comes from a long line of fishermen, men of the sea. He’s never wanted to do anything else. She wants more, something different, and moves to the city. But they are central to each other’s lives.

There is a mystical thread of ancient ocean running through the play, woven into the present day narrative; an underpinning of deep time carried by wave and storm. The plight of fishing communities in a time when fish stocks have shrunk dramatically, creating unemployment and despair is another thread, and there is also playful joy, real warmth, and two people who we immediately like.

Grace Venning’s simple and effective set is augmented by atmospheric lighting, designed by Joe Price and by Annie May Fletcher’s soundscape that somehow mixes with the noise of trains passing overhead to evoke the wash and rumble of the ocean. The Cornish coast comes alive in this setting, populated by a community we meet through the two character’s stories and memories, and their warm Cornish Accents. It’s a lovely piece of directing from Tash Hyman, using the traverse layout effectively and supporting her actors to create a believable world and tell a very human story.

 

Reviewed by Katre

Photography by Oliver Bryant

 

VAULT Festival 2020

 

 

Click here to see all our reviews from VAULT Festival 2020

 

Kill Climate Deniers
★★★★

Pleasance Theatre

Kill Climate Deniers

Kill Climate Deniers

Pleasance Theatre

Reviewed – 7th June 2019

★★★★

 

“by thirty minutes in the audience mood has swelled into bonhomie”

 

‘You want to call your play something fun, something playful, something catchy’. So opens this exploration of the overlapping worlds of climate science, denial and activism. The questionable ‘fun’ of the title sums up the tensions that David Finnigan’s writing and Nic Connaughton’s direction unpack; tensions between laugh-out-loud comedy and the very real tragedy of our warming planet.

The ninety minute production in the downstairs Pleasance Space starts a little slowly, understandably. Some narrative explication is needed; this play is meta to the max, and even more so on press night when playwright David Finnigan was both represented on stage, by Nathan Coenen, and sitting within the audience. Coenen, as ‘Finig’, addresses us throughout the play, inserting wry asides and giving context to the ideas that led to his writing a play with quite such an inflammatory title (of which more later).

The otherwise all-female cast is uniformly strong, variously turning their hands to physicality, comedy and pathos, but it’s no surprise that the star of the show is highly-regarded comedian Felicity Ward as earnest but chaotic Environment Minister Gwen Malkin. We watch as Finig’s flippant (or was it?) play title starts to convert into a call to action, and the second phase of the play sees a switch into action with Malkin eventually taking down climate terrorists to an absolutely banging soundtrack of nineties dance classics.

The choreography, by movement director Rubyyy Jones, is exceptional; they deserve note for further enhancing and celebrating the energy of this litany of amazing tracks. Jones’ work and great lighting design from Geoff Hense help the play into gear and by thirty minutes in the audience mood has swelled into bonhomie – aided in no small part by a lively shared rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘You Can Go Your Own Way’. On that note, fans of The Mac be warned; there is plenty of fun gently poked at the rockers, who play an unexpectedly central role. It’s not personal, though; few institutions go un-poked, and there are some especially ripe representations of Australian right-wing commentators and their slippery uses of language.

Uses and abuses of language are a recurring theme. Finig questions whether it was right to use the menacing imperative of the title and opens the night by repeating, mantra-like, ‘sometimes you get it wrong, you get it wrong, you get it wrong…’. By the close of the play, the audience are similarly turned around. Is it right or helpful to remain in ardent opposition to people with whom we may, in fact, have more in common than we realise? And can we ever effect change that will halt our not-so-slow march towards extinction, or would the change itself be harder than we can bear? Sometimes we do all, indeed, get it wrong, and we all are where climate change is concerned. But Finnigan certainly got this one right.

 

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Ali Wright

 


Kill Climate Deniers

Pleasance Theatre until 28th June

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
Bingo | ★★★ | June 2018
Aid Memoir | ★★★ | October 2018
One Duck Down | ★★★★★ | October 2018
The Archive of Educated Hearts | ★★★★ | October 2018
Call Me Vicky | ★★★ | February 2019
Neck Or Nothing | ★★★★ | April 2019
Night Of The Living Dead Live | ★★★ | April 2019
Don’t Look Away | ★★★½ | May 2019
Regen | ★★★ | May 2019
The Millennials | ★★½ | May 2019

 

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