Miriam Sallon Archives - Page 57 of 63

★½

“It’s hard to say whether I would have enjoyed this much more if I understood Chinese, but my guess is no”

There’s no doubt that Qianqian Chen’s ‘Safety Net’ is intentionally confusing – fractured timelines, one character played by two actors, and an abstract set design. But I can’t imagine it was intended to be completely incomprehensible.

Along with a programme, the audience is provided with a translation of various scenes that will take place in Chinese. Beside the fact that it’s quite difficult to read in a darkened theatre, let alone follow what’s taking place on stage whilst doing so, there are actually twice as many scenes in Chinese as there are printed translations. For the first couple I can hear the audience desperately rustling through, trying to find the correlating translation but after a while there’s a collective giving up, simply allowing the words to wash over us, with little to no grasp on what is happening.

The premise – as cobbled together from my hazy understanding, and the explanation on the programme – is about a young Chinese woman, Jing (Siqi Han/Lilian Tsang) living in the US whilst her fiancé Tian (Robin, Khor Yong Kuan) lives in China. In a strange and unknown environment Jing struggles with the new and the traditional; the passionate versus the practical.

The setting (Joy Huang) is equally as opaque as the script, devised only of black and white blocks, continuously restacked and reshuffled with no explanation. Similarly, the lighting (Jinwen Wang) spotlights on moments of seeming importance but those moments are not properly expounded upon. It’s hard to say whether I would have enjoyed this much more if I understood Chinese, but my guess is no.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

William Andrews: Willy

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 11th April 2019

★★★★

“deft comedic timing and skilful showmanship”

Upon entering the theatre, we’re greeted by a puppy-like forty-year old man eagerly giving out badges and wearing a ‘Hovis’ bread bag on his head with a little straw poking out like a Britney mic. It’s certainly a confident start, but one can’t help wondering if he’s regretting quite how tight the bread bag is…

We begin with what is either painstakingly rehearsed or completely off-the-cuff rambling, hopping frenetically between subjects, each story or thought almost always followed by the slightly manically delivered parenthesis, ‘Is it worth sharing? I don’t know.’

As he excitedly paces back and forth, William Andrews repeatedly forgets to take the mic with him, and often as he grabs for it, accidentally unplugs it – again, hard to tell if this is an orchestrated laugh, or whether the microphone is actually broken.

Andrews does finally land on a kind of narrative, but whilst the topics remain in orbit of his own quiet family life, his dealings with them combine both the profound and the ridiculous, often in one breath. We follow him on a Dave Gorman-esque single-minded hunt for a late-night tv clip of a dog on a motorway, for example, and along the way we’re considering the struggles of gender dysmorphia; we’re both laughing and staring agape (if it’s possible to do the two simultaneously) as we hear Andrews discuss his first brush with adulthood at eight years old when he attempted (‘attempted’ being the horrifying aspect here) to kill a fish.

What becomes apparent is how deceptively haphazard this show is. Hamish MacDougall’s direction sees Andrews lean in to the idea of a jabbering amateur ‘giving it a go’ whilst actually showcasing deft comedic timing and skilful showmanship. His attempt to bring it all neatly together in the last five minutes, as though he had been telling one hour-long story, doesn’t quite work, but it doesn’t matter. Balancing frivolity and gravity in equal measure, he has created a very funny and artfully executed performance.

Etcetera Theatre

Reviewed – 22nd April 2019

★½

“It’s hard to say whether I would have enjoyed this much more if I understood Chinese, but my guess is no”

There’s no doubt that Qianqian Chen’s ‘Safety Net’ is intentionally confusing – fractured timelines, one character played by two actors, and an abstract set design. But I can’t imagine it was intended to be completely incomprehensible.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Safety Net

Etcetera Theatre until 27th April

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 11th April 2019

★★★★

“deft comedic timing and skilful showmanship”

We begin with what is either painstakingly rehearsed or completely off-the-cuff rambling, hopping frenetically between subjects, each story or thought almost always followed by the slightly manically delivered parenthesis, ‘Is it worth sharing? I don’t know.’

As he excitedly paces back and forth, William Andrews repeatedly forgets to take the mic with him, and often as he grabs for it, accidentally unplugs it – again, hard to tell if this is an orchestrated laugh, or whether the microphone is actually broken.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by William Andrews

William Andrews: Willy

Soho Theatre until 13th April

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

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