“carefully interweaves the light-hearted tension of the British North/South divide with global issues”
Following an incredibly successful run at this year’s Vault Festival, Bismillah! is a Wound Up Theatre production that was originally staged in 2015 and is now currently at Islington’s Pleasance Theatre. Whilst the political backdrop of the play is perhaps a little dated, its themes remain incredibly current and important.
The show, dubbed a ‘tragicomedy’, begins with a British soldier (Matthew Greenhough) who is imprisoned and tied to a pole, screaming out the lyrics to Queen’s I Want to Break Free. He is soon joined by his ISIS captor (Eliot Liburd) who he assumes doesn’t understand him. The captor speaks his first lines in a thick London accent, surprising the solider. They continue to converse, switching between seemingly futile topics comparing their upbringing ‘up North’ and ‘down South.’ This includes a hilarious argument about which fried chicken is better, KFC or Chicken Cottage? They bond over their shared experiences of working at J. D. Wetherspoon and their personal coming-of-age struggles. The audience, at moments, is starkly reminded of the context wherein the play is taking place when the conversation shifts towards the differences in Western and Eastern values.
The writing of Bismillah! carefully interweaves the light-hearted tension of the British North/South divide with global issues, linking it to the disenfranchising of young people within various communities. It cleverly brings a human side to a story and setting which is exclusively told through a sensationalist lens from mainstream media outlets.
It’s quite possible that many would deem such a topic “brave” to tackle onstage but displaying some of the ways in which people from particular societal groups are marginalised in British society shouldn’t be something theatre-makers and audiences alike shy away from. It proves a stark reminder to the National Youth Theatre’s 2015 production Homegrown, a play about the radicalisation of young people in the UK and was cancelled for reasons that remain unclear to this day. Bismillah! is a beautiful start to beginning the conversation in the most British of ways; comically and sarcastically with a serious undertone.
“a truly heartwarming love song to female friendship”
Charlotte Merriam’s terrifically turbulent, teeming and joyful writing debut is brought to every shade of life on the Pleasance stage, by an ensemble cast of six that support one another’s skillful uproar. Produced by Siberian Lights & Rachel Kraftman Productions and directed by Jamie Garven, Dames is theatre which makes you want to dance, get drunk, tell your friends you love them and embrace the world outside the toilet, no matter how daunting it can be.
Stepping in and out of character, in a sort of Brechtian performance of femininity, the toilet scenario is also a metaphor for the process of undress which happens in a cubicle, akin to the one which the actors perform on stage, as they expose themselves in order to build relationships with the audience. In principle, this premise works really well, and added a clever comic touch, when Ginny, played by Bianca Stephens with excellent comic timing, talks to the audience as her real self, preparing herself to go in to the toilets in character. The toilets are this ground of rebirth, of blinking drunkenly into the eyes of a strange woman and finding out you could be friends, or that you’re in love. It’s a nice original twist which defies expectations, just as Dames describes itself as a ‘raucous revelation’.
Merriam herself plays the wonderfully dry Erin, whose double act with Bianca is a truly heartwarming love song to female friendship, in all its honestly beautiful ugliness. Arabella Neale’s Kate takes self-awareness to the next level, as she theatrically bemoans being thin and beautiful. On the surface, this is rather inane: but Neale’s portrayal manages to be haughty and highly loveable. She and Olivia Elsden both deliver performances which complexify Dames, as they retain an element of reserve. Melanie Stephens as Cardiff is the last to enter the toilets in a whirlwind of wanking and speaking frankly. Her no-shits-given swagger is the perfect counterpoint to Emily, played endearingly by Ellie Heydon, and Kate, whose waxing lyrical about halloumi and wholefoods is nigh on excessive. But they pull it off, because they’re fun and very watchable.
Joshua Bowles’ live music, often cued by the performers, is the perfect accompaniment to the antics. Reverberating round the echoic playing space, it feels like the club outside the toilets, from which they’ve all come to hide. April Dalton’s design is instantly eye-catching, a mass of streamers, glitter, iridescence and strewn toilet paper, crowned by a golden chair in the middle – the bog. When Erin is sick, she throws up feathers. The design, highlighted by Ryan Joseph Stafford’s lights, brings just the right amount of stylisation and other worldliness to Dames, which keeps the content raw, but still allows the audience to celebrate and enjoy what is being revealed.
Dames is brave, fun and novel. I liked watching it, yes – but there was something about it which also made me want to inhabit it. Structurally, it could have been better conceived, with some of the elements of repetition stripped back. As an experience, though, it was a treat: brimming with energy and sparkling with golden performances.
