STORMS, MAYBE SNOW

Seven Dials Playhouse

★

“the play simply does not justify all the work put into it”

The quick summary here is that four actors were working extremely hard with material that wasn’t really worth their effort. Could it have been? Possibly. But then it was just too long. So the pitfalls of being both writer and producer/director of your own work were laid bare.

Miranda Lapworth, artistic director of Lovely, Dark and Deep Productions, clearly has a vision. Her play is a family drama. Arriving at their beach house, long-term married couple Jack and Lou Marley (Neil Sellman and Jenny Lloyd Lyons) are preparing to celebrate Jack’s birthday with their daughter Marianna (Steph Sarratt) and partner Isobel (Sarah Cameron-West). The couple spar and joke, playing a long-running family game of Film Relay (to be recommended for car journeys), which speaks to their deep connection.

But Lou has recently been diagnosed with cancer. They are struggling to come to terms with this. Is she actually ill or not? Then there is the relationship between mother and daughter. It’s bad. It’s going to get even worse before the play is out. And what about the relationship between Marianna and Isobel? They seem very much in love. There is a beautiful moment in the first act when Isobel sings a love song she (of course, Miranda) has written to Marianna to demonstrate to her untrusting parents how much she cares. It is a great song; put to music by Ward Baker, it is worthy of Sondheim.

Unfortunately, the writing is riddled with clichés. The underlying metaphor of the ocean for the relationships is a cliché. The failure of the daughter – an intense performance by Sarratt – to see just how much her mother is struggling, is a cliché. The deepening involvement of Isobel in the family dramatics is predictable. There are twists and turns a-plenty but they are clumsily executed and so, where some ruthless direction maybe could have saved the play, they fall flat. Then there is just too much ‘business’ with food, cups, plates, shopping. If all that were cut out, we would see less of the hardworking props team pacing in and out of the set, and the focus on the human drama playing out would be greatly improved.

The cast and technical team are well chosen. The set is cleverly designed to support the action and Sarah Spencer’s soundscape gives a worthy background. The actors gave strong performances although the play falls short. Watch for Cameron-West in the future. She has a magnetic stage presence. As the angry daughter, Sarratt creates a believable, if irritating, character. Lloyd Lyons does ‘intense and spiky’ with great energy. Selman complements her as the kind, steady husband.

In the end, however, the play simply does not justify all the work put into it. It could do with a long hard look and maybe one third coming out. Even then, it might not have anything new to say about families, relationships and their undercurrents. But we could sit back and just enjoy the ride.

STORMS, MAYBE SNOW

Seven Dials Playhouse

Reviewed on 17th September 2025

by Louise Sibley

Previously reviewed at this venue:

BLUE | ★★★★ | March 2024

SUNSETS | ★★ | September 2023

STEVE | ★★★★ | February 2022

STORMS

★★★

“The play is an interesting experiment, but as a dramatic piece, full of plot holes”

Nathan Ellis’ experimental drama is a tantalizing piece. The situation is this: every day a different actor is invited to the space where Instructions will take place. The actor knows nothing about the play they are about to perform, there has not been any rehearsal. They have been told that nothing bad will happen by the director, whom they meet fifteen minutes before they are due to go on stage. An irresistible set up, for the actor and the audience, right?

Entering the Old Lab space at Summerhall, all one sees on stage is a screen at the back of the performance space, a camera, a monitor, and a rotation disk. So far, so good. Then Josie, the actor tapped for today’s performance, enters. Words appear on the screen behind them, introducing them. They speak, reading the words from the monitor, and perform the instructions it gives. A story is introduced about an actor who has been invited to audition for a film called Love In Paris. We watch Josie audition. They get the part! We watch them perform the emotions of realizing that this is a turning point in their acting career.

I won’t give away anything else about the plot, although admittedly, it is a sketched in plot at best. Moment to moment, it gives our actor an opportunity to show their acting chops. The camera does most of the work, giving us close ups of Josie’s expressions, and later, moments of connection directly with the audience. Josie’s charm, and willingness to immerse completely in the experience that playwright Ellis and Subject Object have given them, is what keeps Instructions afloat. The play is an interesting experiment, but as a dramatic piece, full of plot holes. It drops references to things like artificial intelligence, for example, that don’t really go anywhere. There is no real conclusion to Instructions, other than the assurance that the play will be performed again, the following day, with a new performer named Nikhil in Josie’s place. The audience is left having to do much of the work of making sense of this piece.

As a piece of hyper-realism—namely sharing in the experience of the actor from moment to moment as they construct a character from the instructions given on a monitor—this piece has some interest. But it’s only a starting point for an exploration of themes fleetingly suggested in the actor’s story. I’d like to see Instructions 2.0, but I strongly suspect that would be a film about the making of the film Love in Paris, using A.I. I’d definitely be up for that.

Tag Archives: Seven Dials Playhouse

STORMS, MAYBE SNOW

★

Seven Dials Playhouse

STORMS, MAYBE SNOW

Seven Dials Playhouse

★

“the play simply does not justify all the work put into it”