Tag Archives: Stewart Pringle

THE BOUNDS

β˜…β˜…β˜…

Royal Court

THE BOUNDS at the Royal Court

β˜…β˜…β˜…

“The stakes in The Bounds are high, and there’s more than the outcome of a soccer game at risk”

The Bounds is an ambitious attempt to create a historical drama out of the origins of soccer. It’s a well chosen subject, given that the game has been a national obsession for centuries. And it’s no great stretch to imagine a form of the soccer that included a pitch that could stretch for miles, a match that could last days, and players willing to risk their lives for a chance to bring immortal glory to their team. Playwright Stewart Pringle also includes a sketched in backdrop of Tudor politics, both spiritual and secular, and a sprinkling of apocalyptic visions. That’s the gist of The Bounds, now on at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs.

The Bounds begins well. We are introduced to Percy and Rowan, a couple of working class soccer players, who are determined that this will be the year that their village of Allendale finally triumphs over their arch rivals in Catton. The fact that they haven’t won in a long time does not deter their enthusiasm. Or the fact that they are on the outer peripheries of the game, miles from any action. As the good natured banter between Percy and his friend Rowan continues, we realize that these two are more like soccer fans in the stands, than players in the game. That’s Tudor soccer for you. When a third character, a classic outsider both in dress and address, enters, these two are naturally suspicious. And, this being Tudor times, accusations of witchcraft, popery and perversion start flying. When Samuel admits that he’s a college graduate (from Oxford, no less) he doesn’t help his case. Percy and Rowan, well educated in the signs of omens and portents, know that he is bad news, for all his educated ways. In this mismatched trio, all the rivalries of north versus south, working class versus middle class, and Protestantism versus Catholicism, come spilling out in a variety of ugly ways. What has all this to do with soccer? It’s a good question.

 

 

Unfortunately, the broad brush of Pringle’s own vision for his play is hampered by the fact that he has to work within the confines of a small space in the Theatre Upstairs, and with only four actors. These constraints wouldn’t have stopped the playwrights of the Tudor era, but we are in a less poetic age (in drama, at least). Where iambic pentameter could sketch a world in a few lines, we moderns tend to rely on the overuse of monosyllabic expletives. Pringle’s pared down dialogue and sketched in characters are entertaining, but with such serious subject matter as soccer and politics under discussion, the inventiveness in this piece starts to run out a while before the end of the play. Rather like the soccer game that the trio are observing.

The stakes in The Bounds are high, and there’s more than the outcome of a soccer game at risk. And that’s really where The Bounds ends up. It turns out that there are more important things than soccer games going on in Allendale. Pringle almost casually introduces us to the theme of boundaries being redrawn in The Bounds, but this is the masterstroke of Tudor strategy that echoes down the centuries, robbing local people of their spaces, and even their identities. It’s easy to see how the limitless game of soccer in Tudor times becomes the rule bound play of the modern game, confined within a single pitch of a predetermined size, and time constraints that don’t allow much flexibility. Pringle suggests that the unstructured nature of the ancient game had more freedom, despite the anarchy of play.

The actors, Soroosh Lavasani (Samuel), Ryan Nolan (Percy), Lauren Waine (Rowan) and Harry Weston (the Boy) bring an energetic presence to The Bounds. Ryan Nolan in particular, as a native Geordie, is completely at home both with the dialect and passion for the game. His versatility as a performer keeps the play focused, especially when it is in danger of drifting. Lauren Waine’s Rowan as the foil to Ryan Nolan’s Percy, is equally confident, and it is a delight to watch them play off against each other. If Soroosh Lavasani’s Samuel is less certain, it’s an accurate depiction of the place his character inhabits in Tudor society. A little education with a lot of religious indoctrination can be a dangerous thing, and Samuel proves that in spades. Harry Weston’s part may be small, but he carries the future in his lines, and his confident delivery as the Boy sounds the knell for the autonomy of folk like Percy. Jack McNamara’s direction keeps the action on the move, even within such a confined space.

Pringle’s drama is bold in its inception. If it doesn’t quite measure up to its opening promise, it may be that The Bounds needs a space, and a cast, as large as the Whitsuntide match between Allendale and Catton in the mid sixteenth century.


THE BOUNDS at the Royal Court

Reviewed on 17th Jun e2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Von Fox Promotions

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

LIE LOW | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2024
BLUETS | β˜…β˜…β˜… | May 2024
GUNTER | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2024
COWBOIS | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | January 2024
MATES IN CHELSEA | β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2023
CUCKOO | β˜…β˜…Β½ | July 2023
BLACK SUPERHERO | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | March 2023
FOR BLACK BOYS … | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2022

THE BOUNDS

THE BOUNDS

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

Trestle

Trestle

β˜…β˜…β˜…

Jack Studio Theatre

Trestle

Trestle

Jack Studio Theatre

Reviewed – 17th June 2021

β˜…β˜…β˜…

 

“light and comfortable viewing”

 

The delightfully intimate Jack Studio Theatre reopens in front of a socially-distanced audience with this charming two-hander by Stewart Pringle. Last seen live-streamed from the Maltings Theatre, the production is directed by Matthew Parker. Jilly Bond reprises her role as Denise, the sinewy Zumba teacher, who meets weekly with retired widower Harry played by Timothy Harker.

Our scene is one end of the Billingham Temperance Hall with its stark entrance, a stack of black plastic chairs and the ubiquitous trestle table at centre stage. There is just enough clutter in and on top of a cupboard to represent the paraphernalia that such community spaces attract and an appropriate selection of posters (almost certainly out-of-date) on the community noticeboard.

Numerous mini-scenes flash by, one week apart. Harry’s committee meeting finishes before Denise’s Zumba class starts and in the few minutes’ hiatus, beginning with a misunderstanding, we see their friendship – if not a relationship – develop and blossom. There is small talk and the sharing of sandwiches, and little by little personal information leaks out. But can we believe these short meetings can develop into romance? Denise talks of the steamy scenes she is reading but she does not follow such talk into action. Harry is too content with his mundane unchanging routine to risk the turmoil of change.

Harker excels as the fastidious Harry, with his shuffling of papers and bumbling manner, in a tweed jacket and sleeveless woollen sweater, and a flat cap to remind us of his Yorkshire-ness. When appointed Chairman to his board he buys his own gavel on eBay but sheepishly admits he has never had to use it in a meeting. But he mimes with it when no-one is looking.

Denise is brash, and confident enough to run both an exercise class and a book club, but she is unable to confront a man who makes comments on her eating a banana in the library.

The well-rehearsed movement between the couple in the confined space is slick and easy. Entrances and exits through the one small door are timed perfectly. Only when the couple attempt to sit on the table does the fluency stutter; Harker (or Harry) can’t hide his doubts that the trestle is sufficiently stable.

There is no full blackout between scenes so that we can see the reset for the next meeting. Tedium from the repetitive actions of stacking and restacking the chairs and the repositioning of the trestle table is narrowly avoided. Only the continuous opening and closing of Harry’s briefcase becomes a bugbear. And it jars when the trestle is incongruously left standing in some later scenes as the premise of the play is surely that the table has to be moved for Denise’s Zumba class.

Both Bond and Harker play the comedy gently and convincingly. It is light and comfortable viewing – the potential source for a Sunday evening TV sit-com – but the personal stories lack depth and, whilst we learn that even older people can get muddled in their efforts to forge relationships, the journey our couple make is not long enough.

 

 

Reviewed by Phillip Money

Photography by Laura Harling

 


Trestle

Jack Studio Theatre until 26th June

 

Previously reviewed by Phillip:
The Money | β˜…β˜…β˜… | Online | April 2021
Animal Farm | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | Royal & Derngate | May 2021

 

Click here to see our most recent reviews