The Bunker Archives - Page 8 of 19 - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“Sacha Voit and Jessica Butcher have written a very good play. If they were to pare down the problems a bit they could turn it into an excellent one”

A line from the show’s publicity is a good introduction to this play. “A funny, heartbreaking adventure through forests, friendship and Femfresh that reveals the loneliness of age and the power of Mother Nature.”

Willow works as a pharmacist, patiently listening to people’s problems and trying to help. Liz, an elderly customer, doesn’t think Willow looks like a pharmacist – she is a young black woman and doesn’t fit the stereotype. But Liz doesn’t fit the old lady stereotype either. She is feisty and funny, keeping her husband in the utility room, walking in the woods smoking and swearing. She is also very good at putting her foot in it. These two very different women talk to the audience and to each other, stripping off the defensive layers they have built up to protect themselves. In the process they discover a shared love for trees. Willow is writing an article and a book about the Wood Wide Web, the underground network of mycorrhizal fungi that link trees underground, allowing them to communicate and share resources. But something in her past makes her afraid in the woods. When Liz persuades her to join a protest against the destruction of the trees to make way for a new superstore, Willow is forced to revisit a terrible memory and to begin the healing process.

Tanya Loretta Dee is funny and moving as Willow; unravelling from the patient pharmacist, with a wry and sometimes hilarious take on her customer’s inability to speak about body parts, to a damaged and vulnerable woman. Nadia Papachronopoulou’s direction and Quang Kien Van’s movement direction give her some nicely stylised physical tropes.

Amanda Boxer’s Liz is engaging, surprising the audience with her quirky eccentricities and swearing. The bad times in her past are revealed straight to the audience without her ever giving way to sympathy seeking. She is very funny, but there is a double layer in the comedy, as humour is a good deflector of sadness.

Papachronopoulou makes good use of Lia Waber’s outstanding set in her direction and allows the two characters to combine naturalism with just the right amount of stylisation. Jack Weir’s lighting design and Chris Drohan’s sound help to tell the story with some lovely atmospheric touches.

Although Boots is a strong production, it does feel as though too many problems have been crammed into the fabric of the play. An hour and fifteen minutes is not really long enough to carry a narrative that includes a dead baby, postnatal depression, racism, ageism, infertility, loneliness, rape, the destruction of nature, incontinence and other ageing related issues. Sacha Voit and Jessica Butcher have written a very good play. If they were to pare down the problems a bit they could turn it into an excellent one.

Reviewed by Katre

Photography by Tim Kelly

Welcome to the UK

The Bunker

Reviewed – 25th January 2019

★★

“a surreal and politically simple mix of moments which fail to deliver either laughs or insights”

Walking down into the Bunker Theatre in Southwark, you’re greeted by a “UK Passports to the right, EU to the left” sign above the door, and are handed a raffle ticket by a faux-bearskin-guard on entering the theatre proper. Then you sit down on some balloons, surrounded by a ribboned set surrounded by sketches and collages across the back walls. A strange and confusing introduction to a strange and confusing show.

Welcome to the UK, directed by Sophie NL Besse of PSYCHEdelight, studies the life of refugees and immigrants to the UK, and extrudes these ideas through a malformed mould which was obviously once meant to resemble a carnival. In theory, the joyous song, dance and performance on stage juxtaposes against the unhappy reality many new arrivals face to create a biting satire; in reality, the show is a surreal and politically simple mix of moments which fail to deliver either laughs or insights.

The authenticating foundation of having real refugees as actors ultimately subsides because, although many refugees can deliver the performance and presence necessary (think The Jungle at Playhouse Theatre), in Welcome to the UK these actors are not telling their own personal stories, but are almost always corralled into playing on-stage refugees. The actors are neither explored as real stories nor trusted as professional versatile actors.

It’s hard to find a substantial guiding light as the different pieces pass by the audience with scene changes you could park a car in; drag queens give way to a Gollum-like creature, followed by an emotional phone call entirely in Arabic, then back to the drag queen or a strange cloud-headed Theresa May. It only gets more dreamlike with pantomime scenes about Popeye, versions of Romeo and Juliet, and a bit where the song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ makes ISIS executioners drop their knives and dance into backstage. The carnival theme doesn’t just bulge at the seams, it bursts wide open at the climactic scene where a sinking boat in a storm is the not-so-subtle metaphor for a post-Brexit Britain.

It’s worth noting that the music was clever and versatile plus the singing brought many scenes the energy and professionalism they so badly needed. Reading the programme was almost as cryptic as the show, so this writer, unfortunately, can’t give credit where it’s due, but the actress playing our cloud-headed PM gave a brilliantly tight and skilled performance with an energetic and intimidating character, wonderful accordion playing and an exceptional vocal performance.

Ultimately, Welcome to the UK, fails where it has politics, but not performance. Like a cart with the horse set behind it, this show cannot keep a straight path but continuously veers outwards towards everything from Titanic-references to a funny joke about Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Political Theatre has a long and illustrious history and left-wing Political Theatre in particular but Dario Fo this is not.

The Bunker

Reviewed – 22nd February 2019

★★★★

“Sacha Voit and Jessica Butcher have written a very good play. If they were to pare down the problems a bit they could turn it into an excellent one”

A line from the show’s publicity is a good introduction to this play. “A funny, heartbreaking adventure through forests, friendship and Femfresh that reveals the loneliness of age and the power of Mother Nature.”

Papachronopoulou makes good use of Lia Waber’s outstanding set in her direction and allows the two characters to combine naturalism with just the right amount of stylisation. Jack Weir’s lighting design and Chris Drohan’s sound help to tell the story with some lovely atmospheric touches.

Reviewed by Katre

Photography by Tim Kelly

Boots

The Bunker until 16th March

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Bunker

Reviewed – 25th January 2019

★★

“a surreal and politically simple mix of moments which fail to deliver either laughs or insights”

Reviewed by William Nash

Photography by José Farinha

Welcome to the UK

The Bunker until 16th February

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: