Tag Archives: The Space

Love is a Work in Progress – 4 Stars

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Progress

Love is a Work in Progress

The Space

Reviewed – 2nd October 2018

★★★★

“Rankine hits all the right notes both in her singing but also the pace of the stories”

 

Love Is A Work In Progress begins in Tara Rankine’s ‘heart’ (a.k.a The Space) and from there we are treated to a one woman show full of storytelling, song, and paradoxes. So many types of love are explored in the show; sexual love, addictive love and love for friends, and Rankine’s metamodernist treatment keeps these stories both dick-joke funny and moving, often at the same time.

The show follows a now-familiar one-woman/man pattern with four major stories stitched together through conversational banter, audience interaction and musical peaks. This platform serves the show well and Rankine hits all the right notes both in her singing but also the pace of the stories as the night turns from gymnastic booty-calls to the moving and obviously personal story of ‘Bunt’ which closes the show.

At times, the show appears to contradict itself only to wiggle out, stealing both meaning and vulgar honesty with it. As we enter the vaulted chamber at The Space, we’re met with Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman” which seems somehow inappropriate; despite the show being so clearly autobiographical and oft-focused on heterosexual love, it’s accessible and entertaining to all with the right sense of humour. With the theme of profound and sacred love, the script is also irreverent, rude and kitsch in all the best ways and ties these two strings together with talent and energy. And, for a show about love and relationships in 2018, the performance doesn’t play to the galleries of #metoo with tales of cruelty but instead examines love as it’s been experienced by Rankine: complex, fathomless but sometimes about the size of someone’s dick.

Love is a Work in Progress seemed itself to be under construction. The scaffolding of a traditional one-woman show stood around both as support and a metal cell. The episodic storytelling makes sense and helps the show build to a climax (no pun intended) but ultimately contains the themes and leaves the audience thirsting for more detail, more coherence and just one more step from the ideas and messages.

But this is a fun show. In fact, if you have a moment, this is an audience-member-eating-a-pie-from-between-her-legs, songs and silly costumes, inflatable-penis fun show. Rankine’s infectious enjoyment and love for her work cannot fail but to draw in each stiff Tuesday-night audience member and reward them with a personal performance that still feels common and accessible. Paradoxes abound and give the performance a strange truthfulness. For those of you who long for genital jokes, followed by a good cry, this is a show you shouldn’t miss.

 

Reviewed by William Nash

 


Love is a Work in Progress

The Space until 6th October

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
One Festival 2018 – Programme A | ★★★ | January 2018
Citizen | ★★★★ | April 2018
The Sleeper | ★★★ | April 2018
Dare to Do: The Bear Maxim | ★★½ | May 2018
Be Born | ★ | June 2018
Asking For A Raise | ★★ | July 2018
Bluebird | ★★★★ | July 2018
I Occur Here | ★★★★★ | August 2018
Rush | ★★★½ | August 2018
Fleeced | ★ | September 2018

 

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Fleeced – 1 Star

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Fleeced

Fleeced

The Space

Reviewed – 12th September 2018

★

“remains dangerously close to a school review in comparison with the bombardment of talent hitting London’s fringe theatre scene”

 

It would be a cheap remark to say that, after sitting through last night’s performance at The Space, one feels ‘fleeced’, but it is hard to connect the exciting publicity for this show with its underwhelming result. Written and directed by Georgia Hardcastle (co-founder, with her sister Sally, of Matipo Theatre Company), this work sets out to explore how we construct our identities and become part of the flock of society while feeling cheated by it. There is a certain youthful energy and enthusiasm and a voice trying to be heard but the play tells us what we already know and does it in ways which we have already seen.

We open on an Orwellian scene. Dressed in neutral grey, the cast walk robotically as numbers, until two of them discover human contact. They are punished, choosing either to become sheep or shepherds. Or neither. It’s not entirely clear. We move abruptly to a video game. As the characters join forces to complete the level, the knight and the unicorn think they might get on ‘in real life’… until they reveal their ages. And…? There follows a series of short, insubstantial sketches which relate, in some way, to identity, generations, social media, gender and relationships. But we know who would win a tug of war between professionals and the unemployed; we know children are regularly exposed to inappropriate online material and this affects their behaviour; we know social media feeds us trivia in the hope that we forget about serious issues, that art can be pretentious and that couples get caught in coercive situations. Apart from an interesting idea using movement to illustrate a couple’s transformation, the theatrical formulas have been seen time and time again. New writing has to find a fresh way to tell a story. And the message needs to be thought through and structured if it is to make sense. It is not enough to string ideas together and call it ‘spasmodic’.

In its favour, the end is nicely linked to the grey plodding of the beginning. We enjoy a brief element of emotion from Matty Noble, whose appearance throughout gives the show some welcome substance, and Owen Smith’s choreography produces refreshing moments of distraction. Nevertheless, ‘Fleeced’ remains dangerously close to a school review in comparison with the bombardment of talent hitting London’s fringe theatre scene.

 

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by Jade Boothby

 

Fleeced

The Space until 14th September

 

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