Tag Archives: William Nash

The Distance You Have Come – 4 Stars

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Come

The Distance You Have Come

Cockpit Theatre

Reviewed – 18th October 2018

★★★★

“it was utterly impossible to not be moved by the all-consuming singing of Alexia Khadime”

 

Scott Alan’s new song cycle, The Distance You Have Come, at the Cockpit Theatre is an apologetically raw evening, of six actors, 26 songs and a lot of heartstrings pulled out. It was, at first, difficult to see what held the individual songs together (besides an obvious love of American musical theatre) but the powerful performances and commitment to unadulterated emotion got us there in the end.

The songs were stapled together by a, sometimes contrived, shared setting in a park and their theme of achievement of any type. Two men fell in love and became fathers. A young recovering alcoholic overcame the split with his partner. Two women left one another as one became a surrogate mother and the other stalked the park looking for men to sing songs with. The show was redemptive as characters moved from cynicism and despair to success and fulfilment, but ‘redemption’ was less the strong intellectual glue needed and more attractive wallpaper over the thematic gaps between songs.

The performances were almighty as individual efforts, leaving no meaningful gaze ungazed and no high note unhit. This young cast clearly has great futures ahead of them (and some already have great pasts behind them), with commitment, energy and vocal talent oozing out of each pore. Jodie Jacobs (Anna) stood out as a respite from the High School Musical style which is all pervasive in a musical theatre and it was utterly impossible to not be moved by the all-consuming singing of Alexia Khadime (Laura).

With these invincible performances, the show was occasionally let down by strange decisions and a few lazy choices, lyrically and on stage. Cliche was the name of the game as an ‘alcoholic’ sipped from a hip flask and was tormented by masked and hooded abstract figures. The set was a strange fusion of nature and bougie restaurant with a giant leaf on the floor, a tree above and bare filament light bulbs hanging from the rafters. Lyrically this show pushed the boundaries of where normal musical theatre cheese meets lazy cliche with lines like ‘A home is where the heart is meant to be and you’ll always have a home inside of me’ feeling empty and tired. It was a shame to see small issues not dealt with (it wasn’t the first night) with actors performing to empty corners and the speakers consistently buzzing over one particularly popular high note.

This all said, The Distance You Have Come is not a show to be dissected or understood, but a show which enjoyably surrounds you with enough emotion that you can’t help but go along with it. The themes were contrived and the technical aspects were loose, but the exposed and unapologetic emotion of the performance culminated in a predictably moving evening.

 

Reviewed by William Nash

Photography by Darren Bell

 


The Distance You Have Come

Cockpit Theatre until 28th October

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Cantata for Four Wings | ★ | April 2018
Into the Woods | ★★★★ | May 2018
On Mother’s Day | ★★★½ | August 2018
Zeus on the Loose | ★★ | August 2018

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

 

 

The Agency – 2 Stars

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Agency

The Agency

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 9th October 2018

★★

“The only just punishment here is hard labour in the rehearsal rooms of London and amputation of at least some of the ideas and themes”

 

Some plays you want to hate and come to love. Others, like The Agency at the Old Red Lion Theatre, you really want to love but can’t help being let down. Part of London Horror Festival, Davey Seagle’s (writer, director and ‘lighting guy’) creation is improv, audience participation, voting technology, political satire, who-done-it, romantic comedy and more. The audience are jurors in a near-future Britain where a private company (The Agency) doles out budget-conscious justice as this jury sees fit; it’s all on the table from a cheap and cheerful execution to an expensive bout of rehabilitation. Hopes were high of a timely play about the ethics of late austerity, but with the ideas delivered in an if-you-didn’t-like-that-one-then-how-about-this-one manner and actors quickly losing control (over the audience and their own mouths), it failed to deliver.

As we passed the sixty minutes mark of a play starting at 9:30pm things had bubbled out of hand. Our actors were shouting for silence as an unruly audience called out over one another as we searched for a traitor in our midst. Members of the public where made to stand up and defend themselves before their fate was voted on, as yet more accusations were spat out from the second row and left unheard. I began to wonder if this was, in fact, the point. Maybe, I thought, the play was about anarchy mob rule? But no, order was restored, the traitor was missed, and we were brought back in into line.

Only making matters more convoluted was a mostly 1950s look to the set and costume but accompanying this was at least one poster aping contemporary anti-terrorist adverts, accents often from the 1920s and oddly futuristic props. For the when and where, we simply had to take the script at its unsubtle word.

How had these characters-come-supply-teachers lost control? Well, there wasn’t much else to do but cause mischief: idle hands make light work for the devil. Performances were loose and stumbling as actors simply spoke over one another or switched accents for reasons unknown. Georgie Oulton (Bunny) stood out for sheer commitment and Chris Elms (Chuck) was solid as those around him swallowed their lines, but it wasn’t enough to have the audience actually care. Where the script did get to speak, it didn’t have much to say leaving a late breaking ‘I fight for freedom’ speech written more like a teenage whine than Braveheart’s cry.

For a play about crime and punishment, The Agency lets itself off lightly. The only just punishment here is hard labour in the rehearsal rooms of London and amputation of at least some of the ideas and themes. We all believe in rehabilitation after all and there is a lot that could go right about an ambitious and inventive play like this.

 

Reviewed by William Nash

 


The Agency

Old Red Lion Theatre until 11th October as part of London Horror Festival 2018

 

 

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