Alternative Britain… Jade City, The Bunker

As a child in Liverpool I once witnessed an Orange march, not as big as these things go across the water, but still my first exposure to the religious divide in England’s biggest catholic city. We had different schools and, in my time, hardly mixed as boys.  That’s pretty much all I’ve got by way of understanding day-to-day life in Ulster with any catholic relatives I have living in Dublin, a city that, from my brief experience, has something of the same spirit as my hometown.

Alice Malseed’s play is therefore a challenge to my English view of Belfast, ingrained assumptions about the life there and the lazy thoughts that are currently being exposed about any ideas of a level playing field… Like the central characters Sas (Brendan Quinn) and Monty (Barry Calvert) I grew up slowly, happily clinging on to the childish fantasy worlds of DC and Marvel comics with my mate Phil until we both realised the game was literally up and we evolved into men in suits. There’s no such prospect for Sas and Monty and they’re morally and mentally arrested by their environment; potential smothered by circumstance.

The play begins with much humour as the two lads crack in-jokes, bantering in accents so broad that subtitles are projected on the wall behind – whether or not this was their intended function, I could make out most of what was being said, it had the effect of making the lads seem more constrained by the larger environment. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Sas and Monty are destined to play out their lives like so much predictive text and this realisation is as horrific to the audience as the characters themselves.

We were kings when we were young says Sas at one point, reflecting on the invulnerability of childhood when they’d race around on bikes, or, in later youth, scam drinks from the local working men’s’ club. They sit in their local bar calling out all the characters around them, the reasons why they’re in their drinking, the damage that has been done… but it’s familiar, re-assuring.

Barry Calvert and Brendan Quinn (photographs by  Ali Wright)

The action is set in a boxing ring, not just because the boys both used to box but because they still play The Game, imagining themselves in shared fantasies whether they’re in Cuba fighting the revolution, involved in daring raids or even flying over their home as seagulls. Yet cracks are starting to show and Sas is finding it harder to leave reality pointing out that seagulls can’t fly so high, Monty’s face dropping in child-like disappointment.

They also role-play past events including an evening involving a local girl called Katie… there’s something here that disturbs both with Sas saddened and Monty in denial; he looks the tougher of the two and yet there’s something he’s not able to face. Here in their imaginary boxing ring they are finally, painfully going to confront each other and their issues.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, more lives have been lost to suicide in Northern Ireland than during the Troubles and around a third of people live on or below the bread line. Jade City highlights exactly how alone these men are with little chance of finding the support they need or a decent job. Working in shops, bars and supermarkets is difficult for them both to hold down and the Job Seekers Allowance is there to reward those with rich imaginations and patience who are willing to delude themselves that this is all there could be: and who can blame them.

One of them can begin the process of breaking free but it’s almost too cruel on the one that can’t as they are all each other has. Jade City is one of their local take-aways and much like the Emerald City, it can’t save you unless you save yourself, if, that is, you are able. Social services, mental health, and well-intentioned governments… much like the Wizard, are almost entirely fictional.

I loved the dialect and the text projection: Sas and Monty aren’t dead, at least not yet. Props too director Katherine Nesbitt for creating a very visceral play that pulls no punches literally or figuratively; so well written by Alice Malseed, we don’t see what’s coming, lost in the boys’ game until the very last.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** A terrific two-hander that creates a rich world in which many of us would be crushed; a play that will stay in my thoughts for some time.

Jade City plays at The Bunker until Saturday 21st September – tickets available at the box office and online here.