Drowning but waving... Not Talking, Arcola Theatre

“If I don’t want to tell anyone, it’s up to me, right?”

This is a play where dialogue and narrative runs cross-cross between four characters through time and space. It’s a four-player exercise in setting up divergent paths to the same conclusion and, as such, engages audience hearts and mind and before we know if reconfigures our expectations in a dashing last flourish.

Of course, Olivier award-winning writer Mike Bartlett has written for Doctor Who (as well Doctor Foster, King Charles III, Albion and more) but there’s no time-travel in this his unperformed first play, just very smart structure and scripting. As Bartlett says in his programme notes, having two narrators for the same story makes the audience complicit: who do we believe and what is the truth? We try to pull the strands together and having four very different characters we’re stuck between establish-able fact and our favoured narrator/narrative until the options narrow and all is resolved.

It’s mathematical and it’s musical and the kind of play we all wish we could have written in our early twenties. There’s a particular piece from Chopin which links the narrative and, becomes a critical means of expression when words fail…

The play opens with two older people, Lucy (Kika Markham) and James (David Horovitch) reminiscing as the former plays Chopin. They are talking but not at or about the same time - they remember things differently and to them they still are even though they have no real means of transacting in the truth. James has always found talking easy and as a boy found it difficult to understand the idea of being reticent of “tongue-tied”… James sees himself as settled and yet there’s a – literally – unspoken gulf between him and wife Lucy.

Kika Markham

Lucy has never recovered from her daughter Mary being still born and it has broken down the core of their marriage: not for the first time, she plays her way out through Chopin.

Meanwhile… young squaddie Mark (Lawrence Walker) is pumped full of the adrenal gratification of being part of the army; guns to fire and orders to follow… a purposeful existence in which decisions are made for you. He sees Amanda (Gemma Lawrence), another young recruit at an army social and tries to engage with her on the dance floor… The His and Hers versions of this process are very funny – if only we had access to such intel eh lads?

But things will take a sinister turn and in Mark’s innocent confusion, the unravelling realisation will shake his relationship to the core.

Bartlett’s Grandfather had been a conscientious objector in the Second World War and, at the same age at the time of writing, he was inspired by this as well as reports of institutional bullying in the Army. James is a committed Christian and takes the highly-principled and painful stance of being a “conschie” at the start of the War but Lucy even knowing he needs her to stay proud of him, just couldn’t…

Gemma Lawrence, Kika Markham, Lawrence Walker and David Horovitch 

60 years later, Mark is under orders not to speak about the sexual assault he has witnessed and takes refuge behind these commands even though the subject of the assault is Amanda. With comrades and officers all against her, all complicit and some directly involved, she has no escape and, with something to say but no one to say it too, she simply shuts down and plays Chopin on the piano.

Back in the War Lucy discovers that James is having an affair with a woman called Susan… she starts playing piano every day when James comes home… unable to verbalise her response she lets him know through music and routine. He stops the affair but this will not be the end of it.

Secrets held for decades and a sexual assault covered up by the military what could possibly tie them together? I strongly suggest you get a ticket for yourself and find out.

Not Talking is intimate and casts a spell over its audience by pulling them in to its intricate mystery.

It’s superbly performed by an exceptional cast not least Kika Markham who is so powerfully febrile as Lucy, a woman for whom hanging on in quiet desperation has become almost a comfort. In turn you hang on her every word for meaning and yet the words are even then undermined by deft contrapuntal expression. The same goes for David Horovitch; entirely subsumed in the character of the worthy and ultimately very worthwhile James; these people are genuine and good they just need to find their answers.

David Horovitch

The Two Lawrences are full of fire – Mr Walker’s Mark prowls in confusion in search of real meaning in his life whilst Gemma’s Amanda has her trust thrown back in her face yet still won't deny herself the chance to connect...

The four interact in variable couplings and James Hillier directs with purposeful precision – this must have taken a set square, ruler and a lot of note paper. It must have taken negotiation and a lot of talking...

Not Talking plays at the Arcola until 2nd June – tickets available from the Box Office or online. It's another quality production from Dalston and, along with Moormaid, the Arcola has two of the best Spring indie productions in London! Book with confidence!

Ithankyou Theatre Rating: **** Thoroughly engaging and intelligent theatre that sneaks up and grabs you!

Photo Credit: Lidia Crisafulli

You’ve got to be in it to win it… Worth a Flutter, Hope Theatre

OK... Lucy Pinder bursts into the room wearing a kilt and playing the lead character’s very Scottish manhood… it has to be said, you don’t get moments like this very often in the theatre!

Michael Head’s play is crafted from his own experience – maybe not all of it, maybe even not “Hamish” – but it rings so true we were laughing as much with recognition as anything else. It’s a very honest play and told straight to audience and in the Hope’s intimate playing space, you have to really mean it to carry it through.

Michael plays Matt, a semi-professional gambler who’s engaged to the glamorous Paige (Lucy Pinder who has the most a-mazing hair!) mostly because Beyoncé encouraged her to hold up her hand and waggle her ring finger. He met Paige just as she vomited on his £100 shoes and ended up rescuing her from over-indulgence all the way to breakfast.

His best mate Paul (played by the irrepressible Paul Danan) seems to be spending a lot of time with Paige. He’s one of those blokes we all know; every class has one and “every convertible with the top down playing “urban” music, in February…” has one too. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t have to try to enjoy shallow relationships with girls although he did once have a Black Monday in the 90s when he didn’t even get a kiss.

Paul Danan, Michael Head, Clare McNamara and Lucy Pinder

Head’s writing is full of joyous lines that are a gift for this cast and they come thick and fast along with inventions such as Matt’s Caledonian c*ck and a horse race between the worst things to say on a first date including: “do you think I’m fat?”, “I love you” and “you’d make a lovely father”. The cast instantly switch roles for these set pieces and it works because we’ve all said such things even if the country of origin for our privates may vary.

Matt convenes at a café in Bermondsey with Paul and Paige and he’s clearly looking for a way out for, despite her glamour, Paige is not what you’d call a thinker – “like Dumb forgot to brief Stupid” but, as he tells Paul, “you don’t sell your motor if you ain’t got a bike.”

The waitress, Helen (Clare McNamara) is instantly at odds with Paul’s arrogance and Paige’s alpha posturing but takes more care over Matt… there’s something there. One thing leads to another and he has a coffee, the others leave, and he arranges to see her for a drink. Promising you think, and indeed, despite of the interruptions of her elderly neighbour (Mr Danan with a walking stick) the two spend the night together.

The next day Matt’s all aglow and has perhaps said something he shouldn’t in his enthusiasm… Helen is reticent and, this schoolboy error aside, we don’t know why. But then the play wrong foots us as another man enters the café called Sam (Jack Harding who I’d last seen in the excellent Foul Pages). There’s two sides to every story says Matt and we’re about to hear the other one. It won’t turn out well for everybody.

Paul Danan and Michael Head

Sam starts the second act blinking into the lights, he’s not as funny as Matt but his awkwardness soon reveals his backstory and his relationship to Helen.

He’s married and struggling to connect with his beautiful but distracted wife Emma (Ms Pindar again) the two barely listening to the other, something driving them further and further apart.

He’s come to Helen’s café to take counsel from the only person he can think of, office Brent, Martin, a salesman with “the moral compass of a stag do in Ibiza” who’s only advice is bad advice and entirely based on his own experience. He recommends a one-night stand to Sam and, inspired, suggests that Helen would be ideal for various non-flattering reasons.

Sam’s unsure, he’s always unsure, reaching out to find himself after years of compromise – but then both men are. Helen’s response is going to be slightly different to her experience with Matt and the play is very nuanced in this respect… it will all come down to a metaphorical boxing match between the two which is as funny and well-wrought as the horse racing.

At one point Matt wonders if there are any heroes in the play, they’re only ordinary men after all… but if anyone is it’s probably Helen as we learn more about the reasons for her sharp tongue – she is absolutely brutal with Martin’s old sauce and gives better than she gets from Paul’s posing. I’ll have a coffee and bacon roll in any café she’s working!

The Big Match: Jack Harding, Clare McNamara and Michael Head

Jonathon Carr directs smoothly and uses every inch of the Hope as the characters wheel around on horseback, in boxing shorts… in kilts! There’s a great spirit amongst the cast and crew – the Hope positively thrives on hard work and team-play!

The cast are clearly enjoying themselves and Clare McNamara is a superb slow-burner as Helen and her gentle expression is compelling and touching; real tears well up in eyes that light up with a smile. Not everyone can do this and she’s spectacular.

She’s not alone with Michael Head narrating his own words emphatically – likeable and real – whilst Jack Harding wins you over even as you’ve just been rooting his character’s rival. Paul Danan – damn him – is obviously likeable even as a rogue whilst I must commend Lucy Pinter on her debut stage performance; she’s very funny as well as convincing as the flouncy Paige, the bookish Emma and as Matt’s Scottish friend…

Tip of the hat also to Lauren Flynn on lights and sound who smashed it helping us to really believe in the Bermondsey!

Worth a Flutter runs at The Hope Theatre from 1st May to 19th May and tickets are available from the Box Office and online too: it’s another hit for The Hope and a big hearted, generous, spirited play.

IThankYou Rating: **** Rings so many bells it could be Christmas; see it for some great wordplay and committed performers. And, believe me when I say that “The Scottish Play” will never be the same again…

Another green world… Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Michael Smith and Company, St Leonard’s Church, Hertford

The fascination of medieval literature is in truly understanding the mind of those who wrote it; we may not know the name of the person who wrote Gawain but we know a lot about how he thought and what his preoccupations were.

Tonight, what better place to reconnect with the medieval mind than inside an 11^th Century church that predates the Conqueror and which opened its doors three hundred years before Sir Gawayn and þe Grene Knyȝt was composed. In this place there’s a Saxon window beyond an exquisite Norman arch and the walls are covered with frescoes of Christ and crucifixion drawn by hands in fear and wonder. St Leonard’s is Hertford’s oldest building and has lived a life, from the time of King Cnut the Great to Cromwell using it to keep horses during the Civil War and its modern-day restoration.

It is a beautiful, slightly pagan place and the perfect venue for tonight’s performance. Michael Smith is a man of Cheshire and he has spent years crafting a new translation of this alliterative poem written by that unknown hand from the same county. These words run deep and for the Warrington-born medievalist, writer, performer and print maker, there’s a connection with soil and soul.

This was the second performance of Smith’s new translation and the production has advanced very quickly into a tightly-wrought folk-theatre. The director is Mike Ashman, who in addition to a CV including stints directing at the Royal Opera and Welsh Opera, is Hertford born and grew up opposite this very church. His direction saw the players use the full length of the church to superb effect, pulling in a packed house to this wondrous but not necessarily immediately-accessible world.

Jon Banks and Mike Smith

Musical accompanist Jon Banks has an international profile too and is a medieval multi-tasker playing countless arcane instruments whether as Musical Director of the Globe Theatre, a member of the Burning Bush (who did the music for the BBC series Inside the Medieval Mind) and the Dufay Collective. Tonight, Jon’s improvisations weaved around the words, under-scoring with practiced precision as well as adding dramatic weight to the swing of axe and the fall of head.

Michael Smith took the lead role as speaker and was ably supported by Stuart Handysides (now there’s a name with some ancient heritage!) as second speaker and the mighty Alex Young as Narrator, a role created to bridge parts of the original narrative in order to enable more concise word play.

The three were fascinating to watch as the poem flowed between them and I really enjoyed the overlapping segments of the original (and enjoyably impenetrable) Middle English (North Western dialect) and the new translation: you felt the translation was happening afresh in front of your very eyes. The audience was face to face with the actors as they read mostly underneath that Norman arch, which was bathed in bright green lighting for the evening. With Jon Banks set up behind them it created a focused poetic momentum that pulled us in and drove us on.

Stuart Handysides and Michael Smith

The story involves the testing of Sir Gawain, the youngest of King Arthur’s knights who takes up a deadly challenge when the imposing Green Knight arrives in Camelot on New Year’s Day. The Green Knight weilds a huge axe and, refusing to fight any of the knights on the grounds that they are too weak, he offers to exchange a single strike of the axe in exchange for a return blow in a year’s time. Sir Gawain duly slices the axe down clean through the Knight’s proffered neck but, still standing, he picks his head up and, climbing back on his green steed, tells Gawain he will see him at the Green Chapel to complete the exchange.

Sir Gawain sets off in search of the Chapel and has many adventures en route, travelling through North Wales, Anglessey, “Holy Head” (not Holyhead but more probably Holywell near Flint) and from there across the wastelands of the Wirral (have you seen some of the fairways on Heswall Golf Course?!).

It’s not hard to imagine how treacherous these paths would have been for a single traveller, even one armed with sword and on horseback: Gawain is all alone and his real trials have yet to begin. Eventually he arrives at the estate of Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert (possibly Swythamley near Macclesfield) who tells him the Green Chapel is close by and that he can stay as his guest until his appointment with green. Also present is Lady Bertilak and a mysterious old lady. Soon there is much sport as Gawain goes hunting with the Lord and is sorely tempted by his Lady… these are tests of chastity, chivalric honour and Christian faith; in the Fourteenth Century there was little more important.

Michael Smith

How Gawain conducts himself give fascinating insights into the rules of the game and his life and his soul, will depend on it.

Mr Smith’s translation brings this language and its true eloquence to life and the vigour of the performance brought a visceral edge to medieval mannerisms. The three speakers worked very well as they took turns in carrying the narrative and I was particularly impressed as Messrs Handysides and Smith handled the amorous teasing of the good Lady B. It’s a play with humour as well as honour which, together with faith, were pretty much the whole world for men and women of the 1300s.

Michael Smith’s illustrated translation featuring his unique linocuts, is published on 26^th July and is available from Unbound (where you can still get the high-quality collectors first edition), Penguin online and Amazon – I look forward to reading the full story and relishing this uncanny tale.

Hopefully there’ll be more performances though as this is language that really must be recited and performed – a living link to ancient concerns that drive us still!

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** A visceral meeting of modern and medieval mind.

Green light through yonder window glaze...

Three watchers without

Frescoes drawn from fear and faith