Review: Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven (This Is Not A Theatre Company, C Arts, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe ran throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. I’ve been reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next shows I experienced this year were digital productions, and they were part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, including the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The productions I’m going to be reviewing were available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven, immersive audio dramas by This Is Not A Theatre Company. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 5th August, but here’s the blog version…

This Is Not A Theatre Company had three productions on this year’s Fringe programme. Because of space constraints, I’m only going to be talking about two of them today. But I’m pretty sure that my review of those two pieces will encourage you to not only check out Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven, but also any other work by this innovative company that you might get chance to experience.

So, I’ll start with Tree Confessions. Like the other pieces by This Is Not A Theatre Company, Tree Confessions is a site-specific performance. I’ve seen site-specific theatre at the Greater Manchester Fringe before – it’s always a nice addition to the festival programme, offering a new perspective on familiar places. However, Tree Confessions is a little different to the other site-specific pieces I’ve seen.

For one, it’s an audio drama. And for two, it’s you (the listener) who will choose the site in which the piece is performed. At the start of Tree Confessions, you’re given a simple instruction: find a tree that you like and sit underneath it. You’re going to listen to this audio drama underneath the tree and – at some points, perhaps – interact with your chosen tree. Fortunately, as we know, the weather’s been pretty good this July, giving us all plenty of opportunities to enjoy Tree Confessions as its meant to be enjoyed. (And, in case you’re interested, I chose my favourite old ash tree in Crumpsall Park as my venue for the performance.)

Written by Jenny Lyn Bader and directed by Erin B. Mee, Tree Confessions is a monologue told, as you might have guessed, by a tree.

Kathleen Chalfont is the performer here, and I must say she plays a tree beautifully! But I should also say it’s not quite the performance I expected.

Chalfont’s tree narrator is warm and sonorous (and this effect is heightened by the site-specific, immersive nature of the piece), inviting us to lose ourselves in the story that unfolds. The tree explains early on that a researcher called Cindy has been a frequent visitor to the woods, monitoring and recording the trees in an attempt to prove that they communicate with one another. Cindy has indeed recorded evidence that reveals that trees can speak to one another, but, as our narrator explains, she may not have been given the full story.

What follows is a beautifully meandering exploration of what it means to be a tree. At times humorous, the narration sometimes conjures up a very domestic picture of tree-life. She jokes about her great aunt, for instance, who ‘claimed to be 2,003’. But at other times, there is something more mythic in the storytelling. She recounts the legend of the ‘Great Tree’, a fable to explain why trees release oxygen during photosynthesis.

Elsewhere, the tree explains some scientific – and some not-so-scientific – principles that explain the life of trees and the ecosystem around them, drawing us (the listener) in and encouraging us to – physically, if we are indeed listening under a tree – feel that life and be part of the ecosystem. After all, as we’re reminded, ‘we’re on the same side’.

Tree Confessions is a short audio drama that feels so much longer than its half-hour running time. It certainly achieves its aims of being immersive, as the combination of the storytelling style and Chalfont’s performance makes this a very easy piece to get lost in. I think it’s a mark of how successful this piece is that I genuinely felt sad when it finished.

This is a double-bill review, as I’m going to talk about one of This Is Not A Theatre Company’s other productions now. In some ways, the two pieces I’m talking about in this review are very similar. But, in other ways, they are so very different.

A Little Drape of Heaven is written by Mahesh Dattani and performed by Swati Das. Like Tree Confessions it is an immersive audio monologue that encourages us to look and think differently about an everyday object.

In A Little Drape of Heaven, however, rather than finding our own venue to enjoy the performance, we’re asked to find an appropriate prop. At the beginning, we (the listener) are asked to go to a cupboard – not, I hasten to add, to sit inside to listen to the play! – and find an item of clothing to hold onto as we listen. We are particularly encouraged to find a piece of clothing that belongs to a gender other than our own, and then follow the exhortation to ‘Hold it close to your heart’.

Our narrator here is a sari, a glorious piece of fabric made as a wedding garment but passed through generations to be worn by others. At some point in its history, the sari was discovered by a young boy, whose fascination with the garment is almost a forbidden passion. It is not a piece of clothing intended for a young boy, and yet it draws him with its tactile finery.

Das’s performance is, itself, ‘a little drape of heaven’, lingering on descriptions of being worn with silken tones that speak of a sensuous – almost sexual at times – experience. Dattani’s writing is lyrical and evocative, meaning that, no matter what item of clothing we took from our cupboard to hold, we can picture the beauty and splendour of the sari as she speaks.

As I’ve said, this is quite a different piece to Tree Confessions, and this becomes apparent in the second half. There is a very definitive narrative being told here, though it is easy to lose sight of this as you lose yourself in the more luxurious poetry of the descriptions of the sari being handled and worn. I don’t want to give anything away, but the story that is being told in A Little Drape of Heaven is probably not the one you think is being told. What I will say is that the monologue’s conclusion is a remarkably satisfying ending, and, by revealing the ‘other’ story that lay behind the one we thought we were listening to, A Little Drape of Heaven encourages listeners to imagine that other narrative long after the piece has finished.

A Little Drape of Heaven is a captivating piece, with a compelling performance and an innovative storytelling style. As with Tree Confessions, this is really a piece to lose yourself in, and I thoroughly recommend you check it out at a future festival if you get the chance.

Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven were available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows that were on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: After Shark (Lita Doolan Productions, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe ran throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. I’ve been reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the GMF Digital Events strand on this year’s Fringe programme.

The production I’m going to be reviewing was available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing After Shark, a play by Lita Doolan Productions. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 5th August, but here’s the blog version…

After Shark is a short film, written by Lita Doolan and featuring Jo Phillips-Lane, Julie Broadbent, Sara Haggerty and Ian McShee, which is inspired by true events. Earlier this year, the body of a rare Greenland shark was discovered in Newlyn in Cornwall, and this event is the springboard for the story told in After Shark. One of the film’s characters, Meg (played by Julie Broadbent) discovers the shark in the harbour and attempts to return it to the ocean. Later, she sees the shark again and realizes it hasn’t survived.

That said, the shark storyline is only a very small part of After Shark. Despite the show’s title and blurb, the discovery of the Greenland shark is only a fragment of the overall story, and the film doesn’t linger for long on Meg’s discovery.

After Shark is actually a story – told through fragments and snippets, often floating free of context or exposition – of a group of people who are reacting, in one way or another, to changes in their lives and in their environment.

The piece is presented through a range of filmic techniques. The opening shots use an animated backdrop, which soon gives way to filmed scenes. However, the filmed scenes we see rarely show us characters or action. Instead, the majority of the film is a montage of recordings of bookshelves, streets, pavements, the harbour, filmed in a naturalistic style as though captured on a smartphone while a character is moving around their environment. Over the top of this footage, voiceovers narrate moments in the characters’ lives, usually as one half of a conversation with an unseen and unheard other. It’s an interesting technique, and one that is both disorienting and intriguing. It keeps us at a distance from the characters, denying a chance to ‘know’ them fully, but it also weaves together a series of fragments that promise to reveal a bigger picture.

The shark anecdote from Meg is – obviously – one that jumps out as significant. But elsewhere other characters share tiny stories of their own that hint at a similar significance. For instance, Shona – one of the characters who does appear on screen, recording her narrative via video calls – announces in her first short monologue that she has just received the keys to her first ever council house, but then explains that the previous tenant had kept pigeons. When the man died, the council didn’t know what to do with his pigeons and so left them closed into the property until they killed one another. It’s just a little snippet of Shona’s story, but it’s heavy with a sense of brutality and waste.

As I’ve said, the fragmentary effect of the short, contextless scenes of each character (coupled with the fact that we don’t generally see their faces on screen), along with the use of handheld camera footage that sometimes seems almost uncanny in its disembodiment, can often be disorienting. At times, the camera appears to follow the point-of-view of the person who is speaking, as when Meg walks down to the harbour, but at other times it offers a less coherent view. For instance, when one character (Chrissie) talks about being at an author event, the view we see is a canted shot of bookshelves in an apparently vacant bookshop.

There are hints here and there that the stories being told intersect with one another. Characters refer to one another, and it’s quite clear in some of her scenes that Meg is on the phone to Shona. Nevertheless, the connections are implicit, which also adds to the disorientation. There’s a boldness to the way After Shark denies its audience a comfortable narrative structure. We are never quite on solid ground with this one.

The overall effect of this is to focus audience attention on thematic, rather than narrative, connections. And there are a number of themes that come through quite strongly in the film.

Change is a key theme – almost all the characters are experiencing some sort of life change, to greater or lesser degree. Meg is looking for a new job, one that will allow her to continue her conservation and animal welfare volunteering. Chrissie is planning to sell her house in Newlyn and move to London to be closer to her daughter, whereas Shona has just moved into her first flat and is ‘starting from scratch again’. Roger and Zena (who, we learn part way through, is Chrissie’s daughter) are police officers who are facing conflicting pulls on their professional and personal identities. Some of these life changes are embraced willingly, others reluctantly, but all of them are redolent of an uncertain future.

Which brings me to another, perhaps more obvious, theme that is explored in After Shark: the environment. Environmental concerns are writ large across the film, in the visuals where most of the outdoor shots feature scattered litter and plastic bottles, and in the storyline where characters come together (in person and via Zoom) to take part in an environmental protest in London. Shona is a strident vegan who speaks of liberating farmed animals; Meg engages in low-key sabotage of the fishing industry by cutting nets at the harbour.

But ‘environment’ here doesn’t always just mean global concerns. Many of the characters speak of much more domestic anxieties. Whether it’s the council tenant filling his flat with pigeons, or Chrissie’s continuous (and possibly futile) battle against ragwort in the gardens along the coastal path, characters constantly gesture to an attempt at controlling their home environment and fashioning their own world in the way they want to see it. Chrissie speaks of a desire to let the younger generations see ‘pre-war Cornwall’ in Newlyn’s gardens, bringing together the film’s concern with change and with the environment.

Ultimately, none of the characters end up in the environment (in the broad sense) they expected to be in. Jobs are lost, protests go wrong, house moves fall through, family relationships are jeopardized. And, perhaps, it’s in this that we see the shark become more of an allegorical creature: like the poor lost fish doomed to die on Newlyn beach, the characters here all find themselves in unfamiliar, even dangerous, waters, facing an uncertain and unknown future.

Overall, After Shark is a thought-provoking short film. I’ll be honest and say that it suffers a little in terms of production quality – the video call sequences have poor quality audio, and some of the filmed footage is choppy and uneven – but the premise and the storytelling techniques are compelling. As I’ve said, the film resists a comfortable narrative structure, relying instead on a more fragmented approach, and this means that it also resists easy answers and trite exposition. After Shark emerges as a film to ponder on, and one which certainly bears multiple viewings.

After Shark was available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the GMF Digital Events strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows that were on this year, please visit the festival website.

Tiny Birthday No. 1

It's my birthday this month! I really like celebrating my birthday, but I feel like this year has been so difficult for everyone (everyone I know is just exhausted and stressed at the moment), so I don't feel like I want to ask people to do stuff just for me or to celebrate in a big way. So I've decided to do lots of tiny birthdays instead, enjoying little moments of fun with my friends and family (and by myself!) over the month.

First Tiny Birthday... as my brother is going to be away on my actual birthday, we shared some gorgeous cupcakes from Cake Box on Cheetham Hill tonight.

Lammas: Day 7

It's Lammas Day! However, due to the fact that we were both working today (and Rob was doing an overnight shift at that), we did all our big celebrations yesterday. So I just have one last seasonal thing to share...

Lammas Earrings

My final pair of Lammas earrings were these funky baguettes!

And so the wheel of the year turns... We'll be celebrating again at the Autumnal Equinox.

Lammas: Day 6

This post is a little delayed, but here's what we got up to on Lammas Eve! This was our 'big day', as we were both going to be at work all day on Lammas itself.

Lammas Earrings

Sunday's seasonal earrings might be my favourite ones yet... little bags of flour!

Stretton Watermill

We went out for a picnic on Sunday at Stretton Watermill this afternoon. We really enjoyed the tour of the mill, and I love that distinctive waterwheel smell so this was a great visit for us. We also took a moment to appreciate the season on the banks of the stream that powers the mill.

Lammas Dinner

Rob made us an amazing Lammas Eve dinner, a dish he called 'Lammas Surprise'. There was much bread, but also a very delicious filling.

Lammas Gifts

We swapped our traditional Lammas gifts and cards on Sunday, since we're both working on Monday. I say traditional, obviously we have just made all this up this year.

Lammas: Day 5

Another day of celebrating Lammas for us! And here's what we got up to...

All Among the Barley

My seasonal read for Lammas is All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison.

Bailey’s Wood Lammas Litter-Pick

We were out in the Lammas-y woods this morning for the monthly Friends of Bailey's Wood litter-pick.

Craft & Flea Market

We were at the market again this afternoon! This time it was the Craft & Flea at Manchester Cathedral. I'm very pleased with our second market haul of the week... spiced gin from Prestwich Gin, orange, lemon and raspberry vegan curd from The Kind Curd Co, hot sauce for my little bro from The Cole Men, plus new bee earrings from Violet Jewels! We also got sausage rolls, chocolate brownies and lemon meringue kronuts!

‘Harvest Home’

I caught up with my seasonal reading tonight, with the chapter 'Harvest Home' in Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun. Sometimes I feel like folk horror is just an accurate record of things that have happened.

Lammas: Day 4

Catching up with another slightly last post tonight - here's what we got up to on our fourth day of Lammas celebrations (Friday).

Lammas Earrings

Friday's Lammas earrings were cinnamon swirls. Not quite bread, I know, but still reliant on the grain harvest.

Storytelling Session

I did a seasonal storytelling session with residents at Castlerea Care Home on Friday afternoon. We talked about harvest, hay and holidays, and about the sort of emotions and imagery that late summer evokes. Plus, we had Danish pastries and listened to The Kinks!

Children of the Corn

Lammas film night with Rob and a friend on Friday. We celebrated the grain harvest with Children of the Corn (1984)!

Cornflake Chocolate

And a little movie snack to go with Children of the Corn... Cornflakes Ritter Sport!

Lammas: Day 3

I'm a little bit late posting this, but here's our third day of Lammas celebrations (Thursday)!

Lammas Earrings

Thursday's seasonal earrings were citrus slices.

A Trip to Southport

I went on a day out to Southport with the residents of Castlerea Care Home on Thursday. It was a little bit drizzly but otherwise we had fun. Is Ferrero Rocher a traditional Lammas treat? Because I had a Ferrero Rocher ice cream!

Myst: Revelation

Not really a Lammas-specific thing, but me and my brother are replaying all the Myst games, and we got together for a game night on Thursday. We were really hoping we get through the end of Revelation, because it's been a bit of a slog. We did not get to the end.

More Lammas Earrings

I'm still not sure if Ferrero Rocher counts as a Lammas treat, but I switched to my new Ferrero Rocher earrings for the evening anyway.

Cornflake Pie

Our Myst replay drove us insane, so we're cheered ourselves up with a Lammas treat. As Lammas is a celebration of the first cereal harvest, we're having a cornflake pie from Bury Market.

Lammas: Day 2

It's the second day of our Lammas celebrations! I had a lot of work commitments in the afternoon, so it was just morning stuff today.

Bury Market

Lammas is a time to enjoy fairs and markets apparently, so we took my mother-in-law to the market this morning. Not to sell her, I hasten to add! It wasn't a Mayor of Casterbridge situation! We had a Lammas trip to (World Famous) Bury Market today, and I am very pleased with my market haul!

Lammas Earrings

In honour of our trip to Bury Market, today's Lammas earrings were upcycled L.S. Lowry prints... Market Scene, Northern Town.

Sweetcorn Fritters

I got some sweetcorn fritters on the market too. I thought this seemed like an appropriately seasonal snack, and they were so nice as well!

Review: Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen (Terra Taylor Knudson)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. Once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, including the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The production I’m going to be reviewing now is available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen, a performance by Terra Taylor Knudson. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 29th July, but here’s the blog version…

In a couple of my previous reviews (for Eliane Morel’s Disenchanted and Hear. Speak. See. by Expial Atrocious), I mentioned the variety of techniques and approaches used to create the pieces on the digital theatre strands of this year’s GM Fringe programme. Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is yet another type of digital theatre – it’s a recording of a live stage version of the show in front of an audience. Quite a different experience to the ‘lockdown theatre’ faux video calls of Disenchanted or the immersive film experience of Hear. Speak. See., but it’s definitely an approach that works for Knudson’s show.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a one-woman show that charts Knudson’s relationship to William Shakespeare. And, just to say, it is always figured as a relationship: the title should give you a hint as to the casual familiarity with which Knudson treats the Bard and his work.

The play begins with Knudson performing Mistress Page’s monologue from The Merry Wives of Windsor. It’s a good performance, capturing the warmth and humour of Shakespeare’s character (as well as her acerbic tongue and assertiveness), and it makes for a compelling opener. Here is an actor who knows how to do Shakespeare, we think. Here is someone who knows what the words mean and can convey the sentiment behind them.

But Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen isn’t simply a chance to watch Knudson perform a series of Shakespeare’s monologues – though I have to admit that the opening scene suggests that would be a fun thing to watch. This is a much more personal journey, and Mistress Page’s words soon give way to a reminiscence about watching the play for the first time as a child.

Knudson’s story moves from her early introduction to the work of William Shakespeare, when she tentatively accepted that this might be something she could enjoy, to the beginning of the real ‘relationship’ in her high school years. Her narration is full of humour – sometimes at her own expense, sometimes at the expense of those around her, and often at the expense of Shakespeare himself. She speaks of teenage relationships and reimagines a scene of young heartbreak with herself as Ophelia and her no-good musician boyfriend as Hamlet, explaining that she was ‘living the great Shakespearean soap opera that we all live in high school’.

As Knudson’s personal narrative continues there are detours into the biography of the writer himself (told with an utterly irreverent humour that really reminds you that there are some weird gaps in Willy’s life story), and into the historical circumstances that informed much of his writing (including the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses and the birth of the Tudor Dynasty). I was a bit surprised to find – given the show’s title – that Knudson didn’t linger particularly on Elizabeth I and Shakespeare’s position as a specifically Elizabethan writer, but there is still a lot to enjoy about Knudson’s frenetic and funny take on over five centuries of English history, which singles out Elizabeth Woodville as a ‘Disney Princess’ and lingers on Joan of Arc’s betrayal by the Dauphin (almost as though this might be relevant later in the show). Obviously, as a Brit, I felt a moment of trepidation when the American on stage announced she was going to ‘explain’ a few centuries of our history, but all credit to Knudson – it’s a fun and affectionate take that will win over even the most patriotic audience member on this side of the pond.

At almost breakneck pace, Knudson takes the audience through this background material, which she explains she read about to better understand Shakespeare’s writing and its effect on her, and to her university years. Desperate to be an actor ever since that first experience of watching The Merry Wives of Windsor, Knudson explores the moment she was accepted into a performing arts college (though on a Production Management major rather than an acting course), and the trepidation she felt on moving away from home to a completely different state.

As the monologue moves into its second half – almost a second act – things take a darker turn, and we move from the rollicking ride through English history and Shakespeare’s life story into a much more serious narrative.

Knudson’s account of her time at college is a painful one, and while it begins by framing the experiences in terms of Shakespearean drama (including a disturbing reimagining of her college roommate and ‘torturer’ as a particularly unsettling version of Lady Macbeth), the story moves away from Shakespearean characters and into a nightmarishly personal narrative. This section of the show is heart-breaking to watch, and Knudson’s performance is captivating (in a chilling way), as she recreates or recaptures incredibly raw emotions. While there was a jokey reference to the ‘To be, or not to be’ speech earlier in the show, when this soliloquy eventually reappears, it carries so much more weight and is downright agonizing to watch.

Fortunately – and I don’t think this is a spoiler – Shakespeare saves the day in the end. Or rather, Knudson, supported by the love of the theatre that Shakespeare’s writing has given her, saves her own day. The play ends with jubilance and triumph, which feels like an apt testament to the writer-performer’s resilience, and to the near-magical way in which Shakespeare’s plays have continued to resonate and stay relevant through the centuries.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a joy to watch. Knudson is a talented and creative performer, and there’s something so natural in her delivery that it’s easy to forget this is a scripted show. The experience of watching a recording of a live performance was very enjoyable, but I must admit it made me a little jealous of the audience for that show. Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a very intimate show, and Knudson’s performance style is so charismatic and familiar, that I feel like seeing the show live would be a really satisfying experience. Maybe one day I’ll get to find out…

Despite my pang of jealousy towards the live show’s audience, I’m very pleased to discover that the Greater Manchester Fringe is actually the show’s international debut (because what finer Fringe is there to host this debut?). If you get chance to stream the show before the end of the GM Fringe, I recommend you do so. If not, it is going to be available to stream as part of the Edinburgh Fringe programme in August, and then the Sydney and Melbourne Fringes later in the year. And it’s definitely worth a watch.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Hear. Speak. See. (Expial Atrocious, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. Once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the GMF Digital Events strand on this year’s Fringe programme.

The production I’m going to be reviewing now is available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Hear. Speak. See., an immersive drama by Expial Atrocious. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 29th July, but here’s the blog version…

I mentioned in my previous review of Eliane Morel’s Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales that the digital theatre productions on this year’s festival programme are very varied, both in terms of their content and the ways they use the storytelling techniques facilitated by digital technologies.

A brief comparison of Disenchanted and Expial Atrocious’s Hear. Speak. See. reveals this variety beautifully. I’ve not really got space to do that comparison, so you really should watch both of these shows yourself to find out! Seriously.

Hear. Speak. See. is a short film production that uses video technology to create an unsettling immersive experience for the audience – and it’s clearly intended for individual viewers to stream in their own time, as it’s a show that very specifically denies a communal audience and privileges the perspective of the individual viewer.

Allow me to explain…

Hear. Speak. See. takes place at a dinner party. ‘You’ have been invited and have been told that it will be a dinner party like no other. And ‘you’ are the viewer – the film is shot from a first-person perspective, so the viewer becomes the guest at the dinner. When the three cast members address the fourth guest, they are addressing you, the viewer. It’s an immersive experience, but also a gloriously unsettling one.

And make no mistake, ‘gloriously unsettling’ is the best description of this piece of theatre, which packs a lot into its surprisingly short running time. It really is an immersive piece, and so it feels like you are at that dinner party for a long time.

The other guests at the party are played by Nic Lawton, Ez Holland and Faye Bingham (who also cowrote and codirected the piece). They are dressed in white costumes and are greeting one another – and you – as though this is a long-awaited catch-up with old friends.

But it clearly isn’t a catch-up with old friends. Not only do you (as you are now a character in the play) don’t recognize the others or understand the nature of the gathering, but there’s something off about the conversation. The interactions between the other three guests don’t flow smoothly, and there’s a tendency to non-sequiturs or almost nonsensical responses. The dynamic between the three is also hard to determine. At times, they chat to one another as though they see each other regularly, but at others they seem more distant, as though they are reunited after a long time. The only thing that is consistent is that they are determined the dinner party must happen, and that you must remain seated at the table with them.

In case it’s not clear from this description, we’re in the world of absurdist theatre with Hear. Speak. See. This is a piece that defies straightforward explanation or narrative exposition. Although some snippets of sound recordings at the beginning – which will be revisited towards the end – offer a tantalizing hint of context or backstory, there is a continued denial of both logic and progression. There isn’t a ‘story’ here, and nor can we really talk about ‘themes’, though ideas of justice and retribution echo through the performance, and there is a glimmer of exposition in the development of Bingham’s performance towards the end of the film. Ultimately, though, the film resists easy interpretation.

Characterization, too, is vague and uncertain. Lawton’s character appears to be the host of the event, and there are a number of references to the event being held in her house. (Of course, this doesn’t make complete sense, as at one point Holland moves around you and, as your perspective follows her movements, lights at the edge above her clearly reveal the edge of the set, undermining what little verisimilitude remained.) Holland’s character begins as a more gregarious, friendly fellow guest, but there are undertones of something more brittle beneath the surface. Bingham’s character almost appears to be in control at points, and is the most unequivocally hostile towards you (and towards Holland and Lawton’s characters too, at times).

Generally speaking, the hostility underlying Bingham’s interactions, and the party as a whole, isn’t overt. The more appropriate term would be menace, I feel. And, of course, this sense of menace, coupled with the explicitly ‘party’ setting encourages some comparison with Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. And this comparison would not be unfavourable either.

In addition to the verbal absurdity and confusion, which creates some of the atmosphere of menace, there is physical absurdity. The acting here is never naturalistic, but at times it becomes even more artificial – more consciously a performance – as the three actors suddenly move in choreographed synchronicity, or a physical altercation is played out through stylized but non-contact stage moves. There are brief, nightmarish cutaways in which the scene transforms into one of pain and agony, the performers contorted and screaming, for mere moments without explanation.

The performances here are really impressive. A highlight for me was the scene in which Bingham, Holland and Lawton eat plates of tomato bruschetta and salad leaves. That’s it – that’s all that happens – and the scene goes on for so long it’s downright uncomfortable to watch (and this is one of the moments in the play that really distorts the audience’s sense of the play’s overall running time). This scene really is a thing of absurd, disturbing, almost grotesque beauty, constantly gesturing to something beyond the performance – a theme? a backstory? an interpretation of events? – without actually explaining it.

Towards the end of the piece, we begin to get a clearer sense of what might have provoked or enabled the party to be thrown, as well as an idea of the role Bingham’s character plays in this. However, this isn’t really an answer, as our understanding of what, exactly, the party actually is continues to be elusive. Who or what Lawton and Holland’s characters are, and why they are involved is even more uncertain as the play moves towards its conclusion.

If, like me, you’re a fan of the Theatre of the Absurd, then Hear. Speak. See. is definitely one to watch. It’s a gem of a piece – visually stylish, bafflingly disturbing and with pitch-perfect performances from the cast. If Theatre of the Absurd isn’t something you know much about, or if you don’t count yourself as a fan, I’d still say give it a go. The short running time (despite it feeling way longer) allows a somewhat easier introduction to this style of theatre than full-length plays, and who knows? that visual style and those pitch-perfect performances might just win you over to the absurd side.

I know I quite often end my reviews by saying that the piece I’m talking about is a recommendation or a strong recommendation. And I make no apologies for that – I see some good stuff! But in this case I’m going to go even further and say that Hear. Speak. See. is one of my highlights of this year’s festival, and I’m very glad I got to see it.

Hear. Speak. See. is available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the GMF Digital Events strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.