Invincible - Review - Gala Theatre

Invincible
Gala Theatre 
2nd May 2016

Oliver and Emily are middle class southerners who have been hit by the Government cuts. Oliver has lost his job with the Civil Service and they can no longer afford to live in London. Emily is an artist witrh a socialist conscience. She abhors the system and rails against the establishment - politicians, big business, new labour, nationalism. And so they have moved north where the cost of living is cheaper and the people are "real".  As the play opens, Emily and Oliver are tidying in preparation for the meeting their new neighbours, and arguing. As the argument develops it becomes clear that Oliver has suggested they get married to please his mother who has only months to live, Emily is over protective of the children and feels the need to check on them constantly, and their neighbours cat is being a nuisance and is a potential source of friction with the neighbours. Clearly there are problems in their relationship. Oliver constantly tries to appease Emily, and she takes offence and umbrage at almost everything he says.
Into this come the neighbours Dawn and Alan. Down to earth, northern, salt of the earth. They are aspirational, own their own home, hanker after the good life. Dawn works part time and Alan is ex-navy, currently working as a post man, and loves football. He is late because England are playing. Emily and Oliver don't drink. Alan is a can man. He brings his own. These are two couples who are diametrically opposed. Disaster looms.

Writer Torben Betts has written a perfect situation comedy. Four people in conflict in a single confined space. The situation is dire, and potentially excruciatingly uncomfortable but Bett's talent is writing with humour to expose people's frailties and hypocracies. The situation can only get worse - and with every development the relationships sink deeper into catastrophe,  The observation of human nature is incisive and the two couples are gradually revealed in their true colours with almost farcical humour. The sitiation becomes unbearable for each character for different reasons, and their true characters are revealed. Each one has a vulnerability, and though they are from very different backgrounds in the end they are linked by a mutual bond of grief.

 Excellent performances by the cast make the characters completely believable - from the strident yet angst ridden Emily ((Emily Bowker), and Oliver (Alastair Whatley) who just can't seem to do or say anything right, to Dawn (Kerry Bennett) the vamp next door and Alan, her beer swilling, football chanting husband (Graeme Brookes). Invincible is a play about class, about the north south divide, and about relationships, grief and guilt. Beautifully crafted, it is incredibly funny and heartbreakingly sad.

The tour continues - details available here -  http://britishtheatre.com/invincible-uk-tour/

Denise Sparrowhawk

What Falls Apart - Review - Live Theatre

What Falls Apart
Live Theatre
Thursday 23rd April


Torben Betts first play for Live Theatre is a brilliant mix of humour - the audience was laughing out loud almost from the start of act one - and suspense and tension. We knew it wasn't going to end well, as drink and paranoia took a grip of the three characters on stage. And sure enough it all comes to a head in Act Two, though perhaps not quite as the audience anticipates. There are still laughs in Act Two but they are fewer and darker, edged with discomfort and uncertainty. Act two is tense.




What Falls Apart follows the events of one night in a 24hr hotel bar. Tom Savage (Nigel Hastings), outspoken labour MP has been welcomed back into the fold and given a "safe" seat in Newcastle. His campaigning is not going well and he has drowned his sorrows once already in the Hotel bar. As you'd expect he has said more than he should to the barman, a man with a surprising memory for facts and figures. Gary England (Kevin Wathen) is a barman with a past. A recovering alcoholic, son of an abusive father, and father himself to a daughter who is about to be taken from him. He is smart, streetwise and under pressure. He acts the jovial "friend to all" barman, listening to the woes of the politician and offering advice and philosophy but there is an underlying sense of something dangerous about him. And this becomes more pronounced when Venetia Fitzpatrick (Zannah Hodson) enters the bar.



Young, beautiful, intelligent, and a professed fan of the MP. She is equally dangerous and not quite all she seems. She claims to be an academic but not was not present at the lecture earlier that day - a lecture our savvy barman had attended. Her arrival upsets the balance between the barman and the politician, as they all vie for attention and none get what they want.




These are very believable characters - each one is clearly hiding something. Nigel Hastings politician is a man with strong beliefs and principles whos ambition led him to make a decision he regrets. He is clearly struggling to deal with the more mundane aspects of campaigning. He is a global socialist but not quite a man of the people. It can't be easy to play a politician and elicit sympathy from the audience, Hastings does just that. His character reveals enough of his own angst and his frustration and anger with the system, to keep his audience on side. Unlike Venetia Fitzpatrick - Zannah Hodson's character elicits distrust almost from the moment she steps onto the stage. Or perhaps that's just me? Maybe it's a female thing to assume a beautiful woman interested in an older man must be up to something?


Kevin Wathen's portrayal of the barman is a triumph. He pulls you in - he's clever, witty, clearly intelligent, but also flawed. We can see it, and there are references throughout the first act to warn us. As his personal life begins to fracture so does his self assurance. He can choose one of two options and the choice he makes will determine everyone's future.


Pop Quiz! What do you get when you throw together a criminally beautiful woman, a drunken politician and a barman on the edge with "a big fuck off knife"?

Answer: a second act with so much tension you almost forget to breathe.

Tom Savage, Venetia Fitzpatrick and Gary England will be falling apart at Live Theatre until 16th May.
If you don't like your theatre political and tense, don't go see it. If you do, go and remember to breathe.

Denise Sparrowhawk