In 2014, The North Wall ran a summer residency for 26 young people. The culmination was a scratch performance of Fragment, a blend of songs and stories about love, loss and heartache. This has evolved into the production we see today, written by John Hoggarth and directed by Ria Parry, who are also the Co-Artistic Directors of The North Wall. Set in Redcar, against the backdrop of the steel industry decline, we meet Lester Fall, a painter and decorator who is trying to make sense of his life.

This type of performance is known as gig theatre- a mixture of story -telling and live music that is not a musical. The music has been written and performed by Dom Coyote, and he is joined on most of the songs by Milly Oldfield and Rebecca Tebbett, who also seamlessly weave themselves into the story as Lester’s combative but caring neighbour and Helen, Lester’s first love who we see in flashbacks. Projections of a steel works by the sea greet the audience on entering the auditorium. They are rather beautiful – a tribute the importance of its presence to the area. The songs echo the heartache Lester is going through either through the trials of love or the regrets of his past. The format is song followed by spoken word followed by song, and music is used throughout to create atmosphere and tension.

Tony Bell plays Lester, an angry, fragile man in poor health, who returns to his home town with very little except memories of his youth where he met and fell in love with Helen. The scenes with Helen – she wide eyed and fresh faced looking into the audience work well, with Lester’s voice in the background as he drifts in and out of his past. I really wanted to feel more sympathy for Lester, but I felt his character had not been given enough depth or variety to achieve this.  In fact, the whole performance until the last few minutes, whilst enjoyable, was very much on one level – downbeat, relentlessly without hope and even the music echoed this in a slightly monotonous way. However, I did think that the songs’ lyrics and sentiment were heartfelt and well performed.

Towards the end of the show, we are reminded by Dom Coyote how the piece emerged through ArtsLab, which offers young actors, writers, musicians, directors and designers the chance to produce new work in collaboration with theatre professionals at The North Wall. This is a crucial initiative to foster the talents of future theatre professionals and we should applaud The North Wall for supporting this initiative.    ★★★☆☆   Karin Andre     17^th May 2018