What’s it all about? Well, on the face of it there’s a mixture of gender politics, an anachronistic account of English literature and a fair bit about swimming in the open air. There is also an awful lot of dialogue, not all of which hits home.
Told by Nell and Oscar the action rolls over a four hundred year period, with each character popping up on the same Dorset beach. Annabel Baldwin as Oscar is a recent graduate, bounding around in a puppy like state; a would-be poet and swimmer, earnestly protesting that the two subjects are essentially the same. Meanwhile Alice Lamb as Nell nicely conveys the aristocratic lady of leisure apparently on a perpetual gap year. And they argue. They argue a lot. In fact, they argue almost incessantly, each scoring points with an equal potty mouthed velocity. The show has a lot of passion, nicely choreographed costume changes conducted in front of the audience, and often requiring their participation, and all told with fizzing energy. However, the fury that is generated seems slightly off-key as there isn’t a readily identifiable cause of the dispute.
Writer Marek Horn and director Julia Head have obviously had a lot of fun creating FullRogue theatre’s inaugural show and there is certainly promise in the intelligent jousting and tension that they have constructed.
Zoe Brennan’s set design, although simple on the eye, contains hidden depths out of which props are plucked while the yellow centre piece of beach sand nicely anchors the action while allowing the actors to explore the hinterland occupied by the audience.
Lighting by Jay Costello Roberts is sharp, synchronised and perfectly snappy.
The main concern is the dialogue. There is heaps of it and it mostly centres on a spat between two people who on the face of it like each other enough to have once been lovers. However, it’s like listening to an argument in the street between two drunks with obviously strong opposing views, but finding it impossible to work out what those views are. There is an interesting debate about the merits of Byron swimming across the Hellespont, and both characters are tantalisingly fond of poetry, but these points aren’t developed enough to form an opinion and they hang over the production rather like the large blue slightly wonky drapes that form the backdrop.
There is great chemistry between Lamb and Baldwin and they make swift rapier like thrusts in and out of the action with the audience enjoying many of the ad libs that increasingly pepper the discourse. It all peters out somewhat at the end with an almost inevitable turning of the tables and a rapid deceleration of pace which suddenly becomes too insular and finally inconclusive.
So what’s it all about? An hour of great inventive theatrical word play, superb performances and a typical Fringe show that can hopefully bloom in future productions. Oh, and a fair bit about swimming. ★★★☆☆ Bryan Mason 11th September 2019
Photo by and © The Other Richard
