2 – 4 November

Drawing on ancient Welsh legend and the musings of surrealist Luis Buñuel, storyteller Shôn Dale-Jones has plotted a delightfully playful, sometimes dark tale about the journey home to see his mother in Anglesey, and how a privately shared prank with her is misconstrued by the locals.

Shôn is a good host. There’s a twinkle in his eyes as he extols us to “be kind” to any latecomers. And there is some disarmingly frank discourse as the ‘tech’ he operates from a hand-held remote fails to kickstart the evening, resulting in a double start. But once we are underway, Shôn quickly gets us onside with his observations about his ‘Mam’, who he fears might be dying, his dad, neighbour Eileen and old school friend Ellen who works in a supermarket. A Welsh idyll perhaps, where life is faded and fading, but where there is comfort in the predictable. Or is there?

Some of us will cherish a particular memory with a parent, when the role-playing dropped for a second or two, when an irresistibly funny moment of unguarded playfulness could define and cement the relationship thereafter.

For Shôn and his Mam, their private joke involved the cracking of eggs, up close and very personally. Maybe private jokes are better performed in, er, private. ‘Cause as soon as they reprise their old fun with each other at the supermarket, they set off a chain of misconceptions amongst the locals that quickly build like storm clouds. Shôn animatedly paints both sides of a deteriorating narrative. He’s very good at ‘being’ his Mam, or Eileen or Ellen or the somewhat threatening neighbour, Mr Evans, using two microphones to give different emphasis and timbre to his voice as he quickly switches roles like a ventriloquist.

Shôn’s shenanigans have kickstarted a chain of reactions that seem to feed off each other. Branded some sort of ‘Beast’ in a Welsh ‘Lord of the Flies’ moment, could he really be a violent man pretending otherwise, or an innocent wrongly accused? Surely the community officer can’t be serious? And on into these parallel universes we go – Shôn pleading the misunderstood loving son, while a growing mob of outraged neighbours is convinced of something untoward. And all because of an egg?

Through this red mist of confusion, Dale-Jones paints more poetic observations of the dying days of his Mam’s life, perhaps of life as he has known it – more widely still, the evident crumbling of a nation. Following Buñuel’s observations on fantasy and reality, only death it seems remains unambiguous.

On a blank stage floor save for a table, a laptop, chair and two mic stands, Dale-Jones is a captivating presence. Commissioned by the BBC and co-produced by Theatre Royal Plymouth, his Cracking leaves its audience with much to ponder.

★★★★☆  Simon Bishop, 3rd November, 2023