Static is a one-act play which attempts to understand the present from a rolling past. It presents a romp through salient parts of recent history through the eyes of a sensitive and socially disengaged youth-becoming-young-man who is addicted to the window on the world provided by televised news.
Sam Skuse, the one man of this one-man show, gives a detailed, sensitive and thoughtful portrayal of a nascent information freak, which holds our attention throughout. The skills of performer and writer/director, Tom Nicholas, give the audience that most basic of theatrical joys, the wonder at what comes next as we follow the isolated eight year old through to young adulthood – no mean achievement in this kind of format. If the emergence of an activist from this concentrated developmental process is not exactly a shock it is nonetheless one of a number of possible outcomes and the one that gives the play a satisfying and pleasing final flourish. Also pleasing is the way the early dream of being on the set with Paxman is neatly tied up, as the one time voyeur becomes the activist captured by the BBC cameras.
One of the things that the play does well is in getting across the nature of the central place that mechanical (and indeed other) media can play, for good or ill, in the formation of our characters. The writer/director has made clever and economical use of the small acting space (the Wardrobe Theatre is aptly named) and the video back-projections give a welcome depth to the staging, which is complemented by the voice-over news reader. I couldn’t work out if they had cleverly edited Jon Snow from broadcasts or managed to persuade him to lay down a track or two. (Probably the latter)
The videos see Sam Skuse multitasking both as parents (both) and female party guests which gives rise to the novelty of the actor attempting to chat himself up having plucked up enough courage to get himself to a gathering with the opposite sex. The device works well enough, though on last night’s showing Sam will probably add projectors to the list that includes animals and children after we all sat patiently during the seemingly endless hiatus when it refused to work. However, nothing fazed, he picked up the reins as if nothing had happened which underlined the feat of concentration required to hold a show together for over an hour.
For a generation born at the birth of twenty four hour news the play will have the mark of familiarity and will provide reference points for their own coming of age. It helps mark one of those epoch marking periods after which nothing will ever be the same again. ★★★☆☆ Graham Wyles
