REVIEW - ADDICTIVE BEAT - BOUNDLESS THEATRE -

Utilising a former mission church, Boundless Theatre have found a resonantly perfect venue for their new production, Addictive Beat. The audience first meets the central characters of Alex (Fionn Whitehead) and Robbi (Boadicea Ricketts) as they move rhapsodically on a dance floor. In sacred wonder, they observe the chemical and biological effects the beat rapturously inflicts upon their bodies. Brains commune with a higher power. Synapses surge in a discharge of dopamine. For these two individuals trembling with youth, this momentary deliverance is refuge and sanctuary from the tyranny of the mundane. It is a form of religion. This surrender to the music, and its properties of transport, is a serious pursuit. For a period of adolescence, they are each other’s support against the ignorance of their peers.

Meeting again after losing touch, the couple find themselves at odds. Knowing each other so well, they can instantly call each other out on their BS. Robbi has moved to London to pursue a singing career. Alex has remained in his hometown, struggling to establish himself as a DJ. Lives have stalled on the altar of adulthood. Alex accuses Robbi of sacrificing authenticity. Robbi challenges Alex’s stubborn integrity which prevents him from actually producing work. Alex, a purist, approaches music from a theoretical perspective. At one stage, a mathematical formula for an ear worm is posited. Both struggle with crippling anxiety and poor self-image. Sensitivities are raw, susceptible to disagreeable frequencies. In separate monologues, Alex and Robbi spin about in a spiral of increasing mania, detailing the exhaustive, frustrating repetition of their daily routines. Both seem in danger of burning out. Desperate escape into music remains their sole retreat. Alex gives examples of the energising and sustaining power of music across the ages and through cultures.

As long as writer Dawn King keeps her focus on the fragile, deeply tender relationship between the leads, the script soars. She is assisted strongly by two ferociously committed collaborators in Whitehead and Ricketts, who manage to sustain an impressive pitch of energy over the course of an intense and volatile 90 minutes of constantly agitated motion. Onstage continuously, there is very little time for either to rest or catch their breath, with dialogue that is unceasing. Whitehead and Ricketts stalk around on a series of platforms, moving restlessly through the standing crowd. Director Rob Drummer works skilfully with his performers to reach just the right proportions and emphasis given the space and audience arrangement.

The script takes a rather curious detour in the second half. Certainly not enough to entirely derail the piece, but it does disturb the carefully crafted ecosystem up to this point. Alex and Robbi, now reunited and collaborating, create a binaural beat so profound and transforming that it becomes destructive to all those who listen to it. The sound will signal apocalypse should it ever be released. The night that Alex and Robbi first indulge its power, plays like a sexual encounter, an all-consuming thrall that both are helpless to resist. The sudden turn into dystopian horror hijacks what was up to this point an intimate, humanly scaled study of two individuals attempting to find their way back to a spiritual innocence and healthy outlook. Whitehead and Ricketts with their sure sense of character are able to guide the audience through this passage where the level of hysteria grows a bit tiresome. Clearly meant as metaphor for the worst rabbit holes of addiction, this section belongs to another intriguing narrative altogether. Must a person tear himself or herself apart to achieve a profound work of art? Must the world submit? King wisely relaxes the material in the more modest closing moments. Robbi quietly and truthfully reaches out to Alex with song, coaxing him gently out of darkness. It’s a welcome return to the simple, unvarnished heart that has always been the governing principle of their relationship.

A coda at first plays a bit like an unnecessary public service announcement in which Alex and Robbi bring the audience up to date on their progress, but quickly rebounds as they play us the result of their most recent, post-trauma collaboration. Really, it’s enough to hear the sanely infectious, upbeat piece of music to know they have both found a fresh and safe perspective. DJ Anikdote, who clearly knows his way around an addictive tune, provides the music, free of any binaural siren-song to doom. Persuasive, insistent, his grooves only encourage a few minutes of ecstatic release upon the dance floor.

TICKETS AND INFO

{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}

A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE
by Ellie Preston
Spine-tingling yet heart-warming, Mark Gatiss’s retelling of A Christmas Carol truly encapsulates the haunting atmosphere of a Victorian ghost story, balanced out with enough humour so as to capture the festive season. Led by Keith Allen as Scrooge, with Peter Forbes as Marley, this show is perfect for Christmas viewing. The set design by Paul Wills is instantly captivating, containing stacks of metal cabinets towering over the theatre, moveable by the cast to allow space for other central props like doors, beds and tables. In addition to this, the puppetry design by Matthew Forbes is incredibly clever, adding creepy elements to the show such … More A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE
A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503
by Tom Carrao
The title of this winner of Theatre 503’s 2023 International Playwriting Award by Roxy Cook may seem like the set-up to a joke, but the narrative that unspools is instead an affectionate, gently barbed and at base quite sobering portrait of three ordinary souls (and one restless feline) adrift in modern Moscow. There is much affable, satirical back-and-forth commentary on the accepted myths & stereotypes of the Russian spirit & soul. Beset by the indignities of age, opportunism, graft, fatigue, the characters orbit one another, doomed to play out their roles in an unjust, predatory and saturnine universe. The play opens … More A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503
PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE
by Amy Rye
Peter Pan Goes Wrong first premiered in London at the Pleasance Theatre in 2013, and earlier this year the show made its Broadway debut. Now the production is back in the West End for the Christmas season. Following on from The Play That Goes Wrong, in this production, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is staged by the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and goes awry, disastrously so. The meta-comedy is filled with slapstick comedy, sometimes the humour may be predictable and silly, but it’s universally funny throughout – there is something for everyone here, and the laughs come thick and fast … More PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE
GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE
by George Rennie
Drawing heavily from the classic canon of the British supernatural, High Tide’s trio of contemporary Gothic narratives uses traditional storytelling formats to address contemporary themes. Directed by Elayce Ismail, reverent musical interludes accompany tales of apparitions and nighttime conjurings that speak of women from the East of England. Unfortunately, the effect is less chilling and more lightweight, with conventional structures, predictable plot twists and an over-reliance on external forces to drive narrative shoring up some of the less relatable aspects of the genre. Nicola Werenowska’s The Beach House, perhaps the cleanest of the three tales, tells of a mother and … More GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE
CINDERELLA – REVIEW – LYRIC HAMMERSMITH
by Jenny Skuse
Drum roll please…(Cue a literal drum rolling across the stage.) The Lyric pantomime is one of traditions with the return of many well-loved jokes and skits. Costumes and sets are all made at the Lyric itself by Good Teeth, with set pieces being reused year on year. This year Cinderella gets the Hammersmith makeover, with some success. The costuming is fun and vibrant, with the ugly stepsisters’ equine pyjamas and hoop-skirted ball gowns giving all the wrong kinds of extra you need for those characters. Cinderella’s on stage dress transformation is magical and really well-timed. The Dame, Lady Jelly-Bottom’s, outfits … More CINDERELLA – REVIEW – LYRIC HAMMERSMITH