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Facing life without the other half
TELL
NEW END THEATRE
By Simon Wroe
NAVEL-GAZING is a particularly prevalent habit for the first-time playwright, though few yield more than fluff and hackneyed ponderings for their efforts.
But Tim Digby-Bell’s debut, the recounted play Tell, succeeds where many have failed by the grace of his many and interesting ideas.
The ostensible story, narrated by Christian Olliver, follows two people, each trying to adapt to a profound change of circumstances in the absence of their other halves.
Alfred (Olliver again) wanders around his house in the wake of his marriage, trying to patch together a new life from the vestiges of his past.
In another flat somewhere, Vivienne has resolved never to think about her old life ever again, finding comfort in the company of austere potatoes, amiable aubergines, OAPs and the shipping forecast.
All this solipsistic plodding sounds like an dramatic quagmire waiting to happen, but it’s one Digby-Bell’s enchanting play never falls into thanks to sharp writing, snappy direction and hilarious, tongue-in-cheek physical comedy.
The meat here is in the telling of the story, not the tale itself; hence the title.
Three characters gather on a sparse stage with only a few scattered items of furniture and a large pirate’s chest crammed with props.
Decorous to a fault, Olliver handles a gargantuan amount of lines with aplomb while his cohorts (Julie-Marie Taylor and Aidan Synnott) fill in the gaps in the narrative, acting alternatively as characters, pictures, radio programmes and curators of the vast museum of referenced objects.
These objects are employed with rapid-fire invention. Shoes become telephones; sticks become guns for a war scene, then a pool cue or a walking stick a moment later.
The auxiliary tellers shine with their superlative comic muggings (Aidan Synnott has a face to make Tommy Cooper look like a Botox casualty), and in between the laughter the attentive members of the audience will be rewarded with carefully-turned observations about love in absentia and the tenacity of imagination.
A little gem.
Until November 24
020 7722 9301 |
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