Will Grice

Road

27/02/25

Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh

We enter the auditorium to the strains of Jarvis Cocker warning a rich girl of what it’s really like to be common, to “watch your life slide out of view / and dance and drink and screw / because there’s nothing else to do.” Okay, so tonight’s play – Jim Cartwright’s Road – is set in the mid-80s, a whole decade before Pulp’s song was released, but the lyrics couldn’t be more apt. It’s a fitting anthem to what is essentially a series of bleak vignettes: snapshots of the residents of a Lancashire road as they navigate their way through another grim weekend, trying to find some glimmers of joy in Thatcher’s broken Britain.

This is a sprawling, kaleidoscopic play, but EUTC’s students do an impressive job of wrangling it into shape, creating a vibrant, cohesive show. I especially enjoy their commitment to world-building, with actors in character as the audience files in, as well as throughout the interval, when some chat to people in the toilet queue, while others invite us to join them on stage to dance at Bisto’s Beatoven Disco with DJ Ronan Lenane. (There’s also a pre-show in the bar, but there’s not a lot of room in there, so we don’t get to experience what that’s like.)

I have mixed feelings about Cartwright’s script. Groundbreaking when it premiered in 1986, there’s no denying its continued relevance, as the UK struggles with a cost-of-living crisis and a hollowed-out job market. It’s an elegy for the working-class, and I like its bold spirit and the stylised way the characters voice their despair, saying all the things that usually remain unspoken, masked by politeness and a “chin-up” mentality. However, while the issues sadly haven’t aged, the writing style has: it seems heavy-handed compared to more recent polemics, hitting the audience repeatedly over the head with a message we understand from early on.

Nonetheless, this is an impressive production, and the array of talent in the room is undeniable. Under Moses Brzeski-Reilly and Dan Bryant’s inventive direction, Bedlam’s performance space is almost unrecognisable. Instead of the usual end-on stage, we have a thrust, the audience positioned around three sides. The fourth side sports a door, a big window and some scaffolding, and the gallery above is also pressed into use. The square performance space is divided into four distinct areas, the road, a ginnel, a living room and a bedroom, the latter pair representing the interiors of several different homes. Miki Ivan’s complex lighting design is crucial in guiding the audience to the various locations.

The sound design – by Millie Franchi – is admirably detailed, the ambience convincing and evocative. However, thanks to a combination of the thrust staging and the venue’s vaulted ceiling, there are moments when I find myself struggling to hear what some of the characters are saying, especially those who are facing away from me on the far side of the room.

It’s hard to single out individual performers in an ensemble piece like this, but there are a few standouts. Ava Godfrey, Amelia Duda, Will Grice and Sam Gearing absolutely nail the climactic scene where Louise and Carol’s double date with Brink and Eddie transforms from a nihilistic drinking session into an almost spiritual attempt to conjure up some happiness. Ava Vaccari is compelling as Molly, an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimers, while Noah Sarvesvaran provides the centre point as Scullery, the drunken vagrant who guides the audience through proceedings.

Once again, EUTC have succeeded in putting their own inimitable stamp on a classic production. There are just two more chances to see this before it closes, so why not head on down to Bedlam and join in the mayhem.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Angels in America: Part One – The Millennium Approaches

08/11/24

Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh

New York playwright Tony Kushner’s 1991 “fantasia on national themes” is notoriously complex, but we’ve come to expect EUTC to tackle ambitious projects head-on, so we’re not surprised to learn that they’ve chosen this seminal play for their latest production. We’re excited to see what Gen Z will bring to this play about their Gen X predecessors, as they struggle to deal with a deadly epidemic, populist prejudice and rampant capitalism. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose… I’m guessing they can relate.

El Mair plays Prior Walter, a young man with a recent AIDS diagnosis and a distraught boyfriend. Louis (Leo Odgers) doesn’t want to deal with the realities of illness: the puke, the shit, the spectre of death. Prior is devastated by Louis’s abandonment, and retreats ever further into a fantasy world, ably assisted by the cocktail of drugs he has to take to manage his condition.

Meanwhile, Louis’s colleague, Joe (Will Grice), is facing demons of his own: his Mormon faith doesn’t allow him to acknowledge his homosexuality and remaining in the closet is killing him. But when he tries to come out to his mother, Hannah (Ava Vaccari, who excels throughout this production in a number of roles), she refuses to listen. “This conversation didn’t happen.” Of course, the secret also has a devastating impact on his wife, Harper (Natalia Campbell), who is addicted to Valium and, like Prior, plagued by visions.

As if Joe weren’t already dealing with enough pressure, his mentor, sleazy lawyer Roy Cohn (Hunter King) – the only real-life character in this fictional world – is determined to put Joe’s shiny good-boy persona to use, finding him a job in Washington DC, close to the seat of power. (“I make presidents,” he says, King’s already chilling performance heightened by the wider context, the combination of Trump’s re-election and Abi Abbasi’s recent film, The Apprentice, which details Cohn’s influence on the young Donald.)

Directed by Meri Suonenlahti and Andrew More, Angels in America is a triumph. The student cast are more than up to it, imbuing their characters with heart as well as humour; there’s some real intelligence at play here. The naturalistic performance style works well, emphasising the strangeness of the more fantastical sequences, such as Harper and Prior’s dream meeting. Campbell and Mair, both talented actors, are especially compelling in this scene, their fragility writ large as they stare at each other ‘through a glass darkly’. Louis Handley’s set design mirrors these contrasts, the prosaic heaviness of the bed and desk and sofa juxtaposed by dreamily-lit pastel backdrops, which move on casters between each scene, so that the landscape subtly shifts and dips, illuminating the characters’ growing disorientation. Full use is made of the theatre’s history as a former chapel too, the huge blacked-out window above the stage lit to suggest the angels’ presence.

It’s astounding what EUTC manage to achieve with their limited budget: the final scene in particular is a coup de théâtre (I won’t say any more; I won’t spoil the surprise). Suffice to say, it’s worth bundling up in your winter woollies and heading to Bedlam to catch this one. Three and a half hours fly by like the eponymous angel. I only wish they were doing Part Two: Perestroika as well.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield