Review: Spring Forward, Tower Theatre

Review: Spring Forward, Tower Theatre

Summary

Rating

60

Good

Valiant efforts at showcasing writing and directing talent by Tower Theatre produce a little new gem.

Spring Forward is the biennial showcase of new writing by Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room, a space to foster new talent and produce previously unpublished plays. This latest edition has produced three new short plays directed, in turn, by new talent, also fostered by the Tower Theatre collective through its New Directors’ scheme.

It is always exciting to turn up to watch unseen material by new voices and to enjoy the creativity of unknown directors, and Spring Forward does not disappoint.

The first short play, Berta and Hal, is a study in characterisation of a recently bereaved, opinionated and lonely house-maker from 1974 Orange Country, USA, penned by Joyce Mulvey and directed by Katie Smith. It’s unclear if the material could be expanded beyond characterisation to a fully fledged plot. However, the nuances in the character of Bertha and the psychological mother-son dynamics involving an eldest child lost to the Vietnam war and the scars left on the younger son by a bully husband are certainly explored to their full potential. Masterful acting by Katerine Holt and Sam Alan makes this a credible and enjoyable short play.

The second play takes a central idea, a very good one indeed, and explores it in two halves. Each half mirrors a narrative of the same event, seen and explained by the two key protagonists from opposite points of view. Telling It, written by Anne Connell and directed by Liam Stewart suffers from mixed acting talent, but Lucy Moss, playing a prostitute who had turned her life around but then relapsed, stands out as completely believable, both when brash and overconfident, as well as when sincerely vulnerable.

The closing play, Swipe, written by Lily Guy-Vogel, and directed by Rosie Barwick, is longer than the previous two, and has everything in spades. It delivers a satisfying and memorable theatre experience. Set in frenetic contemporary London, the plot evolves mostly along the interaction between a 27-year-old feature writer for a nondescript trade magazine and the various anonymous characters met on a handful of dating apps. Some remain anonymous and only make an appearance in the play as their own Instant Messages. The entire text of the messages is acted out, including repetition of emojis and punctuation, called out one by one, with remarkable comedic timing by Mayank Adlakha, Cedric Dumornay and Jack Cavendish. Giving these messages their own casting, ensuring they are wearing an unremarkable outfit and the same grey beanie sporting only a first name tag as they sprint into the limelight at the ping of a mobile phone is the first of many strokes of directing genius by Barwick. 

Elle (Eden Vansittart) has a friend and confidante, Sarah, (Ciara Gaughan) so that Elle’s dating life receives real time commentary in the guise of witty girl-talking-men dialogue. But the second stroke of genius, jointly concocted by writer Guy-Vogel and director Barwick, is to give Elle’s parallel internal monologue her own actress, too: a double for Elle who will act out her stream of consciousness (Helen Wieland). This provides much of the hilarity for the play as what Elle, the public persona, says is often contradicted by what Elle’s internal dialogue expresses, either by words, or by phenomenally funny and effective miming.

Swipe is a gem of a play that could be lifted exactly as is onto a stage straight away. A new voice, a brilliant new director and a very talented cast make for outstanding new theatre.

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For Spring Forward

Artistic Team Lead : Landé Belo

Lighting Design by: Nick Insley

Sound Design and Operation by: Matthew Ibbotson

Stage Manager: Anna Kidd

Assistant Stage Manager : Richard Davies

Lighting Operator: Sandra Reveira

For Bertha and Hal

Written by: Joyce Mulvey

Directed by: Katie Smith

Assistant Director: Stephanie Irvine

Set Design by: Olga Iliou & Yasemin Buyurgan

Costume Design by: Laura Coulton

For Telling It

Written by: Anne Connell

Directed by: Liam Stewart

Assistant Director: Holly Causer

Set Design by: Chris Shiel

Costume Design by: Kathleen Morrison

For Swipe

Written by: Lily Guy-Vogel

Directed by: Rosie Barwick

Assistant Director: Olympia Christofinis

Set Design by: Poppy Hill & Lucy White

Costume Design by: Laura Coulton

Music Composed by Cameron Pike and Karly Lopez

The Spring Forward showcase from the Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room has closed, another showcase of new and emerging talent will return later this year.

Further information about Tower Theatre can be found here.