Review: We’ll Burn That Bridge When We Get To It: And I Guess That’s Now, Lion & Unicorn Theatre

We all know THAT couple, the ones who blow hot and cold constantly. One minute, they feel like the perfect couple; the next, you hope they stay as far apart as possible. They alternate between bringing out the absolute best of one another, sparking each other to greater heights, but then the very worst, driving them into utter destruction.

El and Tophe are very much one of those couples. Or at least they were. Now they are an ex-couple. But for reasons that soon become very clear, they are back together for one last time. It’s a chance to reminisce about the good times as well as squabble over the bad. And as they do, they burn everything that they created between them. Which is a bit of a problem because Tophe created the earth and everything on it, and now, piece by piece, it’s on fire.

We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, and I guess that’s now is a cleverly written play. It takes the most human of things, a failed relationship, and scales it up to make it everything, the be-all and end-all; quite literally. And it does so rather marvellously. It allows plenty to ponder on both big and small: love, life, the meaning of it all, and what is left when you strip away the various elements, such as hope and belief. And yet, as deep and complex and even miserable as it might all sound, it’s anything but. Instead, it burns brightly, much like the hope that appears to be lingering in the flames. We’ll burn that bridge refuses to extinguish that hope that we aren’t all doomed to burn away into nothing. The script is also scattered with gentle humour as they throw more of life onto the flames; “critical thinking burnt out quickly” a rather amusing, albeit damning, view on certain aspects of humanity, whilst El whimsically wonders why Tophe has given chipmunks their own little category, maybe because she always found them cute.

What perhaps could do with disappearing, though, is the background noise, meant to be the sound of the fire burning and the river that El quite liked; instead, it sounds more like the speakers have blown as it crackles annoyingly just on the edge of hearing. But as each aspect of human life is thrown on the flames, the sound of the flames engulfing it is much more pleasing to the ear.

Heather Jones and Stanley Eldridge both deliver sparkling performances to match the script. Jones’ El is playful, giving hints that she has always been Tophe’s muse, savouring the way she knows just how to provoke him, whilst Elridge’s Tophe has a sadness about him, his hopes and dreams slowly extinguished as he watches all he has created burn to nothing as he wonders on whether it was worth the effort. They easily give the feel that there is eternal history between them, and yet at the same time, why they probably never quite worked. His constant refrain of “I don’t want to fight” is countered by her assertion that “life’s no fun without an antagonist”.

The Lion and Unicorn Theatre does seem to savour in nihilism; this isn’t the first play to suggest the end of all existence this year. Yet We’ll burn that bridge, rather like so much else of this wonderful venues’ output, isn’t all doom and gloom. Instead, it offers a microcosm of humanity in a way that leaves you thinking about what it all means, and ends with a glimmer that there might still be hope for us. 

Written by: Nicola Lanthier Rogers
Directed by: Kay Brattan
Produced by: Amanda Hart for Little Lion Theatre Company
Stage Manager: Harri Compton
Design by: Valentina Turtur

Read our interview with Kay Brattan and Heather Jones here.

We’ll burn that bridge plays at Lion and Unicorn Theatre until Saturday 18 November.