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First Draft Theatre Legends of the Tube
Greenwich Playhouse
March 25 – 30, 2008
A review by Aisha Walters for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Now I Wonder What You Are is a short play about famous relations who, due to their fame have left their families distantly behind in the shadows. Writer Sean Tyler gives us three very different character’s relationships with their absentee relatives. Connor Scott’s mother Jane (a pedantic and sad eyed Ruth James) and younger brother Carl (an excellent Nigel Matttison) haven’t seen him in years. They sustain some form of relationship by looking at the pages of celebrity magazines to obtain details of his new lifestyle. However, this does not stop his mother proudly favouring her eldest son, while Carl feels bitterly towards his sibling and resents everyone’s adulation of him, as he believes Connor has let their mother down. By contrast Hope, (a beautiful Aisha Karr) never really had a close relationship with her twin sister Faith. Competing for boys in their youth she tell us that the best thing about having a twin is it doubles the size of your wardrobe. The first part of the story is told in a documentary style, cleverly staged by Francesca Seeley with Carl and his mum on one side of the stage and Hope on the other, facing the audience as if they were the camera, only speaking when a spotlight is projected onto them. Through their snippets of conventional, but revealing dialogue you begin to understand their relationship with their famous relatives more fully. Nigel Matttison shines as Carl, the underachieving brother who dotes on his mother who, in turn dotes on her famous son, Connor. Hope, on the other hand, explains to us how taxing it is not only to have a famous sister, but also be recognised continuously as her. She functions as her famous sister’s décor at major events which only highlights the actuality that she has never had the chance to be an individual. As an audience you too, feel distanced from the absentee relatives as all you see of them is a picture at the back of an empty stage illustrating the gulf between these two worlds. The second half of the play takes us to LA as the relatives try to see Conor and Faith at a Hollywood party. The three characters are now permitted to interact with each other, allowing us to see a more tactile side of Hope, who up until that point Aisha Karr had played with much rigor. We also meet a new character in the form of an anal PA Ruth, (Catherine Rowntree), the most perfecting, uptight, tight-lipped assistant, who has gleefully given them a brief timeslot in which to see Faith and Connor. Although it may not be the most original of pieces, the writing is good enough to make this telling of strained family dynamics and celebrity narcissism an interesting play. The second play Legends of the Tube isa horror spoof about one of those disastrous journeys we have all been on where the one station you need is closed. The difference here is that whilst getting on different tube lines the characters also enter alternative worlds. On the first tube are two Essex girls Kath (Gemma Layton) and Debs (Jodie Raven) on their way to do their famous karaoke rendition of ‘Like a Virgin,’ with their workmates Jenny (Devon Dudgeon) and Jack (Tim Wyatt) who is besotted with Jenny. While changing at Temple they meet a menacing nun followed by a vampire from Transylvania and so starts their nightmare. As these characters fight for their lives a slow motion escape scene ensues to ‘God save the queen’, which is the comic highlight of the performance, leading to an unconventional ending. Legends of the Tube is an ensemble piece with other members of the cast playing every facet of the alternative worlds, against a blank stage. This is a ride from hell that you pray never to experience but which encourages you to look more closely and perhaps, suspiciously at the non-descript person sitting across from you on the tube.
Box office: 020 8858 9256 Tickets: £11, £9 (conc) Greenwich Playhouse March 25th – 29th - 7.30pm, March 30th 4.00pm
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ary Couzens