In 2022 I watched an excerpt from this winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting at the Royal Exchange Theatre. It felt fresh and vibrant and the words seemed to come alive in the space. Receiving the award was actor and first time playwright Nathan Queeley-Dennis who also seemed to bounce unto the stage with an unbridled joy and enthusiasm. Two years on via a highly successful reception at the Edinburgh Fringe and midway through a national tour Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz revisits this stage and owns it with all the surety and panache of a worthy winner.
This one hour monologue celebrates thewriters’ home city of Birmingham as Queeley-Dennis bringstolifehis local barbershop, the call centre where he works and his favourite rum bar via dark Techno clubs and rooftop vistas at dawn. Watching this performance in the round is like witnessing a masterclass in how to deftly work the room as an accomplished stand up comedian. Fluid delivery and perfect timing ensure that every carefully crafted line lands exactly as intended. There is a vivid poetry in scenes that describe his almost erotic connection with his barber or his cautious stepping into the world of his beloved Techno which has been appropriated and whitewashed. Dotted through this monologue are carefully placed options in his life that include picking from a trio of emergency barbers or a trio of emergency toilet states. They all in their own way allude to a sense of anxiety or otherness at odds in this seemingly happy well adjusted guy in his mid twenties.
Nathan is an Arts graduate working in a call centre and trying to date but this is a man whose passion to create is being increasingly dulled by his workplace environment. His serial dating is not that of a heartless predator but a man on a mission to find the “one”…or at least the one who shares a name with a member of Destiny’s Child and has well moisturised elbows. His forays into the world of dating are both painfully funny or bittersweet and at times involve placing his heart in the hands of emotional terrorists. When he finally lands a date with a woman who might just be perfect for him, the audience are routing for this charming young man but the sudden shift in pace suggest his happy ending may not be on a rooftop overlooking his beloved Birmingham but may indeed yet be as a Brummie Basquiat.
Under the care of Director Dermot Daly who clearly relishes every word of this well crafted script, Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz sings on every level. Whether in the cleverly placed soundbites of songs from Destiny’s Child or Queeley-Dennis deliveringsomehigh energy rapping or musing on the nature of strawberries and owls to the faint trace of Stan Getz there is a musicality to this production that will play in your head long after leaving the theatre.
Lizzy Watts as Naomi in SHED:EXPLODED VIEW at the Royal Exchange Theatre.📷Johan Persson
Written by Phoebe Eclair-Powell
Directed by Atri Banerjee
ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE
SHED:EXPLODEDVIEW by Phoebe Eclair-Powell won The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019. A brutal yet deeply intimate exploration of domestic violence, love and isolation inspired by the work of artist Cornelia Parker whose installation Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View literally shines a light on the domestic debris remaining after a explosion. The global pandemic meant a delay in the staging of this production and also spiked a horrific rise in the statistics for domestic violence making this urgent play even more powerful.
Three couples interact over a thirty year period in this nonlinear play. Time shifts back and forth denoted by each year displayed on a monitor above the stage. A highly effective minimalist set by Designer Naomi Dawson features moving concentric circles that the performers chalk scene titles onto. As they slowly move around or are smudged during the performance they subtly allude to the fragmentation and blurring of time and memory. The exposed skeleton frame of a shed is suspended over the stage and illuminated by a single huge bulb of light. Lighting Designer Bethany Gupwell uses a bank of lights to anchor each scene from home to exotic honeymoon beach or NYE fireworks and the splintered, crackling light effects on the stage are used for maximum shock effect in the scenes of violence.
Wil Johnson as Tony in SHED: EXPLODED VIEW at the Royal Exchange Theatre 📷Johan Persson
The six performers have literally nowhere to hide on stage. Occasionally some sit on the sidelines on hard wooden chairs and observe scenes with the audience. On Stage sometimes they interact with the other couples, other times their words overlap as if time itself is blurring or merging past and present. The oldest couple Lil and Tony are on second and third marriages hoping to get it right this time. Naomi and Frank are newly weds who seem unsuited from the start and the seeds of disappointment and resentment are already in situ. Abi and Mark meet as students and momentarily look like they may just break the cycle and write a different story. Each couple viewed through a prism of hope could be envied and aspired to. The elderly couple holding hands…is that a lifetime of domestic bliss, love second time around or one holding the other’s hand to anchor them in this world as reality and memories splinter and disintegrate? Or the couple with their young daughter… playing happy families or desperately clinging on to the fading dream of a stable marriage and home life? The new lovers who laugh and drink together yet secretly knowing that for every time his hand tenderly holds her hair back from her face if she’s sick may also be the hand that stabbed the meat of her facewithafork.
It is the women in this piece who are drawn most vividly and drive the narrative even when they are sometimes seemingly passive. Hayley Carmicheal is quite wonderful as Lil, she initially appears to have a birdlike fragility but age and bitter experience has given her a steely core and a warrior spirit. This is a tiny woman who can tend to the vulnerable yet could potentially eviserate a hulking abusive husband. Lizzy Watts as Naomi gives a subtle performance that grows as her character ages and finishes with a blistering portrayal of grief and rage. She deftly moves from a young wife trying to please a sullen bridegroom, to a weary, anxious parent who learns to dance with her feisty daughter, navigate a difficult marriage and emerge from tragedy with a fierce sense of purpose and her own worth. Norah Lopez-Holden as Abi is always utterly invested in her character whether as a curious child, a testing teenager or as a young woman desperately attempting to redefine her deadly reality.
Norah Lopez-Holden as Abi in SHED: EXPLODED VIEW at the Royal Exchange Theatre 📷Johan Persson
Director Atri Banerjee deftly ensures that the many small fragmented scenes that unfold or collide come together to build a cohesive story that satisfies and intrigues just as the art installation that inspired the writing of this production. There is something incredibly powerful about examining moments in time or splinters of objects. In my day job as a Psychotherapist I often witness how a single statement or recollection can be a light bulb moment that crystallises a vital realisation for a client. As a child growing up in Northern Ireland I witnessed bomb explosions and remember my parents taking me into the aftermath of a bombed village shop to help make it ready for business as usual. Everyday objects scattered everywhere and coloured nail polish splattered on the red tiled floor amidst shards of glass and warped metal shopping baskets. The detritus of everyday life spread out telling stories of the ordinary, the extraordinary and the fragility of life especially in the face of violence. On so many levels I love the bravery and structure of this piece. It was and remains a worthy Bruntwood prize winner. SHED: EXPLODEDVIEW is a sensitively rendered howl of rage and frustration that should rally us all to call out any signs of abuse and urge loved ones, neighbours, colleagues or strangers to run at the first warning signs. RUN…and don’t look back…RUN… even if it’s over broken glass.
Live Art Alive 