Writers: Will Bishop, Colm Gleeson and Billie Collins
Director: Sibylla Archdale Kalid
This Be The Verse is fringe theatre at its best: three short plays, each tautly written and immaculately performed, combine to give depth and nuance to Larkin’s poem with its famous opening, ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’. Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads has had a dominant influence on the monologue as a dramatic form. Too many follow his example of a troubled soul revealing him- or herself with wry humour. The three plays of This Be The Verse, break free of this by creating a powerful sense of connection – each speaker is trying to communicate with others close to them.
In Will Bishop’s Anadiplosis, Andrew’s Aunt Suz keeps repeating ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ following his mother’s funeral that day. The illogicality of the cliché infuriates him. But the expression develops increasing resonance as Andrew repeatedly tries to write to his absent father about the day’s events. There is a wealth of comic detail – not just Aunt Suz’s loathsomeness, but the pathetic nature of his brother Donal. Even Donal’s recent suicide attempt was a failure (‘No preparation!’). Thoughts about fatherhood intrude. Andrew’s partner Lucy wants a baby, but the idea throws him into turmoil. As he skates around troubling issues, we wonder if the father is himself dead. What starts to emerge is the huge emptiness Andrew feels at his father’s long absence. Bishop’s clever, well-wrought play moves sinuously between comedy and glimpses of tragedy. Its final line will haunt you.
Colm Gleeson performs Andrew to perfection. He is himself author of the second play, Canary, in which highly accomplished actor Georgina Duncan plays Charlie, a lonely 28-year-old who sits waiting for a call. She’s expecting to hear her mother has died. Charlie feels she needs someone or something to take care of. If this sounds bleak, it isn’t. Charlie has a mischievous sense of humour and gives a hilarious account of acquiring a canary from an eccentric woman who insists the bird is 100 years old and used to work down the mines. But comic memories are shot through with pain as Charlie’s relationship with her mother comes into focus. The image of the canary that has stopped singing works brilliantly here. It’s a delightful play, brought fully to life by Duncan’s beautifully modulated acting. Her ability to register tiny changes of emotion has something of Emma Thompson in it.
Each of the first two plays draws you in so successfully, you find you are reluctant to move on to the next. But the final piece, Just Be Good, written by Billie Collins and performed by Will Bishop, captivates from the start. Thomas is recording a video message to Eddie, his newborn son and plans to do so on every year on his birthday. It’s a really inventive device to give the monologue a sense of depth. Another surprisingly effective one is the use of mobile calls. They’re used to great comic effect when Thomas in his professional capacity gives a speech at the opening of the children’s playground he’d dreamt of creating for years. Finally – far too late for Eddie, now a teenager – the day has come. But his great moment is repeatedly sabotaged by the buzz of phone calls. Through these devices we see the gradual disintegration of Thomas’s life, his relationships and his dreams, but he clings to the idea of doing something to prove he’s a good father.
All three plays offer highly imaginative, entertaining and moving facets of human life. There’s nothing extreme – no Shakespearean tragedy. Just the gradual revealing of the deep wounds of ordinary fucked up lives.
Runs until 26 March 2022
