Writer: Alfie Jones
Director: Alice Harding
This Blighted Star is a confident, self-assured fringe debut written and performed by Alfie Jones. The play explores the rise in surveillance cameras, obsession and conspiracy theories through the eyes of a CCTV operator whose former neighbour and school friend Ivan has gone missing. The unnamed operator is obsessed by the last piece of footage capturing his friend, their girlfriend and a car arriving on the scene at the end of the clip.
As Ivan remains unfound, rumours and conspiracy theories grow, with each denial further fuelling the myths around what Ivan was doing and who might want him out of the way. At the same time, the CCTV operator has noticed a new star in the sky that raises the other worldly question of whether Ivan is watching over his friend, encouraging him to solve the mystery, or whether the CCTV operator is simply living in the shadow of the person who could and should have been someone.
Expanding out from this, Jones adds extra layers to the script with conversations with cleverly depicted co-workers and details of his homelife which root the story in the real world and confirm Jones as a highly promising scriptwriter as well as an actor whose energy and delivery calls to mind the young David Tennant for anyone old enough to remember him.
The show makes clever use of CCTV footage, even while the question of why Ivan never leaves the shot or appears on any other footage remains unanswered.
The energy Jones brings to the script under the direction of Alice Harding makes the character and the story continually engaging and relatable and make This Blighted Star a great show to take a chance on this month.
Runs until 24 August
