I Do – The Malmaison Hotel, Manchester

Creators: Daphna Attias & Terry O’Donovan

Writer: Chloe Moss

Have you ever wanted to gatecrash a wedding? Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall inside a hotel room? Have you ever wanted to be invisible and eavesdrop on a relationship? I Do gives you just those opportunities. 

In 1999, Alan Ayckbourn wrote a convention breaking piece of theatre. House & Garden were two plays, performed simultaneously in neighbouring theatres sharing cast and story arcs. They could be experienced singularly or as companion pieces. Technically ambitious, it requires expert timing to perform. For their twentieth anniversary, site-specific theatre company Dante or Die have achieved something similar but ramped up the complexity and exquisite precision with I Do. The premise is glorious. Performed at The Malmaison Hotel in Manchester and in partnership with The Lowry, it is minutes before a wedding. Six hotel rooms to cycle through. Six parties of twelve audience members (plus usher). Six scenes to witness but, of course, countless threads to untangle and multiple characters to experience. 

It is Georgina and Tunde’s wedding day. It is fifteen minutes before the ceremony begins. The hotel rooms are occupied by bride and groom, best man, bridesmaids and family. All in the final stages of getting ready we are ushered into each hotel room, cycling through all six throughout the full performance. We are merely voyeurs, observers of events and interactions therein.  We are encouraged to sit at the end of the bed, in armchairs, stand in the corner, even in the shower if necessary! The actors will work around us. It will be obvious if we are in the way. It is an exciting piece of theatre. Each group experience the characters and plot strands in a different pattern. There cannot be a linear structure as each fifteen minute scene is replayed. The fruition of plot and story is dependent upon the order they are experienced. Ingeniously, after each scene all the audience members regularly convene back in the corridor and the clock is ‘rewound’ before entering the next door.  

Creators Daphna Attias and Terry O’Donovan, alongside writer, Chloe Moss, purposefully give us snippets into characters. There isn’t time for a full back story, but the small scratches under the surface reveal whole lives. Georgina (Carla Langley) and Tunde (Dauda Ladejobi) are far from bliss moments before their nuptials. Are they about to make a terrible mistake? Sister Lizzy (Alice Brittain) has some big news that will upstage the big day. Brother Nick (Fred Fergus) has something he cannot shake from the stag do. Estranged father David (Johnathan McGuinness) has returned from abroad to be present at his daughter’s wedding – but what may be the consequences for long time single mum Helen (Johanne Murdock)? And Kitty, a small girl, is missing somewhere! As good as the form is, the content must also be solid. For the most it is. It may have been the order personally experienced but the orbiting satellite characters were far more interesting than the relationship between Georgina and Tunde. 

I Do is a theatrical event that replays in the mind, long after it is finished. Funny and tender, it is also uncomfortable in places. Literally standing in the bath watching the rehearsal of the best man’s speech into a bathroom mirror is joyous. Witnessing the pain of “in sickness and in health” with Eileen (Fiona Watson) and incapacitated Gordon (Geoff Atwell), the grandparents of the bride, is a reminder of the sacrifice and commitment of marriage. Listening to a pregnancy test being used in the bathroom and then waiting the full two minutes for the result is brave but also compelling. The glue to the whole production is a remarkable performance by Rowena Le Poer Trench as The Cleaner. With loud music playing into her ears and a badge that simply says ‘Trainee,’ she appears in every scene – mute. There is something ethereal about her. Something omnipresent or omnipotent. A constant in a mayhem of ever opening doors. Her repeated ‘rewinding of time’ after each scene is an incredible piece of physical theatre that deserves special recognition. 

Despite being so close to the performers, it is a safe space. We are invisible voyeurs who cannot affect anything. We are purely passive. Ingeniously simple yet magnificently complex, I Do is an exceptional production.  

Rubs until 22nd February.