Writer: Sam Rees & Gabriele Uboldi
Stage Manager: Daire O’Ceallaigh
Under scorching office lighting in the iD8 Studio at the Gatelodge on Thomas Street’s Digital Hub, we’re packed into 3 or 4 rows of seats and offered Miwadi by two charming, pleasant hosts. On the way in, we’d been asked if we’d be comfortable contributing by reading a small piece of text throughout the show. The walls are that confrontational white, there’s an old school overhead projector, and there seems to have been very little effort made with the space, other than displaying protest material from Trinity’s pro-Palestine encampment. So far, so good – this is what Fringe theatre is supposed to be; different, intriguingly uncomfortable, and laced with the possibility of audience participation. What follows, though, is disappointingly flat. Sam Rees and Gabriele Uboldi are charming and engaging speakers, who weave several stories together during our hour plus, but it never adds up to enough of a coherent, forceful idea.
In Lessons on Revolution Rees and Uboldi tell the story of protests by students at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1967 and 1968, who objected to the influence of British Petroleum (BP) executives on the university’s board. Protagonists like student leaders Marshall Bloom and David Adelstein are introduced, as are antagonists such as prospective director of LSE, Walter Adams. Audience members read out their selected quotes, and Rees and Uboldi contextualise these events in relation to protests in Derry, America, Mexico, Paris, and more during this time. BP were selling fuel to America to bomb Vietnam, so of course this gets a mention. The problem is that in this soup of racism, war, imperialism, authoritarianism, and protest, no narrative takes shape, we don’t leave with a whole lot more than we came in with. What, precisely, is the lesson, amongst all these exact dates, times, distances between two points on the globe?
Rees and Uboldi are good company; natural storytellers who are incredibly comfortable in their skin, with each other, and in front of an audience. I would happily listen to them give a lecture on the history of student protest, the need for revolution, or almost anything else. But this show is just not enough of a show, it doesn’t have sufficiently interesting tricks up its sleeve, or moments that touch the core of an audience. It feels, and this is not meant to damn with faint praise, like a really good university seminar led by two heartfelt, engaged, and sincere young educators. But it doesn’t feel enough like a show.
And those office lights really are a killer.
Runs Until 14th Sept 2025.
