Oubliette – The Space, London

Writer: Tom Barr-Forrest

Director: Francisco Barradas

Oubliette is a comi-tragic-absurdist musical that pulls in a range of influences from burlesque to panto and mediaeval madrigals. It’s intentionally a slippery beast.

Scott (Tom Barr-Forrest) has not only been thrown into a dungeon, he’s been thrown into an oubliette – an airless, cramped void where prisoners are forgotten and left to die. Luckily for him, he’s not alone. He shares this space with disgraced nobleman Jasper (Oli Wyatt), recent corpse Franklin (Imogen Dowding) and long decayed corpse Pete (a plastic prop). He’s also joined by the voices in his head, played with strange bodily contortions and Siouxsie Sioux stares by Konstancja Kendall and Oceana Bertino-Kavadellas.

Scott’s a romantic, optimistic soul who appreciates how a corpse can be “a good listener” and while he claims to accept the “peace and quiet” of the oubliette, he worries that it might be getting to him. In an effort to “live, laugh, love out of the void” he and Jasper indulge in pretending time. They imagine they are enjoying childhood games, role-playing as therapists, talking to God or summoning the devil in the form of a remote control rat. They also spoon and make love. Scott is really pining for his true love, The Prince, who he met one Midsummer Eve and is the reason he’s in the oubliette in the first place. Barr-Forrest and Wyatt have great chemistry and their easy chat brings many laughs among the obvious existential angst of being thrown away and forgotten.

Performed in The Space, a converted Presbyterian Church, great use is made of the church’s original balcony. Up there, the Gaoler (Grace Brown) teases them and a woman called Eunice (Milla Olsen) sneaks them food. Both these characters from the outside world are garish and exaggerated, sporting unwieldy accents. It’s almost as if any interaction with the outside is almost too much for those in the oubliette.

Each character wears vaguely mediaeval-ish costumes with stylised Caberet-esque make-up which emphasises their background. Scott the farmer is muddy, whilst Jasper the toff has a white face and red lips. There’s a deliberate vagueness to the setting, it’s just ‘a castle’; the ruler is nothing more than ‘the King’. They talk about Winnie the Pooh and therapists just as they invoke God and the Devil.

They break into songs, many of them madrigals, with looping phrases that drift and come together and the harmonies are enchanting. In one particularly striking scene, the voices in Scott’s head animate the corpse of Franklin and have him force Scott to confront his doubts and challenge his belief in love. It’s fantastically choreographed, with the voices alternately propping Franklin up or having him mirror their actions.

There’s a point towards the end of the play when the oubliette fills with even more people. Secrets are revealed; it gets a little shouty and the sense of uncanny threatens to break. This is when a last character enters, singing a cheesy doo-wop song and preening like a ten-penny Elvis. He brings the energy back to the stage, allowing the play to make its final twist.

Oubliette is pleasingly difficult to categorise. The camp and funny tones smuggle a play that has interestingly mixed feelings towards the power of both love and imagination, usually portrayed as unambiguously good. Worth seeing to enjoy at the time and mull over later.

Runs until 30 September 2023