Writer: Anthony Nielson
Director: George King
OddDog Theatre was formed during lockdown by a group of theatre students who were desperate to have something to work on when theatre was near on its knees. After a sell-out run of Yen in 2021, this is their second production, funded by donations and created by a group of now-graduated young, enthusiastic actors who clearly love what they’re doing.
On the programme cover, this is referred to as an amateur production, but it’s hard to see why, given that the cast has a plethora of credits between them and, more importantly, it’s a brilliant show with no whiff of the amateur about it.
Unreachable follows director Maxim (George King, also director of this production) on his first properly funded movie set. The casting is done, the money is in place, and everyone’s ready to start filming. But Maxim is on a quest to find a perfect, indescribable light- “it’s more like a feeling” and he’s willing to sabotage the whole production to get it if he must.
The film cast is made up of cartoonish characters, each tapping into a Hollywood stereotype, only to wrench clear of them and deliver something entirely unexpected.
Darcy Streamer, playing the impossible “brute” Ivan, is a theatrical treat, giving these long, ridiculously melodramatic monologues whenever the opportunity presents, and often even when it doesn’t. “I have walked a thousand miles to save a fly!”, he bellows at the audience. Given how Unreachable was originally created in workshop, and how, according to Isabelle Ivy Dunn, playing hardline producer Anastasia, the cast is “able to perform freely and change things up every night”, one wonders how much of Streamer’s dialogue is of his own making. If this is true he is both a genius and a concern, telling the audience how he fed a dog his snot, “and he was grateful!” among other more disgusting anecdotes.
King’s Maxim, the floppy-haired artiste, is generally an unbearable narcissist, but he has enough flashes of the endearing, struggling creative that the audience stays mostly on-side if cringingly frustrated.
Julia Green, playing Natasha, the cold female lead, explores the idea that women who struggle to emote are often excellent at mimicking. While on camera, Natasha is an emotional wreck, but off-camera she’s disturbingly stolid. This is especially fun in tandem with Streamer’s histrionics.
The staging is fairly bare which, given the size of the characters, works fine. There are a couple of farcical additions: Right before Maxim apologises to Natasha for his messy room, a pile of dirty underwear is thrown across the stage, and when Natasha and Maxim are trying to create a scenario in which Natasha can offer him sympathy, tens of fake tealights are hurriedly rolled on individually from the wings. It’d be great if there were a little more of this set-silliness, as it works so well and the rarity of it feels a bit random.
The set-up for Unreachable seems to lead to an entirely predictable ending, but it’s hard to care when the delivery is so fast-paced and the script so hilariously witty. That being said, while one might predict where the story ends, the final moments preceding it are entirely surprising, and the play takes a dive off a sudden cliff, right before landing where you expected, only now it feels completely different.
There are only two more performances of Unreachable at the Tabard, which is a massive shame, as it’s rare to find a piece of pub theatre so brilliantly produced and cast.
Runs until 22 July 2023
