I found this piece confusing at first although it was mid afternoon(not my best time intellectually) and it was my fourth show of the day ! It cut across several different periods in time from 1952 to 2022. These dates followed the reign of Queen Elizabeth up to- her (fictional) death in 2022. It visited the 1980s - (referencing the closure of the pits, and 2012(referencing the Olympics) and one of the major themes was Imperialism (referencing the many Egyptian artefacts which have been resited to British museums). It looked at the implications and effects of imperialism and how it has created the world we live in today and how it might affect the future. In addition to the cross cutting of time periods, the actors played multi roles, there was heavy use of multimedia techniques and there was no linear time progression, sometimes several time eras were portrayed on stage at the same time. So forgive me if I didn't quite follow things straight off!!
I was just about getting the hang of things by the end of the piece and was starting to quite like the way it was presented, but nevertheless it was difficult to follow and perhaps a little too self conscious and precious about the way it was presented rather than concentrating on what it was presenting.
Interesting and thought-provoking, but not overwhelmingly pleasing as a piece of theatre. However, I would be interested to see how this company develops some of its ideas and techniques, so perhaps one to watch for the future, but this one did not quite do it for me, I am afraid. Personally, I wouldn't book this piece for rural touring.
Review by Gill Vickers
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