Tuesday 28 August 2012

Love letters to the Public Transport System – National Theatre of Scotland

A one woman piece very simply done – just a girl talking about her life and loves really. Molly Taylor has written and performed this piece, one feels, from her own experience.
She tells of a broken heart, a journey to London, a brief encounter in the White Horse in Brixton which leads to a year long love affair and she speaks at length of the unbearable lightness of the threads of the public transport system which brought the two of them together on that fateful night.  Wanting to celebrate her love and the drivers who transported them there she writes to the various transport authorities as she wants to thank the drivers personally for what they have done for her.  Put like this it seems trivial and somewhat oddball.
However, the writing and the relaxed but engaging presentation by the actress, result in quite an interesting piece.  Visually very stark – just an old bus seat and a pile of used public transport tickets and with very little movement and action from our heroine, it should have been tedious.  But the storytelling skill of the actress meant that the audience was held throughout.  There were no real highs and lows – either in the story or the way it was told, just the quiet insistence of a single issue fanatic.
Would be very easy to tour this in village halls.  Whether promoters would choose it or not, I am not sure. 

Review by Gill Vickers

No comments:

Post a Comment