Tag: Rajiv Pattani

Santi and Naz at the Vault Festival review ****

Santi and Naz

The Thelmas, Vault Festival 2020, 30th January 2020

Now I cannot pretend that everything on offer at the Vault Festival is my cup of tea. I suspect most of the comedy and monologues are aimed at a much younger and less hidebound audience than the Tourist and I am only slowly easing my way into the politics of identity (still seeing most of the world’s problems, besides the most obvious right now, as issues of political economy). More interesting to me then is the more conventional work from the many innovative theatre companies which tread the, er, arches.

Even so there is a lot to choose from and, whilst the Festival offers a winning combination of convenience, value and grunge-y camaraderie, (remember the Tourist is a denizen of leafy SW London where grunge is scarce), there is a limit to even his attendance. So if it sounds interesting, and better still, is a known quantity, then it gets my vote. Last year The Thelmas brought the memorable Ladykiller by Madeline Gould to the Festival. This year NOTCH and this, Santi and Naz. Written by Guleraana Mir and Afshan D’Souza-Lodhi and directed by Madelaine Moore, this two hander is set against the backdrop of Indian partition on the end of British rule and independence in August 1947.

And backdrop is what it is. This is no heavy handed history, external events are only fleetingly referenced, but instead is a coming of age love story concentrating on two close friends in their teenage years, (from 1945 to 1949), Muslim Naz (Ashna Rabheru) and Sikh Santi (Rose-Marie Christian). Their families, the personalities in the village where they live, their friends, their hopes, fears and plans for the future are all carefully, wittily and movingly described. The Cage may be one of the Vault’s larger spaces but, at just 90 odd souls, it is still pretty intimate, and director, designer (Sascha Gilmour), lighting designer (Rajiv Pattini) and compose/sound designer (Sarah Sayeed) all combine to subtly conjure up the Punjab. However it is the performances, including movement, of our two principals, that really convinces. S&N is just over an hour but in that short time we come to know both young women and fell the pain of their coming separation. In particular Ashna Rabheru’s Naz, who is betrothed to an older man, sees sparky trenchancy replaced with grim maturity, is captivating. Mind you Rose-Marie Christian’s studious Santi matches her stride for stride.

Top drawer.

Wolfie at Theatre503 review ****

Wolfie

Theatre503, 10th April 2019

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Ross Willis is a double espresso with extra shot man. How else to explain the blast of wild energy that is his debut play Wolfie. For sure it is hard to imagine two more vibrant actors than Erin Doherty and Sophie Melville, collectively the “future of British acting”, but even these fearsome talents need something special to get their teeth into. It was by no means perfect but there is an invention and a verve in the telling of this story which made it stand out.

Two sisters, Z and A, whose Mum is unable to cope, are separated at birth and cast into the UK care system. But this is no gritty documentary-drama. First off the story begins in the womb. Z’s foster Mum, Soggy Woman, never leaves the bath. A is brought up by a wolf after her Dad, Bony Man, leaves her for dead in the wood. Trees talk. Woodpecker social workers offer up brutal homilies. Chemistry teachers become parents in absentia. Charity workers donate slices of their kidneys. Mothers snort milk teeth. Waitrose opens and gives A an opportunity in butchery. There is a Jack Whitehall-esque, silver, mansplaining torso. And more. Much more.

It’s a Grimm, though not grim, fairytale, with plain nods to the likes of Angela Carter and Jose Saramango, as well as, minus the theory, Ionesco. However there is a blunt contemporary edge, think Mighty Boosh, even in the more surreal dialogue. The story moves at a hell of a lick, sometimes only becoming clear where we are, and when we are, at birth, aged 13 and 26, in retrospect. It is very funny and, in the hands of exciting young designer Basia Binkowska, lighting from Rajiv Pattani, sound from Richard Hammerton and movement direction by Belinda Lee Chapman, impressive in the way it transforms the tiny 503 space.

Maybe the message gets a little lost in all this metaphor, contrivance and stagecraft, I would have preferred 80-90 minutes straight through, and sometimes it comes close to spirally out of control, but this entertainment is very easy to forgive. Especially, as I say, with these two actors on stage. Sophie Melville and, most especially, Erin Doherty as lead character Soween, were by some margin the best things to emerge from Alan Ayckbourn’s muddled The Divide at the Old Vic, even after it had been slimmed down. Sophie Melville was simply breathtaking as Effie in Gary Owen’s brilliant Iphigenia in Splott. And I have raved before about Erin Doherty (Junkyard, My Name is Rachel Corrie) and I fully expect the world to catch up when she appears in the next series of The Crown on Netflix.

This text and space is made for them. If acting is all about having no fear, even when asked to do the daftest of things, then these two are, no question, actors. They take something which, on the page at least, must have looked pretty daunting and turn it into something utterly tangible. Director Lisa Spirling seems gifted with the same magic dust, or sparkles as Z and A would have it, having brought Rajiv Joseph’s equally ambitious Describe the Night to life at the Hampstead Theatre last year.