Tall Tales Theatre Group moves in with a light-hearted comedy which has potential but remains unpacked and unpolished.
The King’s Arms is the perfect venue to stage a comedy based above a pub, where we meet the inexperienced rouge Landlord (George Walker) who, he tells us, spent his inheritance on this tired, mice infested flat. Unable to afford to decorate, he now rents it out, and unbeknown to his unsuspecting tenants, he still secretly lives there.
Couple Neve (Sherrelle McCalla) and Stoney (Finn McDonald) move in, and are soon visited by their numerous friends, catching up on daytime television favourite, ‘Homes Under the Hammer’ (with some debate around Dion Dublin’s presenting skills) and planning on stealing some booze from their local Tesco.
Written by George Unitt, the writing is fun but littered with lots of unnecessary swearing and fail-safe toilet humour. Quite what you’d expect from a group of young, twenty – something pals. All good there then, except Unitt doesn’t scrape too far below the surface to give any of the characters some real depth and purpose beyond the light banter. There are some nice moments between characters, but the pace and rhythm are caught off guard with some playing for laughs, and mis-timed sound effects.
The eccentricities that we do see from the different characters, does warrant further investigation, especially Neve and Stoney, whose relationship comes under some strain, hence threatening the relationship dynamics within the group. We’re not given enough background about the couple, so the stakes are not so clear when things start to be brought into question.
Patrick Kennedy’s direction moves the story along nicely, but we’re treated to several static scenes, with characters delivering most of their dialogue facing out to the audience. Lacking in any kind of authentic movement the actors seem unable to relax in the space and environment they’re supposed to be inhabiting. However, the impromptu hiding and popping up of the Landlord prove funny, and a nice farcical touch.
The set is framed with large brown empty boxes with a sofa taking centre stage, replicating well the essence of a small, cramped flat, a feeling of being ‘boxed in’. Apart from a picture of the group of friends stuck to a box at the back of stage, we’re not given any insight into the contents of the boxes, or for that matter, much of the contents of the characters’ lives. The boxes remain static throughout the piece despite the passing of time, and were obviously physically empty, with the bottoms hanging lose exposing their emptiness (an unwilling metaphor maybe?).
The punchy music used during some of the transitions works well, however several transitions were stilted, leaving an empty stage at times. The two doors set either side of the stage hindered rather than helped transitions and entrances/exits. To help with pacing, the play would work better as a one act play rather than two short halves.
The piece has plenty of potential with some elements of farce, and characters worthy of some more exploration. It’s not quite self-aware enough to consider itself meta, as itself declares, the concept and the themes it wants to explore need to be better boxed off first. The production requires further discipline, and development to deliver a smoother performance.
‘Boxed In’ ends its sold-out run on Wednesday 15th November 2023.
Reviewer: Gill Lewis
Reviewed: 13th November 2023
North West End UK Rating: