National Theatre's creatively titled Double Feature in The Paint Frame is an interesting and varied series that makes great use of a humble but boundless space. Naima Khan reviews the double bills.
Nightwatchman
Ballsy northern cricketer, Abirami, is preparing for her debut at Lords. Batting against a bowling machine long into the night, she's no Michael Atherton she's keen to point out. More power than panache, her talent brews from deep-seated ambition and, we soon find, deep-seated frustration.
Playing for England against Sri Lanka, the country of her heritage, she knows where she stands, firmly away from a terrorist state attacking its own people. She stands alongside her late father even though her memories of him are clouded with disappointment. More importantly, she stands alongside the England that “says yes far more than it says no”.
Prasanna Puwanarajah's one-woman show is on fire from the get-go. The character he's created in Abi is fierce, funny and surprisingly vulnerable. But she's also confused. Her emotional ramblings on politics are great to watch but she doesn't present any new argument, so what she says fails to stay with the audience. And while her emotion is captivating, the premise for the play begs for some reasoned, irrevocable thoughts on the multidimensional issues of sports, politics and social identity, which Puwanarajah fails to deliver.
Nightwatchman is, however, a fantastic show of Stephanie Street's ability to hold an audience. It also presents some great technical wizardry from the creative team who send invisible cricket balls flying from Abi's bat right into the audience, destroying The Paintframe as they land.
There is a War
If you didn't know already, you won't be surprised to find that Tom Basden has a long list of comedy credentials that provide a solid primer for his new play There is a War. He's also fortunate to have the disarming Phoebe Fox leading his sizeable cast.
Fox plays Dr. Anne Croft, a Blue who stands firm against the Greys. The two sides are engaged in a cruel, anarchic but rarely seen war. As Anne struggles to find the hospital where she can be of some use, she meets dozens of dopey characters who fill her in on stories of secret prisons, the murder of the wounded and the use of children at the front line.
As you'd expect from Basden it's dark comedy at its best. When Anne bumps into two childhood friends, now disposing of bodies for the war effort, she learns some harsh truths about quantifying the dead and the erosion of ethics and sense of decency. But her lessons come from such personable and simple-minded characters, you momentarily feel like she should just join in.
She kind of does in her own rebellious way, before she's captured, almost adopted by peaceful protesters and very nearly executed. Her necessary adventure shows us how we perceive conflict and despite the dark subject and the consistent gore, it never feels heavy.
Double Feature at The Paintframe continues until 10th September.
Click here for reviews of Double Feature Part 1
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