Isn’t it fabulous when after a long hard day’s work, you gird your loins and set off to see a play you’ve never heard of by a company you don’t know in a theatre you didn’t know existed* and realise you’ve found an absolute gem.
Theatre Face is a new theatre company based on Merseyside, and Piggy in the Middle, directed by Carl James Folwer, is their latest production. James McCabe, at a loose end after finishing his drama degree, hand wrote this story of estranged siblings Harvey (Isaac Nixon) and Charlotte (Sophie Dand), who on learning of the impending demise of their father (John Mc), head to the holiday home he claims he is leaving to a local charity, each with their own reasons for wanting to claim it as theirs. Into the mix go family tensions, sibling rivalry, supressed memories, locked doors, and emotional blackmail, so not your average field for comedy, but then this isn’t your average play.
The clever structure keeps the audience guessing about the dysfunctional siblings – the one feckless and unemployed, the other unable to believe in and enjoy the security of a loving relationship, and both suffering from ‘hikikomori’, the Japanese term for adolescents who have retreated from society. With shades of Monty Python and the Mighty Boosh, the journey to their enlightenment (and ours) is punctuated by several other characters (Gabz Booth, Rebecca McEvilly and James McCabe), ranging from an beach ball who can’t decide if he’s evil, regular or just plain unlucky; the Keeper of the Doors (see above for them of locked/ open; scantily dressed Inuit’s (and to save you Googling it, Charlotte is right about who lives in the North Pole); purveyors of ‘Fibulube’ and ‘Reminiscence’ to help Harvey overcome his body’s and his memory’s refusal to re-enter the home of his childhood; and the unforgettable Pissy Missy, the taxi driver from Hell. Throughout, these excellent performances are enhanced by extremely effective lighting (Liam Holland) and sound (Theo Coles) with clever use of props and set (Rob Booth).
It is with the appearance of their father and the revelation of the mind games he subjects his children to, undermining Charlotte and favouring Harvey, that we start to realise that if the children have seemed selfish and manipulative, there’s a good reason for it. There are secrets to be revealed and memories to be untangled. Ninety minutes of theatre that covers the range of physical, nuanced, slapstick, surreal, tragic, comedic and dark, but is always gripping.
*check out the video on Theatre Face’s Facebook page for a handy guide on how to get to the theatre.
Reviewer: Johanna Roberts
Reviewed: 1st November 2018
North West End Rating: ★★★★★
