Criterion New Writing Showcase

Criterion Theatre

EXCERPT: "I really liked Darren Murphy's Some Velvet Morning; Ness Lyons' play Reserves and Jack Stanley's Catastrophists weren't in the same league."

Reserves **

Summary

Reserves is a dystopian drama about a conscripted Army Reserve unit of women, in a scarily convincing future England.

Thoughts 

Ness Lyons' play Reserves is fairly intriguing - I want to know what the situation is in this dystopian future England. Apart from this rather superficial hook, though, there's nothing in particular to recommend it - the acting brings out character personalities but there's no real depth there, and there's no nuanced or interesting exploration of pertinent themes. It touches upon areas that could be of interest, but never with enough depth to be so.

Some Velvet Morning ****

Summary

Some Velvet Morning is a taut, claustrophobic mystery about a film-maker who enlists the help of two actors to revisit a dark episode from his own past.

Thoughts

I really liked Darren Murphy's Some Velvet Morning. The premise is a good one and ripe for comedy, and Murphy's witty dialogue and good use of situational humour exploits this to the max without ever feeling forced or repetitive. The actors' need  for a back story is comic and then takes a really nicely done twist to the sinister when we realise the set up is based on a murder scene. I want to know what happens! This has the potential to be a pretty good play I think, and think the writer showcases some considerable talent.

Catastrophists **

Summary

Dinner and drinks at a Cotswolds cottage. Food: pulled pork with nibbles to start. Conversation topics: the weather, dietary requirements and the post-apocalyptic survivalist cult living in the adjacent field. A comic play about how far people can push themselves to escape contemporary society.

Thoughts

The set up of Jack Stanley's Catastrophists should be ripe for comedy. That it doesn't properly exploit this exposes Stanley's slightly lacklustre grasp of dialogue. The characters and their conversation feels quite stereotyped and it when it works and feels natural, I think it's more to do with the actors working hard to circumvent the fairly tricky situations they're being forced to pull off. I also think it's a shame that Stanley doesn't actually look at all into why people might want to escape contemporary society.