Thin Places @ Little Angel Theatre - Review
A promising premise made tedious by execution. ★★
Now closed.
Tickets £12.
Rating: ★★
The plot of Thin Places is a tale worth telling. Hugo McKillop (played by John Pyke) is returning to his village after his life in London has fallen apart, to find it has changed, but so has he. A familiar story of becoming an adult and of looking for a place in a highly mobile world. Unfortunately, it is told absolutely awfully in this new play.
The main character is barely developed, even by the end we have no sense of who he is. We know his profession, his age, some of his choices, but nothing about his psychology or motivations. Secondary characters get similar treatment, Dearbhaile Blaney (played by Tish Gearing) is especially two-dimensional, existing in an apparently constant state of romantic angst for Hugo. The most charming character is Father McKeown (Tim Nixon), though a lot of that is owed to the acting, and even he is a well worn trope of doubting priest.
The plot is messy and episodic, more suited to a soap or sitcom than a play, it takes us down alleys into neatly resolved troubles that distract from what is essentially a character driven play. Better written, these would provide humour at least, but the stilted dialogue kills many of these opportunities. They also force constant scene changes and extensive spoken exposition, including twice where the audience is directly addressed by a character, breaking any immersion the audience was feeling.
The promised motif of the play, thin places, where the borders between worlds are blurred, is barely harnessed, neither metaphorically nor literally. We get references to it in dialogue by Moira Stone (Abbe Waghorn), a Cassandra style blind mystic, but there’s no supernaturalism to be found, and Hugo’s London life certainly doesn’t start to infringe on his hometown in any meaningful way.
The timeline in the exposition is confusing in a way that makes it hard to keep track. It appears he’s been gone only a few months, but in that time has entirely changed his value system? Similarly, details like a trader casually losing £100m to Bitcoin investments and the idea of a will leaving property “to the family” make it feel hastily written.
There are some moments worth salvaging. A fun accent riff on “erotic” or “erratic” dreams makes for witty dialogue between Dearbhaile and the Father. Joe O’Rourke (Iain Pritchard), the publican with deep parental love for a goat called Johan, strikes a delighful balance of humour and sentimentality. The details of how Hugo’s life has come crashing down, if finetuned, could be a compelling, dramatic but believeable backstory.
There is also some acting talent in the crew. Marlon Gill as Johnny O’Rourke does a fantastic job of turning badly written lines into a pitiable, humble heir apparent to a village pub. Dewi Williams, doubling up as a copper and a vet, does a very good impression of being drugged that is funny without being farcical.
I will be interested in seeing how this brand new work gets redrafted. With refinement of characters, better use of the folk wisdom underpinning the title, and paring down of distractions, this has the potential to be a very decent story.