The relationship between them has no backstory yet still feels complex and fully drawn. Likewise, while the stage is set with only a desk for Brotherhead’s puzzles, a chair, a microphone, and a small trampoline, it fully elicits a sense of intrigue. Steer spends the majority of the play jumping on the trampoline, which is not only surprisingly captivating, but becomes the main challenge in their relationship as she admits she can’t stop jumping. What follows is Brotherhead and Steer attempting to navigate each others needs and desires, and finding out what in life and in their relationship they value most.
Director Jaz Woodcock-Stewart establishes a peculiar pacing, allowing long extended sequences of Brotherhead documenting in detail her 1000-piece puzzle through a microphone. But Brotherhead gives these episodes such enthusiasm, such extreme delight in the puzzle’s potential, that they lull you into a deep sense of comfort that’s then contorted as the play progresses.
Brotherhead and Steer are both intensely watchable, and they each offer their own unique but equally endearing humour. Some of the highlights are brief lip-sync to ‘Don’t Give Up’ by Peter Gabriel (feat. Kate Bush), and a celebratory dance to ‘Ain’t That Terrible’ by Roy Redmon.
Certainly a daring and potentially polarizing piece, Lands is nevertheless a rewarding and fresh piece of theatre that uses a bizarre series of events to excavate the fundamental difficulties all relationships face.
What | Lands, Bush Theatre review |
Where | Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, London, W12 8LJ | MAP |
Nearest tube | Shepherd's Bush Market (underground) |
When |
09 Nov 18 – 01 Dec 18, 19:45 (performances last approx 1hr 20mins) | matinees available Saturdays & Wednesdays |
Price | £10 (prices vary) |
Website | Please click here for more information |