Review: LOVE LETTERS TO THE PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM at Holden Street Theatres

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Wednesday 14th February 2018

Hailing from Liverpool, Molly Taylor, here in association with Holden Street Theatres, considers the importance of public transport, and the anonymous people who provide it, in the everyday encounters and interactions between people. Love Letters to the Public Transport System sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe, and should do the same here in Adelaide.

You might happen to meet somebody purely by chance, talk, and fall in love. You might have arrived there by train. They might have arrived there by bus. If either was running late, you might never have met. Taylor wrote to thank those public transport employees who had an effect on her life, in the hope that the letters, addressed to the various organisations, would be passed along and reach the individuals responsible.

This concept is at the heart of her most whimsical production, in which she shows herself to be a wonderful storyteller. In this work she introduces several other characters, telling their stories as well as her own, breaking them into fragments of the narratives and returning to each a number of times, providing snippets of their tales from their beginning to their conclusion. She does all of this sitting on a double seat from a bus, shifting her position a little as she moves from one segment to another.

The simplicity of the staging and minimal movement throws everything back on her writing and her performance, both of which are superb. There are moments of pathos, and swathes of humour, keeping the audience entranced and hanging on every word, eagerly awaiting the next instalment of each story.

One story is of actor/writer, Tam Dean Burn, who has writer's block, then tracks down the author, Luke Sutherland, with whom he once had a chance meeting, and Tam eventually adapts his book, Venus as a Boy, for the stage, which he later presented at the Edinburgh Fringe. Then there is Margaret, and another, Barry, and meetings with retired public transport drivers. She brings together numerous threads, linking them with her theme of the thanks we owe to public transport.

In Britain, of course, public transport is far more extensive, runs more often, and is regular, reliable, and is infinitely more well-used by the public, than it is here in Adelaide, where it often falls short on all of those criteria making car ownership essential. Privately owned vehicles are more of a liability to Britons than an asset, in a small island with a vast population, and a history of traffic jams going back many decades. The vast majority in Britain, wisely, use some form of public transport as their primary means of getting around. This production must be viewed through that perspective to appreciate fully the importance of public transport in this work.

From the sudden end of a relationship in Scotland, travelling to Brighton on the English coast through many other locations and situations, Taylor, takes us with her on her multifaceted journey, and those of her other characters, with the aid of almost poetic use of language, and plenty of heart. Be sure to see this charming production that will leave you pondering how transport has been involved in your own life