Review: BLACKOUT, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, April 20 2016

Blackout opens with a definition of its title. A blackout being when a part of your brain shuts off in order to let other parts of your body function. Five performers onstage take us through their stories; from their first drink to their reasons for drinking and, ultimately, their recovery.

Early on in the show we hear the more amusing anecdotes of drinking - from peeing off tall buildings to being so sick that spaghetti hoops come out of your nose. Things turn dark quite quickly and it turns to loss of bodily functions, violence and arrests. The script is excellent and contains a lot of memorable lines, particularly describing casual encounters as "sleeping with people you wouldn't touch with a condom on a bargepole".

Blackout explores the moments that led each person into recovery and how their addiction and recovery changed them. It is a very realistic account as it touches on how difficult it is to stay sober especially during tragedy.

The setting of the Tron Theatre's Changing House is the perfect intimate setting for this piece. Utterly captivating, you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre for the entire 70-minute performance. There were a couple of technical issues with the performers' microphones, but this wasn't much of a problem as the venue size meant they could still be heard easily.

Blackout runs at the Tron Theatre until April 23rd.

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