Review: UP A CLOSE, Pavilion Theatre

Up A Close is a new play presented by The Travelling Theatre Company, written by Tina Conway and directed by Victor Kennedy. It takes place in Joanna's tenement flat in Partick as she looks back on her life as a young wife and mother. 

Joanna (Geri Greenhill) grew up in Maryhill in a family made up of strong women. Her bold Auntie Sandra (Carolyn Calder) was a huge influence in her life. Joanna met her husband when she was eighteen and her hopes of going to college were dashed when she fell pregnant. She married the father of her child and moved into the flat she still lives in in Partick.

The narrative jumps back and forth between her life now, waiting for her husband to come home, and Amber Conway plays young Joanna, weaving the storyline between the two timelines. Joanna's Best Friend Anne-Marie (Jamie Hunter) is deemed a bad influence and her husband gradually isolates her.

Up A Close doesn't shy away from serious subjects and it looks at domestic violence and coercive control. There's a lot of humour in the writing though and its made clear that Joanna also had a lot of joy in her life when she was young. She has a close relationship with her two sons now despite them being half a world away in Australia now. 

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