Review: BU21, Theatre 503, March 18 2016

In July 2016, a plane was blown up over London, its wreckage (human and metal) smashing into Fulham leaving over 500 dead and thousands more injured, physically and mentally. BU21 (at Theatre 503 until 9 April) throws us a few months further into the future, following a disparate group of survivors as they navigate the aftermath.

This ensemble piece is delivered in the form of six interlocking monologues, the actors speaking to the audience (at times to individuals in the audience) as we learn how such a monstrous event impacts on their lives. Thalissa has lost a mother, Clive a father, whose death, in a West London garden, was witnessed by Floss. Ana was burned badly in the explosion, Graham became a national icon in a defiant TV interview and Alex, well, Alex sort of lost a sort of girlfriend and sort of best friend, but sort of didn't.

Sometimes in a support group environment and sometimes individually, the actors simply and plainly recount their character's thoughts. All these young people are completely credible, even the most damaged and the most opportunistic. Roxana Lupu invests wheelchair-bound Ana with a quiet dignity that created an almost aching need in me that she pull through. Thalissa Texeira's Thalissa (yes, the characters are named after the actors - underlining the point that their fate that fateful day could be anyone's) is angry, but love (of a kind) softens her. Florence Roberts's Floss is distracted by nightmares and visions but, unexpectedly, gets a chance to confront them and moves on.

Clive Keene does the paternal grieving well and finds solace in a deeper understanding of the nature of spirituality - he times his laugh lines brilliantly too. Graham O'Mara (reprising some elements of his character in this company's previous work at this venue, the excellent Cans) captures the man on the make well, wild but articulate, and exactly the kind of survivor the media would indulge - he gets a few acerbic zingers in too!. Alex Forsyth is brilliant as an amoral banker whose eye is never off the main chance and whose brutal charm draws us so reluctantly into his world with its twisted but irrefutable logic.

The real star of this show, though, is Stuart Slade's script. It's not just the pace that runs relentlessly across the 90 minutes all-through, but his ear for how people speak, their lexicons and their rhythms. An Alan Bennett for the Millennial Generation is a big label to put on a young playwright, but Slade is building a corpus of work to justify it. I look forward to his next foray into writing for the stage and urge anyone with a love of language (and a high tolerance for swearing) to venture out to Battersea because this is superb work and surely a portent of greater things to come.

Photo David Monteith-Hodge

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