Review: TOMORROW AT NOON, Jermyn Street Theatre

As soon as their Reaction Season was announced in autumn 2017, Jermyn Street Theatre launched a competition to all identifying as female playwrights; submissions were open and 390 anonymous people sent in a five-page scene responding to Noël Coward's Still Life. The winners - Morna Young, Emma Harding, and Jenny Ayres - were then commissioned a one-act play engaging with Coward's Tonight at 8:30, which resulted in Tomorrow at Noon.

The triptych of plays comprises Smite (by Young), The Thing Itself (Harding), and Glimpse (Ayres). The first one is a response to The Astonished Heart, from which it borrows the setting and main idea. Young explores jealousy and loss against the backdrop of an expensive and brutal London.

In The Thing Itself, influenced by Shadow Play, Harding's lesbian couple is forced to face their buried truths when the sun doesn't come up. And, finally, in Still Life-inspired Glimpse, Ayres tells the story of Mags, an elderly woman who endlessly waits for someone at a station. While Smite adopts the same set-up and delivery as Shadow Play,The Thing Itself uses the same kind of allegory as its inspiration and Glimpse the same setting.

Directed by Stella Powell-Jones, the collection is in line with Coward's themes even though the links between the plays are not always straightforward. Elaine Claxton, Laura Morgan, and Laila Pyne handle all roles of the three pieces, shuffling between subtle comedy and gloomy drama. Claxton raises the bar as Mags in the last instalment, where she gives a well-rounded comedic performance with an underlying thread of bittersweet heartache.

Albeit maybe not the perfect fit for Smite, Pyne too turns it around in Glimpse, while Morgan manages to keep a strong presence in all her appearances. Powell-Jones prefers a more static approach to the material, highlighting the characters' exposition by framing them with light or isolating them on the stage.

Tom Attwood and Tim Mascall curate the sound and lighting design respectively and give a stroboscopic and thumping atmosphere to the pieces, which, however peculiar, somewhat collides with the general ambience.

Not one of the trailblazers of new work, Jermyn Street Theatre outdo themselves with the first instance of what one hopes to be the ground zero of a long-lasting experiment. With Tomorrow at Noon, not only have they encouraged new writing, but they've done so engaging with tradition and emerging talent.

Tomorrow at Noon runs at Jermyn Street Theatre until 15 May.

Photo credit: Bob Workman

To post a comment, you must register and login.