Review: UNDER THE RADAR, Old Red Lion Theatre

The concept of a submarine has long fascinated writers across media. Jules Verne captivated his readers with the Nautilus and, more recently, Suranne Jones was trapped in one for a murder investigation on the BBC.

From fascinating research to locked-room mysteries, underwater tales generally enchant audiences. Alas, not this time.

Under the Radar lacks the insight, intensity, eloquence, and intrigue needed to build good a drama. The characters are bland non-entities stuck inside a stagnant setting.

Lee (Eleanor Hill) is a reporter who's joining Martin (Nicholas Anscombe) on the maiden voyage of his homemade boat. They start drinking, and things go awry in the most clichéd of ways.

You can see the ending from twenty thousand leagues away and the social commentary is as lost as sea as Nemo's friendliness is in Verne's novel. Jonathan Crewe writes and directs a piece soaking with misogynistic shock value and wrung out of any relevance.

The writing and direction both lack subtlety, as do the performances. It's a very still play. The pair mainly sit on a sofa, getting progressively more drunk, moaning about their lives.

The dialogue is the only thing that moves in this otherwise immobile show - and even that only ambles in circles inconsequentially. The scenes - divided by agonisingly long changes where a curtain is pulled and furniture is moved around at an excruciating pace set to maritime noises - discuss the oppression and pressure they feel because of their families.

While Martin's father was an inventor obsessed with efficiency rather than ambition, the journalist - who works for Time Magazine - is the editor's daughter who's had it so hard because of her dad's influence and fame.

They review her prettiness and whether it's helped her climb the ladder, her bitchiness, and her yearning to break her family's mould.

When it comes to him - who's the subject of Lee's piece, and therefore should be the centre of the exchange - it's all about his desire to be powerful.

He wants to make his own rules - hence the submarine - and be recognised by his little town's authority as the exceptional inventor he is. They both have something to prove and are ridden with daddy issues. It's a shame that's not the focus of this shallow play.

Hill's Lee is a flimsy stereotype. The first word she utters in both parts is "fuck" and she is even shocked that there's no signal underwater. There's absolutely no depth in her and she's the idealised picture of a modern white upper-class woman as painted by a man.

Her rape is, tastefully, not shown, but the sexual acts Martin performs are described in graphic detail later in Martin's fit of rage. So, all taste and grace previously displayed go out the porthole at once.

As portrayed by Anscombe, Martin is all Scandinavian accent and no intensity. His life is dictated by his need to prove himself to the world. His backstory (although it looks more like a villain's origin story) is one of obscurity and hatred towards his parent (it appears his mother wasn't in the picture). It's not enough to grip the audience and give his actions any backbone.

Running at 90 minutes including an interval, it's also too long for what it is, with the break turning into another, larger, gaping hole in-between the scenes. Crewe's attempt at bleak black comedy towards the end comes at odds with the half-hearted criticism of masculinity. Martin argues with Lee's corpse, who in turn taunts him with a sarcastic vein as he loses the plot entirely.

While the writing is twisted on its head and the genre shift doesn't make too much sense, Hill - and, to an extent, Anscombe - is given the chance to turn her performance inside out and redeem herself. Still, the material is not enough to change the fate of this misjudged and rather shortsighted production.

We've moved past using female characters solely for the shock value that their abuse brings. Under the Radar abstains from taking a stance on the violence it depicts, opting for a funny haunting and presumed madness as the sole result. It's a frustrating and uncomfortable play to watch, and not in a good nor constructive way.

Under the Radar runs at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 2 April.

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