Review: WOOD, VAULT Festival

When John Rolando fails to be able to get an instant erection on the set of a porn film, his life starts to fall apart and kicks off a curious experiment of meta-theatre.

Written by Adam Foster, Wood might be slightly confused at this stage but could turn into a compelling piece of theatre.

On-the-nose humour used as a direct critique to the state of the British entertainment business makes the play rather fascinating even though it doesn't feel complete as of yet.

The concept is funny and the delivery is equally amusing as directed by Grace Duggan but it might benefit from a bit of polishing in terms of identity. Foster plays with pretentiousness and plenty of indirect jokes against the patriarchal frame of work inhabit his satire, but the starting place feels too different from the later meta-theatrical setting.

A cast of four (Claire Cartwright, George Fletcher, Philippa Hogg, and Nneka Okoye) exchange roles in the wannabe gender-blind study. They're a cohesively hilarious bunch and deal with the comedic slant of it brilliantly.

As a whole, the company puts on an entertaining show and Foster writes a script that displays plenty of inklings that would allow it to become fully provocative. His reasoning behind the structure is clear but the execution needs further work to reach the full capacity of its potential.

Wood plants the seed of a thought-provoking and forward-thinking comedy that highlights all the issues that the modern landscape of the theatre industry presents.

Wood runs at VAULT Festival until 3 March.

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