Review: BETWEEN THE LINES, New Diorama Theatre

Forget Drake and Kendricks’ diss track beef. Tune into Blaze FM, the East London pirate radio station in Between The Lines, for “The biggest tunes. The baddest DJs. And the realest truths.” Although accentuated by a sparky grime-inflected soundtrack, this production doesn’t quite catch fire.  

There’s huge potential here. Writer James Meteyard was part of the creative team behind Edinburgh Fringe cult hit Electrolyte where music wasn’t just infused with the performance. It was elevated to another level of soul-nourishing storytelling.

But Between The Lines’s wider political focus trades off the indie warmth that Electrolyte conjured so gorgeously. Set across the noughties, Between The Lines maps the lives of its hosts and the rise of drill music subculture.

Bombastic Patriarch Hughbert is the focus. The gravity shift to the next generation, particularly his aspiring lawyer daughter Aisha, is where the heart really lies. They inherit his belief that music is not just a balm to soothe community tensions, but the social glue that binds it together in the face of paranoia, anger, and division.

The opening sequence is washed in projections of 9/11 and world leaders declaring a war on terrorism. Old community wounds still hurt too: Hughbert is a veteran of the Broadwater farm riots that he recounts with a queasy sense of guilt and duty, strongly hinting that he may well have been on the wrong side of the law.

Violence lingers in the background menacingly, both in the tempestuous lives of the young DJs and in their music. Is their aggressive music a mirror of reality or a hammer that shapes it?

The play bites off more than it can chew and the question goes uninterrogated. One of the crew is stabbed, seemingly out of nowhere. The emotion doesn’t garner believable weight, nor does the threat of over-stylised Hughbert being deported to his native Jamacia. The rest of the play slips too easily into syrupy soap opera.

But it has its moments. The young cast are buoyant with energy and laser focus. They supercharge writer and composer Jammz’s drill music with ferocious voltage, even if they are crammed into a corner by the set design. The cosy New Diorama stage is stuffed with MC Escher like towers blocks. It’s less a concrete jungle for them to play in, more an obstacle suffocating half the stage.

But who knows. The New Diorama has a knack for being a theatrical stepping stone for shows to go onto bigger things. With refinement, Between The Lines could have serious potential.

Between The Lines plays at the New Diorama until June 1

Photo Credits: Ali Wright

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