Review: ONE NIGHT, LONG AGO, 100 Petty France

From two associate directors of Punchdrunk, One Night, Long Ago is an evocative walk through a mind palace which reveals more and more as the journey continues. With an audience of only 15 for each show in the venue used for Swamp Motel’s immersive show Saint Jude earlier this year, it’s a setting which builds in intimacy right from the off.

The show is described by creators Kath Duggan and Hector Harkness as “an intimate theatrical experience wrapped in cinematic sound…that blurs the boundaries between site-specific theatre and audio story.” 

What this means in practice is the audience sitting for 45 minutes listening to Stuart Bowman’s calming Scottish brogue while, beyond a pane of glass, we see Ellie James play the part of a cleaner working her way through an after-hours office. Bowman voices our unnamed protoganist’s memory journey with warmth and patience: we go past familiar streetlights and into his workplace, then hear about the Christmas party where he met his future wife and the mother of the person he is relating these stories to. There are some almost physically tangible aural passages, for example when describing the sound and feel of the blankets that the storyteller is under in the present.

James’ motions are fluid and natural as confidently walks through the office space, tidying things away, polishing the desks with a cloth and putting chairs back in place. At points, she stops to peer closely at items on the desk before moving on. After her shift, she changes from jeans and sweater to a dress before exploring the area again, this time with more purpose. She never speaks and her motions are largely ambiguous as to their intention.

Sarah Readman’s lighting adds atmospheric texture to the script as we see overhead beams suddenly flicker and desk lamps turn on and off of their own accord, possibly indicating something supernatural is occurring or that someone is trying to make contact. Working in the opposite direction, the sound design from Dominic is more calming than unsettling, underlining that this is not some twist-filled horror story where we should expect the unexpected but more a gentle saunter through someone’s past.

Like Punchdrunk’s recent production The Burnt City, there seems to be a deliberate vagueness at play here; despite having no physical agency, the very static nature of One Night, Long Ago gives us plenty of mental agency to use our own imagination to extrapolate and interpolate based what we are being directly fed by Duggan and Harkness.

The lack of details can be frustrating. Even by the end, it still isn’t clear who James’ character is and her relation to the narrator. Likewise, it is hard to discern whether she is inside the memory palace, in the real world listening to the same words as us or entirely a figment of the narrator’s imagination. Bowman’s monologue is a pleasant enough listen but seems largely divorced from what we are seeing through the glass. On the few occasions that James’ actions directly correlate to what we are hearing, the connections - even when obvious - are dramatically opaque and weak. Verbal meandering, the sudden time jumps and the general lack of tension or build-up in the script causes the narrative to sometimes lose its way. 

The discernible disparity between what is perceived by our eyes and our ears could mean that Duggan and Harkness are relaying two stories instead of one. Alternatively, they purposely designed these barely attached threads to allow the audience the creative space to come to their own interpretation of what One Night, Long Ago’s often abstract nature is really about. By the end, there’s a feeling that this could work better with enhanced visuals (in the style of ZU-UK’s Within Touching Distance) or, on the other hand, a more compelling script in an audio experience in the style of Darkfield’s creations.

One Night, Long Ago continues until 17 December.

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