Review: SOMEONE OF SIGNIFICANCE, VAULT Festival

Some productions have the spirit of an airport novel. One of those in the bargain bin with a cheesy cover and badly written blurb. They get you through the flight and help you kill time, but you bin them as soon as you land. It's a shame that Someone of Significance has the same feel. Unfortunately for writer Amalia Kontesi, as it is, this isn't a great political play nor an exciting romantic drama.

She tries to explore privilege and class divide through the eyes of a left-wing politician and the CEO of a corporation who started an illicit affair while working at the same company. She's from broke Brooklyn, he's from posh London. Overly expository text that strays from natural dialogue doesn't ease this monotonous production.

Rosie and Brad have nothing in common, and neither do their actors. They delve into the shallow waters of their differences in an attempt at a grand discussion on class, gentrification, and the ethics of business while their baffling love story blooms. Simon Bass and Funlola Olufunwa are an uncomfortably unsexy pair divided by a void of non-chemistry.

Strained acting and rough writing carry these star-crossed lovers through an hour of inconclusive, clichéd exchanges and boring back-and-forth that don't even scrape the top of active discourse. It's the start of an analysis on social wealth and politics, but it comes off a very early draft, which it might as well be as its full-length version is allegedly being developed at one of the Young Vic's programmes.

Sam Tannenbaum's direction lacks pace, which makes the unexciting talk trudge on relentlessly in-between long scene changes where the duo change clothes. News extracts stream out from the sound system while they re-dress, determining the timeline and moving the action temporally. We go from the Obama administration to Biden's - who beats Rosie in the presidential race.

If the characters are expanded, the script rendered more sensibly instinctive, and a snappier vision is employed, this can be something of significance. At this stage, it's regrettably not.

Someone of Significance runs at VAULT Festival until 5 March.

VAULT Festival has been left without a venue for next year. You can contribute to the #SaveVAULT campaign here.

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