Forgotten Things

Published Friday 10 October 2008 at 13:20 by Kevin Berry

The Red Ladder company is on the road again and taking on a more extensive touring role in this, its 40th year.

Forgotten Things, a new play from Emma Adams, looks at a disconnecting family and its struggles with identity. Troubled teenager Toby, played by Woody Murray, dallies with a rope around his neck. Gran Lilly flows in and out of reality. The parents are feeling their lives slip away. This family is not very good at being happy.

Forgotten Things is an unsettling piece, working at many levels. Funny in a dark-edged way rather than black humour, it is thinking theatre - with a 30 minute post show discussion built into the play’s running time. So far, the majority of each audience has joined in.

The actors are on a portable, black tiled stage with a trap door, which is used for some wriggly entrances and exits. Colouring is sharp monochrome with the parents sporting white face make-up. Their psychiatrist is played by a bizarre head puppet.

Lucy Hind’s Lilly is cheerfully enigmatic. In the opening minutes, she could easily be mistaken for Toby’s sister, but perhaps that is a metaphor. Stephen Mosley excels as the father, moving at once gracefully and comically and giving enough individuality to the part.

Both Mosley and Ella Harris, as the wife, give the production a good start with interesting physicality, but the other characters are not explored to the same extent. A pity.

Woody Murray’s lanky physique has interesting possibilities.