Review: NIGHT CITY at Southwark Playhouse Borough

In the smaller space at Southwark Playhouse which currently hosts NIGHT CITY the performance area is spartanly adorned with 16 heavy vertical chains which drop from the ceiling. They form a 4 x 4 grid with each, tautly anchored to the floor. Interlinked with ribbons of strip-lighting, they present a cubed skeletal frame through which the three players weave as they recount a multiplicity of story threads and characters.

As a design choice (by Olivia Jamieson) it soon reveals its limitations and seems to add very little of value to proceedings. Instead it presents obstacles for director Ebenezer Bamgboye to work around as he choreographs his players Bex Smith, Helena Pipe and Jack Ambrose. The lighting element too (by Arnim Friess) seems exceedingly limited, with occasional blinding flashes presumably designed to awaken disengaged audience members from the otherwise gloomy spectacle.

Design misgivings aside, the players acquit themselves with some grace, imbuing characterisations which morph with the adoption of a baseball cap, a scarf or a change in vocal delivery. Initially, the swirl of changes is discombobulating but gradually settles, allowing some of the pithier lines to land as taxi driver Jack, waitress Tia, and care giver Tamara interact with various needy misfits and charlatans who come in and out of their collective orbit. While the three main threads don’t exactly coalesce into a fully integrated whole, there is a genuine sense that the playwright has worked to weave them. By the end there is even a feeling of audience empathy and investment in the plight of those characters who struggle to survive in a metropolis which so often chews-up and spits-out its less fortunate and worldly-wise inhabitants.

NIGHT CITY plays 1 hr 40 mins straight through without interval and continues at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 3rd October.