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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Gone to the dogs: The Border @TCLive


You know things have really gone to the dogs when four-legged friends are being rounded up and used as collateral. The dogs are used by migrants to pay to escape to a better life in East Oolia. Such is the slightly absurd but strangely familiar tale called The Border by Afsaneh Gray. It’s just finished playing at the Peckham Theatre but continues touring other sites and schools.

It opens with a young girl from the fictitious town of East Oolia called Julia. She’s just lost her dog as a border wall went up to divide East and West Oolia, and he ended up on the wrong side of the fence. The mayor did it to deliver on an election promise and to stop those West Oolians taking jobs from the East Oolians (or something like that). As Julia embarks on a quest to find her dog, she stumbles into a divided country. Her own family is divided, and immigration and crime (in the form of dog theft), is spiralling out of control.

Things get really interesting towards the end when the actors break the fourth wall and ask the audience about where they get their political views. Naturally being in the comfort and surroundings of the inner London the bubble, you can imagine what people would say about today’s politics. But the discussion quickly came to a consensus about the need to better understand different points of view and finding a middle ground. If only BBC Question Time could find such thoughtful audiences.

As an allegory for current day politics where hashtags and shouts of traitor replace thoughtful debate, it’s funny and engaging. As the dogs from the show say, all they’re after is “a patch a grass to piss on.” Maybe that’s a philosophy we could all try and live with instead of trying to keep pissing on each other.

Directed by Natalie Wilson, The Border continues touring schools and venues across the UK. Check their website for details.

⭐️⭐️⭐️



Photos by Jack Barnes

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