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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...

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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