Theatre / Reviews
Review: Lost Atoms, Bristol Old Vic – ‘An audacious production, and top-drawer drama’
Lost Atoms is Frantic Assembly’s 30th anniversary production, maintaining their trademark methods of physicality, accessibility and using building blocks to find the truth within.
It is testament to their success that this play features on an A-level drama syllabus, and even more impressive is the fact that on press night, coachloads of excitable students attended – but you could hear a pin drop.
The play is about love and how each party in one particular relationship holds differing recollections of their shared connection.
Photo: Frantic Assembly
This two-hander, written by Anna Jordan, features Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) and Robbie (Joe Layton). Behind them is a wall of memories, physically represented by a vast collection of filing cabinet drawers. Andrzej Goulding’s set design is impressive, made more so by the perfectly synchronised opening and closing of drawers as Jess and Robbie clamber, cling on and slide across the stage.
Sets as intricate as this can sometimes grate if used as an artifice, but not here. Jess and Robbie in turn support and manoeuvre each other around in an entirely organic way.
One of the strengths of the performance, emanating from the actors as much as the writing, is that even though Jess and Robbie are very ordinary people, they are never mundane. Neither has an impressive job nor skill set, and the authenticity is accentuated by their own convincing backstories which are highly personal but never shocking for the sake of it.
Jess and Robbie’s chance meeting is no fairy tale, yet is imbued with a fictional narrative that each character reinterprets as they discover, piece by piece, what is going on in their minds.
There is a growing sense, not of menace, but that something will go awry somewhere along the line. Robbie is a bit of a dork, but sensitive and clearly smitten with Jess. She is more free-spirited and adventurous, but the mounting affection between the two is touching and reveals where they have common ground.
It is in their memories that the characters’ lives are represented as compartmentalised. Drawers are slid open to reveal an array of objects, including clubs for crazy golf, hideous jumpers, and lightbulbs.
Carolyn Downing’s inventive sound design keeps the characters connected to their surroundings, while Simisola Majekodunmi’s understated yet impactful lighting instantly reflects shifts in mood.
Director Scott Graham, like the clambering actors, never puts a foot wrong.
The first half ends on a cliffhanger, much like the characters suspended from the drawer handles, allowing the second act to shock us out of any complacency we may have built up about the characters.
If I had any quibbles, there were too many possible permutations presented about what the future holds for them, but that can be forgiven. This is an audacious production and top-drawer drama.
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Lost Atoms is at Bristol Old Vic on January 13-24 at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on Thursday and Saturday (no shows Sunday). Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.
The play was commissioned and produced by Frantic Assembly in a co-production with Curve, Mayflower Southampton and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.
All photos (unless stated): Tristram Kenton and Scott Graham
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