REVIEW: SOBCENTRE by Guy Woods at Brockley Jack Studio 17 Feb – 2 March 2024

‘full of ideas’ ★★★

This is an interesting play with ever so many good bits. A bunch of compelling performances, a really good underscore, some quirky and entertaining writing, physical acting of a very high standard. It doesn’t in the end add up to much, but there’s a lot of fun to be had in the getting there.

Jon (Kate Crisp) wakes up in a strange place, doesn’t remember much, tries to enlist the help of the director of the Sobcentre, encounters several other inmates, and inveigles him (her? them?) self into a position of jobs-body, working for room and board. They question anyone who’ll listen to find out who they are and why they’re there. Eventually they find out and the world makes sense again.

Tathata Theatre gives it a good go, there’s a splendid range of performances, and for all that impressive effort it’s not quite there. The conclusion seems to run out of confidence, so a play that starts off wanting to be Ionesco winds up explaining itself and becoming a fairly pedestrian sit com.

That’s a shame, because the writer Guy Woods is full of ideas, the cast gives the piece full value (particularly Alexander Holley’s paranoid Welshman, the pick of his multiple characters).

The surreal premise is maintained right up to the end, then everything gets explained and the evening goes a bit flat. Never apologise, never explain, let the audience leave the theatre pondering. Everyone needs a good ponder from time to time.

Photo credit: Jessy Winchester

SOBCENTRE at Brockley Jack Studio 17 Feb – 2 March 2024

Directed by Benedict Crosby

Produced by Ollie Norton-Smith

Dramaturg Polly Wain

Presented by Tathata Theatre

Jon – Kate Crisp

Cathy – Amelia Paltridge

Desmond/ensemble – Alexander Holley

Melissa/ensemble – Imogen King

Musician: Josh Christopher

 

Reviewed by Chris Lilly