Theatre reviews: The Bar at the Edge of Time | Roost
The Bar At The Edge Of Time, Platform, Easterhouse ****
Roost, Oran Mor, Glasgow ***
On a grey May morning in Easterhouse, the Frozen Light company from Norwich invite a small but perfectly chosen audience into a world of magic and sparkles, sensory pleasure and glorious fun. Designed to delight learning disabled audiences, their latest show, The Bar At The Edge Of Time, is a gorgeous mix of gig theatre, sci-fi adventure and “sensory spectacle”, set in a bar that has Tardis-like qualities, whirling us away from earthbound reality into a different dimension of timeless pleasure.
So we enter the space to find ourselves in seated in a handful of pop-up “booths”, separated by gorgeously glittering rope curtains. The young cast of three – with an essential bass guitarist in the background – greet us in style, learn all of our names, and begin the process of taking our drinks orders and mixing our wonderful intergalactic drinks, which all look and taste delicious.
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Hide AdIt’s rare to see a show that brings the aesthetic of 21st century cocktail bar life so vividly to bear on a theatre event; our cocktails are even topped by bubbles of smoke from fashionable smoke-guns. And as they serve the drinks, the cast break off occasionally to deliver vivid and energising little dance numbers; but also take time to communicate closely with each of the audience members, allowing them to interact with everything in this new space, from their own sparkly costumes to an ice-cold cocktail shaker.
The gyroscope moves, eventually, compelling the show to shift into gig mode, with our bartenders transformed into a drummer, a vocalist, and a lead guitarist. By this time, though, everyone is simply having a ball, sipping drinks, munching snacks, and feeling thoroughly welcomed, entertained, appreciated and exhilarated, on what started out as an ordinary day. Frozen Light’s directors Lucy Garland and Amber Onat Gregory, and the show’s director Kate O’Connor, have excelled themselves in creating this moment of pure joy, for vulnerable young audiences across the UK; and the touring cast of Sophie Coward, Marta Miranda, Gaz Tomlinson and Dhugal Harrison deliver the show to perfection, gentle yet vigorous, and always full of that a rare sense of fun, imagination and transformation.
At Oran Mor, meanwhile, Laurie Motherwell’s new lunchtime play Roost offers a slow and bumpy journey towards its powerful ending. Bingo is a Glasgow man in his thirties for whom life is going badly wrong. His marriage is over, and he is at risk of losing access to his six-year-old daughter, because of an incident in which he left her alone in his tower-block flat.
Bingo’s problem is that his one consolation is also the obsession that led to that fatal moment of neglect; he keeps pigeons in a rickety loft nearby, and seems to care more for them than for anything else in his life. And when social worker Hana turns up to assess his competence as a parent, they gradually discover an unexpected area of common ground, in that her father used to keep pigeons back home in her native Syria.
To say that the play has no clear narrative arc is to put things politely. Even in its poignant final moments, it’s not clear whether Bingo is a damaged man capable of healing his life in some way, or just a violent wreck, locked into a pigeon obsession that connects in unsettling ways with his macho attitudes. Hannah Yahya Hassan, as Hana, does her best to navigate this confusing territory, without seeming to find much of a compass; and Conor Macleod, as Bingo, turns in a performance that’s both compelling and heartrending – yet often, it seems, as confused as Bingo himself, about who he is, and where his story is heading.
The Bar At The Edge Of Time is on tour around Scotland until 1 June; for details see https://www.frozenlighttheatre.com/spring-24-tour-dates-the-bar. Roost is at Oran Mor, Glasgow, until 19 May, and at the Theatre Royal, Dumfries, from 28 May until 1 June.