Show 6, The Lyric Hammersmith Secret Theatre Company, Royal Exchange, Manchester, 30th October – 1st November 2014.
It’s difficult to really provide a plot outline for The Secret Theatre Company’s Show 6. In many ways, it was difficult to fathom exactly what the plot was. But I’ll try. Two ‘users’ of an unmentioned drug have woken up feeling ‘monged’ after a heavy night, and one of them is desperate to call their ‘dealer.’ We know that because he tells us around forty-seven times in the first scene. The other one, though, wants to talk about what happened the night before.
It seems that they hit a ‘chav’ with their car. But the fact that they have severely injured somebody does not seem to be the main concern. What the second ‘user’ is most worried about is a voicemail that the first ‘user’ left on her phone after the incident. In the message, he repeatedly asks ‘Who am I?’
This feeling of self-doubt seems to have been caused by something that the ‘chav’ whispered to him as she lay bleeding on the floor. But, given that he was so ‘monged,’ he can’t remember exactly what that was. So he goes to visit that ‘chav’ in the hospital. After avoiding the subject for a while, the ‘chav’ finally tells the ‘user’ that his mother is not his mother and all his memories are false.
Now, three young people of this ‘user’ generation get together and discuss their returning memories. Their parents being snatched away or something. They’re not sure what. All their parents being false or something. They think. Soon, they have worked themselves up into a frenzy and they take a gun into the local ‘lunatic asylum’ to free all the lost parents that are being stored there. The blurb to the play calls this a ‘revolution.’ But it is hard to see what the revolution is in aid of.
Following their spree, it seems the ‘users’ are no clearer on the actual facts of their past. A bizarre encounter between ‘user 1’ and his mother follows, in which he tries to get the truth out of her while she tells him that his dad is inside cooking the maid’s heart with onions, peppers, and brandy, and then tries to breastfeed him. After that, I kind of lost the thread of things.
On the flyer that was handed to the audience on the way into The Studio, The Secret Theatre Company make sure to mention that they ‘took London by storm’ by ‘courting controversy and sparking debate.’ For most of Show 6, it felt as though this was their primary aim. The word ‘cunt’ is used more often than almost any other word, and often for no real reason. The references to drug use and feeling ‘monged’ seem quite contrived, and played purely for humour. And the breastfeeding scene really has no context or role in the plot. I’m all for controversial and challenging theatre, but I do need to know what is being challenged and why.
Now, I do feel as though I’ve been a little brutal so far, so I’ll take a step back and look for some of the positives. The Secret Theatre is a relatively new company, and they must have been doing something right in London to get their recent residency at The Royal Exchange. And Mark Ravenhill’s play did seem to have some good ideas lurking underneath. In fact, it almost seemed like this was an idea, the beginning of one that maybe could have been much better if it had been given time to develop.
The most positive thing I can say, though, is that this unsuccessful night was in no way down to the actors. Steven Webb, in particular, actually makes the very best of the role he was given. They’re overly dramatic and shouty at times, yes, but then that is what the play demands. And despite the difficult material, including a script that chooses to omit certain words for no discernible reason, the actors do manage to raise a few laughs in the opening twenty minutes. Overall, they can leave with their heads held high. And the potential of The Secret Theatre Company was there to be seen, even if Show 6 wasn’t the best play with which to show it.
Fran Slater