REVIEW: FEEL MORE by James Lewis and Georgie Bailey at Lion & Unicorn 21 – 25 Feb

‘It’s all down to the actors’ ★★★

James Lewis has paired his play Lately (reviewed 11^th September last year) with a set of four monologues called FEEL MORE. In order of performances: Kalifa Taylor is a young woman wrestling with the problems of independence and her need for her mum; Henry Brackenridge brings us the conflicted emotions of a young man afraid of heights but still challenging himself to go off the high-diving board in his local swimming pool, and Kieran Doherty articulates the loss and despair of a man whose partner has just died far too soon. Sarah Rickman intervenes in a meta way as a woman doing a job as a theatre-cleaner to get herself closer to the possibility of owning the audience with a knockout performance.

The four pieces are addressed directly to the audience, there is very little movement by three of the actors, though Sarah Rickman roams at will through the auditorium and the stage and anywhere she can find a door. The lighting is basic, which is a problem when it fuzzily designates a diving board but is otherwise adequate, and no-one gets given much in the way of props or costumes. It’s all down to the actors.

Monologues work best as a one-sided conversation with each individual in the audience. Their ideal medium is television, so an intense focus on the speaker isn’t uncomfortable for either party, so that the actor can play with tiny changes of expression to bring home the dramatic points. Being isolated in the middle of a playing space that seems to grow vaster as the evening goes on doesn’t help; the audience needs to be focussed, to be individually engaged with the speaker. If attention wanders, onto, for instance, the blurry edges of the patch of light designating a diving-board, it is very hard for anyone to get it back. The free-flowing intervention by Sarah Rickman was a welcome change of pace because of this. Being judgemental because the context is less helpful than it might be doesn’t mean the pieces weren’t interesting, that the characters weren’t engaging, that the situations weren’t worth exploring. But standing motionless in the middle of space that seems to grow to the size of Wales as we watch isn’t the best way to appreciate them.

FEEL MORE by James Lewis and Georgie Bailey at Lion & Unicorn 21 – 25 February 2023, Directed by Jess Barton, Produced by Proforca

Reviewed by Chris Lilly

Chris read Drama at Hull University in the 70s, stage-managed a bit, spent 8 years as a community arts worker in Tower Hamlets, did the occasional tech job, then taught in East London and participated in shedloads of community theatre. Since retiring from teaching, he has acquired an MA in Theatre from the University of Surrey and indulged a passion for live performance anywhere in London courtesy of his Freedom Pass.