Review: SCAB/Encompass Productions at White Bear Theatre 26 - 30 April 2022

Chris Lilly • May 11, 2022


 

‘Conor Lowson’s charm and charisma is a force of nature’ ★★★ ½

 

 

Conor Lowson smashes this long, rambling, funny, ghosty monologue by Luke Stapleton. A Bradford boy with a fondness for ale and recreational pharmaceuticals stumbles across a drunk outside a pub, leaves him in a pool of blood, has a crisis of conscience and goes back to pick him up. The boy’s life becomes intertwined with the old mans. The history and the relationships from the man’s long past become a focus for a rudderless youth, and how that works its way through the lives of a number of people is the subject of the monologue.

 

The story is a tad unfocussed, but Conor Lowson’s charm and charisma, which is a force of nature, keep his audience engaged for an hour. He holds the stage effortlessly and traces a difficult character arc so well, and so sympathetically, that you never feel he’s a waste of space, and his kindness towards a ratty recluse becomes almost heroic. With a performer less watchable, the piece may have suffered for its rambling, but Mr. Lowson held focus and earned the concentration of a packed theatre. Bribing the front row with shots of whisky wasn’t necessary, though seemed to be well received.

 

SCAB is the headline production of Encompass Productions Homecoming Festival, a three-play set running at the White Bear Theatre for the last three days of April.

 


SCAB

Performed by Conor Lowson

Written by Luke Stapleton

Directed by Jamie Biddle


@EncompassOnline

 

Reviewer

Chris Lilly 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. Twitter @starsshinestill 

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