Review: TETHERED by Georgie Bailey/ChewBoy Productions at Lion and Unicorn Theatre 20 - 24 July 2021

‘An engrossing play which successfully builds on a history of performance to create something new and exciting.’ ★★★★

What can successfully combine dark humour, mime, tragedy, and even a dance routine? TETHERED, that’s what. Georgie Bailey’s metatheatrical production unites all these elements into a thought-provoking, perplexing, and ultimately hugely entertaining hour or so.

The play started before the audience were all seated. As we enter, we see two men (Georgie Bailey and Hal Darling) identically dressed and sat opposite each other across the stage, apparently engaged in idle conversation. The performance area is littered with party hats, half-inflated balloons, and other detritus that we might associate with a child’s party or circus performance.

And then the play sort of slowly drifts into being. Bailey and Darling’s conversation continues as there is a slight shift in lighting to tell us that we should be listening properly. Is it improvised? It might be. But the laughs come thick and fast as we see the two of them working on a rehearsal for another play, with their alter egos Moines and Sans, who are tied together by a length of rope. These names reinforced the Vaudeville-esque feel to the show, and this nod towards a bygone age of entertainment was maintained through their costumes of lilac t-shirts, black dungarees, white socks and black plimsolls, not a million miles from a stereotypical ‘mime’ performer. This is wonderfully reinforced by Bailey and Darling’s close physical resemblance. We watch them rehearse various scenes from this play, divided into sections called ‘Hope’ and ‘Loss’, building to the question of whether they can untether themselves, escaping the confines of the stage that they are on, as well as each other. 

As suggested, this play is successful due to its blending of so many forms of entertainment. Mime becomes a large part of the play-within-a-play, which permits a large amount of physical comedy, hugely enjoyed by the audience. At one point, audience laughter threatened to derail the show, but Bailey and Darling’s focus kept it on track. Thankfully, the humour never descended into slapstick, and was balanced with clever and understated dialogue, which poked fun at the performers, their characters, serious theatre (or at least, actors who take themselves too seriously) and even the audience. There was a good balance with the more serious, existential themes of entrapment and self-doubt, captured wonderfully when the repeated motif of a coin toss, initially suggested through exaggerated gestures and whistled sound effects, was switched to doing the real thing. Little details like this brought the fragmented and sometimes meandering storyline back down to earth.

This is an engrossing and intriguing play open to much interpretation. It successfully builds on a history of performance to create something new and exciting. 

Tethered, Lion and Unicorn Theatre, 20th - 24th July 2021

Written by Georgie Bailey, Chewboy Productions https://www.chewboyproductions.com/ 

Reviewer bio:

Jonny Kemp just about manages to find time to write and paint when he's not being an English teacher at a central London 6th form. He completed a module in playwriting as part of his MA Modern and Contemporary Fiction at the University of Westminster, and was shortlisted for the WRaP 2020 playwriting competition from the London Playwrights Blog. He loves pubs and theatres, so pub theatres are a dream come true.