Review: WHAT IF ALL THIS IS REAL? by Neil Bebber at Drayton Arms 6 to 9 July 2022

‘What makes the show fun is its theatricality and the zest and slickness of the performances … but wish it were doing something more profound.’

The world ends, TS Eliot tells us, not with a bang but with a whimper. What If All This Is Real? ends it with a giggle, a perfectly agreeable run through the box of theatrical tricks that never quite hits the profundity amid the darkness it seems to desire.

Five young people find themselves an hour or so from the end of the world on the chat show/game show from hell in a dying world where being on telly is evidence of existence. The politicians have taken us to the end of days, pursuing hedonistic policies (well, you voted for it, they say).  And what to do with those final 60 minutes, how to sum up the great question of life, the universe and everything? Well, nothing much beyond exchanging stories, arguing a bit, having a laugh.

What makes the show fun is its theatricality and the zest and slickness of the performances from five excellent actors who helped writer/director Neil Bebber devise the themes of the show in workshops last year. There’s lots of theatrical playfulness – the surprise contributor hidden in the audience, the unexpected shot in the dark to interrupt a story, daft make-up, songs. And the production is as tight as can be with sounds, lights and effects pin-perfect. But, as may be the risk of the devised piece, the trickery doesn’t add up to much in the way of coherence or meaning. 

There are lots of good laugh lines and many themes raised but no time, space or coherence to develop any beyond surface, and pretty unchallenging viewpoints – all politicians are self-serving, men oppress women; substantial dollops of truth in both and others to be sure, but nothing to surprise or shake established worldviews. If the show’s satisfied with being larkily nihilistic about the impossibility of changing our ways at the last minute, then it works fine in those terms. It seems, and it contains the talent to do it, to wish it were doing something more profound.

WHAT IF ALL THIS IS REAL?

Written and directed by Neil Bebber

Drayton Arms, 153 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 0LJ   

6 to 9 July 2022

Box Office: https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/what-if-this-is-real

Cast

Meg Sharland, Elly Lee, Jack Boland, Edward Gist, Margot Navellou



Reviewer:

David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Better Together (Jack Studio, London). Those and others performed across Scotland, Wales and England, and in Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium. Awards include Write Now Festival prize, Constance Cox award, SCDA best depiction of Scottish life, Joy Goun award, and twice Bruntwood longlisted.