Freedom Studios specialises in “new plays in unusual spaces”. Its latest temporary venue was once Marks & Spencer until development relocated the store to a shopping centre. The basement used to be the food hall: beige walls and pillars, a low, beige ceiling with strip lighting hissing behind square-patterned beige grids. Around the perimeters of the room, broken parts of communications technology are laid out neatly and identified by handwritten signs: “screens for laptop devices”, “drivers”. Each sign bears the title: “Museum of the World We Lost”. Uzma Kazi’s design suggests a future world of disconnection and desolation.
The centre of the hall is separated off by tatty plastic sheeting, strung between pillars and held together with gaffer tape; inside this small square, seats and hay bales are ranged in rows around the playing area. Lights dim, the action starts. Our surroundings become irrelevant: Tajinder Singh-Hayer’s new play, as directed by Alex Chisholm, unfurls as it would in a studio theatre. Three young actors enter and exit from corners of the stage, close to the audience. For most of the time, they declaim monologues explaining and describing themselves and what has happened to them. They are located in and around Bradford. It is autumn 2016. A worldwide plague destroys the life they know. We follow them over 42 years as they struggle, cope, build separate communities, meet; try to shape systems of exchange, control and justice.
In the preface to the published play, Singh-Hayer says his reference points are sci-fi and fantasy. His ideas and imaginative settings are interesting. They would make a good basis for a Saturday evening family TV series. On stage, though, they are dulled by too much explication from the characters and too little interaction among them. This is a shame. Encounters, when they come, ignite sparks and give the actors – Natalie Davies, Philip Duguid-McQuillan, Kamal Kaan – a chance to bring both roles and situations to vivid life.
