Fringe Theatre
A History of Paper
Traverse Theatre
Neil Cooper
Four stars
When a postcard plops through the letter box of a broken hearted young man playing Radiohead records far too loud, it sets in motion a series of events that will change things forever. The postcard is from the woman at Number 6, asking her neighbour in Number 4 to turn the racket down. When the pair meet beyond this minor act of passive aggression, they hit it off, romance ensues, and what looks like a lifelong love affair is set in delirious motion.
Love and tragedy come quickly in what has turned out to be Oliver Emanuel’s final work prior to his untimely passing aged 43 in 2023. Expanded from its original incarnation as a radio play first broadcast in 2016, this lo-fi musical was already some way into the making prior to Emanuel’s death. New songs by composer and regular collaborator Gareth Williams were already in place, with another collaborator, director Lu Kemp, coming on board as dramaturg.
While these circumstances can’t help but give Andrew Panton’s co-production between Dundee Rep and the Traverse for this year’s Made in Scotland programme an extra poignancy, it never clouds the mix of joy and heartbreak that emanates from the play itself throughout its exquisitely realised seventy minutes.
Emma Mullen and Christopher Jordan-Marshall are a delight as they peel back the couple’s back pages, gathering up all the fragile detritus of a life in all its unexpected lurches into the unknown and everything is torn to pieces.
Mullen and Jordan-Marshall are accompanied on piano by musical director Gavin Whitworth, whose playing gives the show an extra drive. As a whole, the inherent wisdom wrapped inside Emanuel and Williams’ play suggests that, beyond our losses, some kind of healing is possible in a funny, sad and life affirming romance.
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