Theatre
UP
Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Neil Cooper
Four stars
Everything is up in the air for Jay and Jamie, the two strangers living parallel lives in Visible Fictions’ ingenious meditation on love, luck and the crash landings of everyday life.
Jay is one of life’s natural high flyers, seemingly breezing through life unscarred. Jamie, on the other hand, has stumbled her way through her days with a glass is half empty attitude and an aptitude for disaster. As the pair find themselves sat next to each other on a doomed international flight, their lives flash before the audience’s eyes as their very different fortunes are revealed.
While all this would be interesting enough by itself in a more conventional production, director Douglas Irvine and company lift things into the stratosphere. This is done by having actors Zoe Hunter and Martin McCormick not just give voice to Jamie and Jay, but by bringing the entire scenario to life from behind a table using model planes, dolls and toy animals.
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Hunter and McCormick break up their tale of chance meetings, opposites attracting and the loneliness of the long haul passenger with occasional teach-ins, quizzing their young audience on the statistical possibilities of being on board a plane that won’t make it to its final destination, before stepping back into the action.
First developed in 2020 at the Manipulate festival of visual theatre, this full show is co-created by the entire company. An entire world in motion is brought to life by Irvine and writer Frances Poet, with Becky Minto’s design heightened by Kai Fisher’s exquisite lighting and a lovely impressionistic sound design by Kevin Murray and Andy McGregor.
This all makes for a charming look at how two people can move from station to station by themselves before being thrown together to become accidental co pilots. As Jay and Jamie learn to soar, they navigate their way beyond turbulent times as one, on course at last.
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