Theatre Handmade presents Shorts: A group of one-act performs on the Hen & Chickens Theatre
“What do they say about you?”
As recommended by the title, Shorts: A group of one-act performs is one thing of a grab-bag of miniature theatrical treats and as with a bag of Revels, there’s each delight and hazard within the randomness of the choice. The programme has been curated with the intention of celebrating “the beauty and frailty in human connection” and hopes to “reignite our sense of hope in one another” however there are moments the place you would possibly want a stronger thematic connection had been recognized, if solely to provide the night a extra memorable form.
For there’s some high-quality work right here. 4 UK premieres together with a sketch from John Patrick Shanley and the primary new airing of two of the performs, together with Nick Payne’s, that made up the Bush Theatre’s 2011 Sixty-Six Books extravaganza. So we journey from deepest Tennessee to a hat store someplace in Poland, from affairs bursting into life to desires of excellent parenthood vanishing into skinny air, there’s even room for an audio drama piped in whereas the corporate take a well-earned relaxation on the stage right here on the Hen & Chickens.
Shanley’s Tennessee is a terrific two-hander, a slice of just about Southern Gothic-tinged interplay as a college-dropout wannabe musician seeks out the city’s resident psychic however isn’t essentially ready for what she has to inform him. Allegra Marland nails the wealthy poetry of the misfit mystic and Kieran Urquhart finds actual attraction ias the would-be guitarist. I additionally loved Cary Gitter’s How My Grandparents Fell In Love with all its quirky old-school budding romance, Elizabeth Connick and Robbie O’Neill efficiently answering the query ‘does anyone still wear a hat…’.
A tinge of darkish humour comes by way of properly in Gracie Gardner’s Hate Baby, the kind of play that may have Mumsnet customers hilariously up in arms. And the programme finishes strongly with the 2 items responding to books of the Bible, Connick and Urquhart significantly good within the twisted relationships of Payne’s Fugitive Motel. It’s all good, and typically glorious, however on this present format, it doesn’t essentially really feel higher than the sum of its components, missing that definitive frequent thread to raise it from a set of well-acted and well-written curiosities to a must-see marvel.