The basic premise of this play is interesting enough: three friends – a spaceman, cowboy, and disco dancer (why? Was this some kind of inside joke or bet?) – travel all the way from their hometown of Chichester to Edinburgh in 30 days. By the end of this journey they will have devised some kind of performance, inspired by their experience, which they will share with their audience.
The performers arrived just minutes before we were all let into the space, backpacks, hiking boots and all. In the time they had before the official beginning of the show they said hello to friends and family that had come to greet them and watch the fruits of their endeavour. Therein lay the tragic flaw of this performance, which seemed to be primarily aimed at people who knew the performers themselves; it would be of little interest to somebody that had not been following their journey or somehow been part of it.
Although the writing was generally good – the performers were ‘acting out’ what amounted to a collective diary entry – and was, at times, even funny, it failed to truly and consistently impress upon the audience’s minds the gigantic feat that was this project. Talk of blisters and the difficulties of camping in the rain were rife, but we still did not get a clear idea of what the experience was like. Parts of the script describing revelations experienced along the way or beautiful vistas are almost entirely lost due to a refusal to engage in them, as the performers self-consciously admit that they could never possibly express what it was like without a picture. The writing lacked a clear purpose in that, in aiming to be funny, it got sidetracked and failed to transmit the essence of what had occurred.
However, even when the writing was at its best there was always a sense in which you sort of had to know the performers to understand why this was truly funny. In this respect the audience were highly divided: audience members who seemed to know the performers were having a blast, whereas the few that didn’t (I definitely wasn’t the only one) weren’t enjoying it quite as much – a couple even left early.
The performers themselves are engaging and even endearing. They involve the audience as best they can and deal well with the fact that this is their first time in the space. They have good rapport with each other; only when looking at them do you get an inkling that perhaps something has actually changed for them with this journey.
Unfortunately, overall this was a disappointment for sections of the audience. Perhaps this show only had one performance not just because of the travelling constraints, but also because it was a sort of planned and elaborate reunion between performers and friends. In that respect, I suppose it was successful.
