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Showing posts with label tatty hennessey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tatty hennessey. Show all posts
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Thursday, January 30, 2020
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Rating: 
There is no way I was going to pass up seeing a show called Something Awful. The title of the play is derived from a dinosauric comedy website and internet forum. Once upon a time the site was on the cutting edge of online comedy. Now it's slowly dying, having transitioned into a safe space for depressed middle-aged men to swap Simpsons memes, pose as Third World Maoists and hold purposefully contrary views on Star Wars.
Though the site has bubbled away at the obscure corners of popular culture for two decades, its biggest contribution to date (aside from maybe dril) is Slender Man. Created as part of a contest to create paranormal images, the spooky character transcended the site and went viral, spawning movies and games.
It was all fun and games until two twelve-year-old Wisconsin schoolgirls took Slender Man a touch too seriously and attempted to stab their friend to death with a kitchen knife. Now Tatty Hennessy has taken that story, transplanted it to the UK and given it a psychosexual spin.
Here our characters are Jel (Monica Anne), Soph (Natalya Martin) and Ellie (Melissa Parker). They're into spooky stories online, finding themselves attracted to a creepypasta thread on Something Awful. The site is described as one of the most vicious places online, where the comments are impossibly cruel and the posters depraved gore-hungry lunatics.
At first, the girls won't even register to post, fearful of the reactions their contributions might receive. But slowly they get drawn in, with a mysterious tale of a supernatural homicidal woodsman striking very close to home. They're lost in the story, and their only way out... is murder!
Thing is, much of Something Awful isn't really about the supernatural at all. Instead, it seems to be a coming-of-age story in which young girls explore their sexuality and self-image. The non-horror scenes that get to grips with this are the best things in the play, with the highlight a sleepover where one girl has her first period and the others attempt to assist her in inserting a tampon. I don't know what the hell teenage girls actually speak about these days, but the dialogue rings true and all three actors are very believable as 13-year olds.
But squeezing all this into an hour means that what should be the core story of the girls developing a deadly obsession with spooky stories online gets squeezed into the margins. What I'd think would be the meat of the play - the bit where two of the girls decide that the third must be sacrificed - is quickly skimmed over.
And so we're funnelled into a murder scene where the killers' motivations haven't been established. The final bloody moments should be an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. Here they're just a confusing ellipsis.
I'm usually all about brevity in theatre. Most stories can be told in an hour and its a rare play that wouldn't benefit from a bit of editing. But Something Awful gets very cramped trying to squeeze everything into an hour. It'd benefit from a lot more room to breathe.
Something Awful is at the Vault Festival until 2nd Feb. Tickets here.
Something Awful is at the Vault Festival until 2nd Feb. Tickets here.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Friday, March 9, 2018
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A Hundred Words For Snow reviewed by David James
Rating:
My advice is to bring a hanky. Tatty Hennessey's A Hundred Words For Snow is one hell of a monologue, transporting us from suburban London to the frozen Arctic and guiding us through the depths of grief. I'm generally suspicious of sentimental shows - I get annoyed when someones waving an onion at me in an attempt to coax out a tear. But this does things honestly, exploring misery, loss and adolescent uncertainty with sincerity and wit. It's brill.
Our heroine is 15-year-old Rory (Gemma Barnett), who is attempting to process the sudden death of her father. In the wake of his death, everything feels muted: she's alienated by the thoughtless platitudes at his funeral and the jarring return to humdrum domesticity. It's only when she ventures into her Dad's study and sees his never-fulfilled holiday plans that she realises what she must do: steal her Mum's credit card, stuff her Dad's urn into a backpack and head to the North Pole to scatter his ashes.
It's a pretty bonkers ambition, but Hennessey goes out of her way to make Rory's attempt plausible. It sets the stage for a journey that takes her via Tromsø in Norway to the island of Svalbard and to the frozen infinity of the Arctic. Along the way we really get to know Rory, delving deep into her insecurities, mindset and awe at the epic polar scenery. She's one of the more complex and likeable characters I've seen in a long time, and though the show is just an hour long, we understand her.
Laying on top of all this is that the majestic and stark Arctic is a deeply satisfying metaphor for Rory's unresolved grief. Hennessey doesn't treat grief as something unpleasant to be conquered, but something starkly beautiful in its own right: profound sadness shouldn't be swept under the rug, it should be explored and understood. Rory's fearless journey into the ice accomplishes this, it's only when she's stared down the blizzard that she can process her father's death.
All this is making the show sound a bit morose. It is, but the tears are leavened with a tonne of laughs. Hennessey's writing is peppered with very funny insights, borne of Rory's idiosyncratic viewpoint on the world. Though we never completely forget the weight of her Dad's ashes, the load is lightened by some very funny facts about the history of Arctic exploration and some well-observed asides about human behaviour. A particular highlight is a beautifully written segment about a sexual encounter, which manages to be both hilarious and movingly poetic.
Writing this good demands a great performance to do it justice, and Gemma Barnett delivers in spades. She gives Rory a gawky physicality and energy that goes a long way to making her a believable teenager, frequently locking eyes with people in the audience to make the show, for one brief moment, a two-person dialogue. Barnett has charisma to spare, her delivery seamlessly transitioning from light-hearted sarcasm all to shiver-inducing emotional nakedness.
What else is left to say? A Hundred Words For Snow is a brilliant bit of writing performed to perfection. As I left I passed people dabbing away tears and sniffling into tissues - tears that the show absolutely earns. This is a true highlight of Vault 2018 and shouldn't be missed.
A Hundred Words For Snow is at Vault Festival until March 11th. Tickets here.
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