LETTERS – TIM CROUCH & NADIA ALBINA and ALEX AUSTIN & NIGEL BARRETT (Gate Theatre)***

By Louise

Link to book recordings: https://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/letters/?dm_i=444W,X2F6,6D0RS4,43HU5,1  from £1

Link to book live shows on Zoom: https://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/letters/

Available until: The last Zoom shows are on 6^th and 7^th October, but the recordings of the shows are available till 31^st October, though not all are available yet.

Warning: The Tim Crouch & Nadia Albina video contains swearing.

Letters is a very special and original idea. A while ago, the Gate Theatre did a very successful play called Dear Elizabeth, which was all about the letters exchanged between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, who were both American poets. They wrote over four hundred letters to one another over the course of several decades. The roles were played by different pairs of actors at each performance and sometimes there were male Elizabeths or female Roberts.

The team who created Dear Elizabeth also had the idea for this series of Letters. Several actors were invited to appear in it and they were all paired up with another actor. They spent the time between March and August writing to one another about themselves and about being in lockdown. Real proper letters on paper. Some of the actors, like Nadia Albina and Tim Crouch, had been in Dear Elizabeth together, but some had never met.

But these letters were not sent.

On 14^th September, the first pair of actors went live on Zoom and finally opened and read the letters that had been written to them. The other pairs followed. There are still two more performances you can watch live on Zoom.

The first and last shows feature the same two people, but every other show was different. The show is filmed on Zoom and you have two choices – you can either go on Zoom yourself and watch the show live or you can purchase one of the recordings of a previous show.

I decided I would prefer to see a recording and I thought I would write a better review if I watched more than one episode.

I chose Tim Crouch and Nadia Albina for my first episode. I have seen Ms Albina twice in lockdown. She played Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice. It is no longer available on iPlayer, but I think it was a Royal Shakespeare Company production. She also played the male role of Captain Fitzroy in the National Theatre’s brilliant The Madness of George III. I appreciate Ms Albina firstly as someone who is very talented at acting and that is the most important thing about her. But I also admire her because she has a disability. Some of my family have disabilities and it is very inspiring and also very important for everyone to see people with disabilities doing jobs that are traditionally done by people without a disability – and doing them just as well as anyone else.

Mr Crouch and Ms Albina worked together in Dear Elizabeth, so for my second episode, I decided to choose a couple who hadn’t worked on Dear Elizabeth together and might not already know each other. I chose Alex Austin and Nigel Barrett as I thought it would be interesting to see two men. I don’t think two men will necessarily have a very different dynamic because within the many genders, we can all be whoever we like and we don’t have to fulfil traditional gender roles. Mr Austin and Mr Barrett had met a couple of times, but they didn’t really know each other.

The two episodes were very different. Mr Crouch and Ms Albina already knew each other so they didn’t provide many facts and details about their lives because they probably knew all the basic things already. But it was also really lovely to see their friendship played out onscreen. They were comfortable with each other, they had a lot in common and they already had a rapport. There was a lot of chatting in between doing the different tasks and that was lovely.

Mr Austin and Mr Barrett didn’t really know each other and they mostly stuck to performing the tasks. Neither of them actually said anything till they started reading out the instructions and at first, there was very little that was said spontaneously. But because they didn’t know each other, they did share a lot more introductory details about themselves and it was really lovely to watch them gradually getting more comfortable with each other.

There were quite a few different tasks. First, they had to put on costumes and props. I think the Gate Theatre might have provided those, but I’m not sure. They had to read their letters. They read the letters they’d received rather than the ones they’d sent. They also had to choose a poem for each other and live on Zoom, they were given tasks like drawing each other on a chalkboard and writing down one thing they wanted at that moment.

I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I thought each person would have written lots of letters, telling the story of their time in lockdown. I was a little bit sad it wasn’t like that. The tasks and costumes were quite fun, but I thought there would be a lot more about getting to know the actors and showing their individuality. The tasks were telling them to do exactly the same thing and the costume choices didn’t necessarily tell you anything about the actors.

But both episodes were enjoyable and I enjoyed getting to know four lovely people and seeing the different dynamics in their friendships. They’re all actors so they’re all very good at reading aloud. I might watch some more if I have time, but I do have lots of other plays to watch. Isabel Adomakoh Young is brilliant in TSMGO’s King John and Timon of Athens so I’d be interested to watch her episode when it becomes available on the site.