THE POLTERGEIST (Tramp/Southwark Playhouse/Stream Theatre)*****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/17

Available until: further livestreams Saturday 21^st November at 3pm (captioned) and 7.30pm.

Philip Ridley has released lots of brilliant monologues in the The Beast Will Rise series on the Tramp youtube channel, but this is my favourite of all. It’s a great story with great characters and I think there is a lot in the story that most people can relate to, even if not everyone goes to quite the same extremes.

Poltergeist is all about a lovely gay couple who I would say they literally are me and my husband, but I won’t say that because it annoys me when people say ‘literally’ when they don’t mean it. (The footballer Gareth Bale ‘literally’ has three lungs, apparently. Well, that would explain a lot, but it’s not true. Not literally. Not that I’ve ever seen his chest x-ray, just his chest and… no, mustn’t get distracted. But you’d think one of his clubs would have mentioned it.)

Anyway, it’s a about a lovely gay couple. There’s Sasha (or maybe Sacha or Sascha) who is the main character who shares his thoughts, feelings and tells the story. He’s highly-strung, a little bit extreme and very prone to high levels of stress, which is just so me. He even takes the same painkillers as me! (But I take them responsibly and so should all non-fictional people. Read the instructions and listen to your GP and if they’re talking rubbish, tell them. I do and it’s very refreshing.) Sasha is not totally like me because he’s brilliant at art and I can’t even draw a curtain, but he’s very dramatic. Then there’s his partner Chet, who is human so he does get annoyed with Sasha sometimes, but he’s basically kind and understanding and accommodating and just basically all-round lovely. They’re invited to a family event by Sasha’s brother. Chet thinks this is a great idea. Sasha… not so much.

There’s just one person in this monologue – Joseph Potter, who plays the role of Sasha (and was also in Philip Ridley’s monologue Star), but he also describes everything Chet, his brother Flynn (or Flinn or whatever), his sister-in-law Niamh (Neve, Nieve, whatever) and all the other characters say. And there are a LOT of characters. There are relatives, family friends, a couple of kids… it would be so easy to get them all confused, but Philip Ridley does a great job of writing all the characters clearly and establishing them one at a time so we get to know them all and we don’t get plunged into a middle of a load of strangers (so much easier than being at a real family gathering, then).

The characters are great. Flynn has this just ever-so-slightly annoying big brother thing going on (which is especially annoying as I’m a big brother and I have no idea how to do the ‘annoying big brother’ thing. I can do the ‘annoying bit of dog poo on the shoe’, but that’s about it). Niamh is one of those very nice people who… overdoes it. It’s excruciating when it happens to you, but it’s actually quite funny watching it happen to someone else onstage. There’s also a family friend who says a bit more than is strictly advisable and a spoiled child (who reminds me a bit of me, actually. I’ve always fancied myself as a Disney Princess and my husband actually calls me his… no, you don’t need to know that) and another child who… actually, for entirely different reasons, you don’t need to know that either. You’ll find out when you watch it.

Joseph plays every character wonderfully. He doesn’t have props or costumes, but he can change his voice, change his posture, and suddenly he’s a completely different character. I don’t want to take anything away from his talent (which is phenomenal and I’m actually really jealous), but as it’s something I’ve noticed a lot in the Beast Will Rise monologues, I’d like to give director Wiebke Green some credit. The new characters and invisible props are portrayed in a subtle way which can be switched on and off easily, but it’s instantly obvious what’s going on and it always looks convincing. One thing Joseph did especially well was pretending to drive when he was being Chet, the posture, the hand on the steering wheel, the way he kept looking at the road ahead when Sasha was TALKING (I might or might not have some familiarity with that very annoying situation)… it was brilliant.

But this monologue isn’t just a comedy about an embarrassing family gathering. Far from it. Sasha has really big anxiety problems which stem from an incident that happens with his family and going to this family event is extremely difficult for him. This is definitely not performed as comedy and both the writing and the performance are sensitive and believable. Joseph also portrays the anxiety brilliantly, it was tangible and so well in tune with my anxiety feelings.

This monologue tells a great story which is extremely well performed, with lots of interesting characters and even as a monologue watched onscreen, it’s a very theatrical experience. Joseph sweeps you along in Sasha’s story and my heart was thumping throughout. (That might just be because Joseph is cute, but I don’t think so because the same happened when I watched the monologue Gators and the actor who did that was a girl so she’s definitely not my type. I think Poltergeist is just a brilliant play.)