BLOOD SUGAR***

 

By Sophie

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgJovsjjBdM&t=1s

Available until: Unknown

Content warning: There’s no content warning on the video and if I told you, it would give away everything. But there are things in this story which are very wrong. Definitely more a play for adults and only then if you’re feeling strong.

There are a lot of stories based around family dynamics and the reason for that is that there are always more stories to tell. The relationship between a parent and their children is complex and unique. It doesn’t always go wrong - such a relationship can be very happy, successful, and close. But there are so many things that could go wrong and much of it remains unspoken.

Sometimes it is better that way. Much better.

Simon Howells' play Blood Sugar is an audio drama. It’s a medium of which I’ve always been a little wary, being hearing-impaired. With a lot of different voices, it can be difficult to keep track – and that’s even before you factor in the consideration that not every voice is easy to understand. An unfamiliar accent can take some getting used to, and in the case of a play, that could mean missing vital information.

The producers of Blood Sugar have got around this problem brilliantly. There is no video, but the text appears on the screen. Sion’s lines are in white and always at the top, Jayne’s are in blue and in the middle, and Vic’s are in red at the bottom. It’s a small thing which makes an incredible difference. It means I can follow the story easily without having to rewind or guess. This means I become more invested because my brain is focused on what’s going on for the characters, rather than wondering what they’ve just said.

The piece is directed by Gareth John Bale. I must admit I have been curious about this man ever since, as an enthusiastic fan of the Wales football team, I received a google alert containing the staggering information that my favourite footballer was going to star in a Welsh language production of Hamlet. There is no reason at all why a footballer should not enjoy Shakespeare, but I would have thought the two careers would not be easily combined. It didn’t take me long to reach the correct conclusion: Gareth Bale the footballer and Gareth Bale the actor, although both Welshmen, are not the same.

As Gareth John Bale (as he is now known) is directing, it is impossible to comment on his acting, but as a director, he clearly has the courage and the confidence to tackle challenging subjects. The play has an incredible feeling of tension, even when things are apparently going rather well (in the circumstances). Gareth keeps the play at a level when you almost think things are going to be okay.

Whether it’s worth it or not is open to question. There’s no doubt that Simon Howells’ play is compelling. He has created three very individual characters. Although there is clearly a lot of tension between them, there is enough to show that the ties between them could not be snapped by simply avoiding each other. We feel the bonds between them being stretched and then, at the point where we feel we can’t bear any more, the tension is reduced and calm seems restored… but is it? This play toys with your emotions and messes with your head.

The subject matter is disturbing. Yet some disturbing stories arguably need to be told. Stories can be a way of escaping from the world, but they can also be a way of finding out the terrible things that really happen in a more indirect way. It can be easier to learn about and think about some subjects through the medium of a work of fiction, than to hear and read about real people. I learned about self-harm on TV and when my best friend told me a couple of weeks later that she was a self-harmer, I already had some familiarity with and understanding of the concept. It was very sad, but it was no longer a new and shocking concept in itself and I didn’t have to go through the whole “People do this???” reaction with someone who needed sympathy and support (I had no idea then that I would become a self-harmer too). A story can put a situation slightly at a distance so it’s less likely to overwhelm you (though it’s still very capable of doing that), but deep emotional investment is still possible.

Blood Sugar is certainly involving and hard-hitting and the events (which do not involve self-harm) are shocking even as they are, but there is an element of skirting around the edge of the issue. Once the truth is revealed, there is some attempt at explanation (bearing in mind that this is something that cannot easily be explained), but uncomfortable as it was, there is a part of me that wishes the play had gone into more detail and really tried to engage our sympathies, as well as arousing our horror. Whether our sympathies would have been engaged is, of course, open to doubt. The truth is horrific and, as human beings, we wouldn’t want to sympathise. And most of us won’t. But I would have liked to have been given the chance to understand, even if I could never, ever condone it.

But everything that does feature in the play is very well-written. The characters all engaged my sympathies at some point in the story. Huw Rees gives a strong sense of Sion’s helpless confusion, his anger about a situation he has never fully understood, and his desperation to make sense of the little he does remember.

Shelley Rees is kind and supportive as Jayne, but with a sense that she is perhaps not as tough as she seems. Mark Lewis Jones plays their father Vic, who calls his children together to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. On the surface, he seems like an affable old man who wants merely to connect with the children who are no longer part of his life, but there’s still the faint sense of an agenda. Besides, his children are suspicious and you can only think there’s a reason for that.

The script is strong, the characters are strong and the performances are strong. But the audience needs to be strong too.