By Emma
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoHxNAhglgA
Available until: Unknown
Starting Point is about a Zoom date. It’s about two people
on their own in lockdown who are fixed up by a mutual acquaintance. It was
always going to be an awkward situation.
But they probably had no idea how
awkward. If they had, they probably wouldn’t have agreed to the date at all.
Mark Goldthorp wrote and directed Starting Point and I think he has judged the tone of it so well. It’s difficult writing an awkward conversation. You kind of want to create enough atmosphere to make the audience squirm a bit and really feel the awkwardness because that means it’s real. But you don’t want to make it so awkward, you’re watching through your fingers. Or even switching off the video!
I wasn’t quite watching through my
fingers. Mark Goldthorp has found that perfect place where it’s screamingly
awkward but still very watchable and totally worth watching. He knows not just
what he wants from his actors, he knows how much the audience can take.
Delroy Atkinson and Shelley Williams
play the characters and they’re great. Delroy seems like a nice guy who has
been stretched to breaking point by lockdown and then along comes Shelley whose
character is, as she puts it, blunt. And pushy. I think she could probably be
quite funny in a more relaxed situation but relaxed Zoom dates in lockdown?
They don’t exist!
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