By Cal
Link: https://northerncomedytheatre.com/chatroom-1
Available until: Livestreams Sunday 14th March at 7pm and 9pm, Monday 15th March at 8pm
Content warning: Mental health, suicide and eating disorders. 12+, but I would advise caution.
Chatroom highlights the dangers of chatrooms and the powers they can hold in an unsettling production from Northern Comedy.
Online safety has always been a concern, even now when we’re not really allowed to go out and meet all the people who tempt us from behind their computers. This play shows that the people you meet in chatrooms can be dangerous even if all they do is talk to you.
It’s rather surprising that this is advertised as a comedy. A black comedy, it’s true, but Chatroom is dark and disturbing and it’s scary to see just how easy it would be for a vulnerable person to become trapped by strangers who pretend to care. The harshness of the bullying, the manipulativeness of the apparent kindness and the helplessness of anyone to do anything about it. It’s horrifying – but it’s also very important that we make people aware of this.
Northern Comedy might not have made me laugh tonight, but every time they show this play, they’re doing something far more important than entertainment. They’re raising awareness about the vulnerability of some young people and the cruelty of others.
Jim is struggling. He has a difficult home life with his demanding mother, absent father and three older brothers. When he meets Laura in a chatroom, he doesn’t find her support as helpful as she’d hoped – she’s there to listen and he wants advice. So he moves on to William, Jack, Eva and Emily. They say they want to help, but the way they treat each other under the guise of helping Jim is a big warning sign.
It’s very disturbing to watch, but Enda Walsh has written this really powerfully and director Shaun Chambers creates a heightened sense of tension which reaches almost unbearable levels towards the end. The characters are believable and realistic and there’s no doubt that there are people just like them lurking in chatrooms, waiting for a victim.
The characters appear on a Zoom screen, but the script suggests they actually can’t see each other as there’s a conversation when they consider the possibility that the others aren’t who they say they are. It’s unclear whether they are speaking or writing down their conversations, but it doesn’t really matter.
Tom Hardie’s intimidating William runs the show, calm and reasonable one minute, then harsh the next. Caitlin Hamilton speaks kindly and gently as Eva, but watch her chilling facial expressions and try not to run away screaming. Jack seems a like a bit of an idiot at first, but Scott Levi slowly brings out the suggestion of uneasiness in him at the turn events are taking. As Emily, India Gibbins is thoughtless and tactless, but perhaps she’s actually the most harmless of them. Gabrielle Richardson is a calm, reassuring Laura who already knows how to speak like a counsellor, but is still just a young person like all the others.
Perhaps a play to think twice about in terms of the
content warnings, but if you think you can handle it, it’s a stark and timely
warning that the online world can be dangerous too.
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