PUFFINS (Southwark Elders Company/Southwark Playhouse)***

 

By Dave

Link: https://soundcloud.com/southwarkplayhouse/puffins-by-sophie-ellerby

Available until: Unknown

Puffins is all about regrets. You don’t go through life without amassing a few of them and it’s often when you reach an ending of some sort that you look back on these regrets and wish you’d done things a bit differently.

That’s what happens for Gwyneth in this play. Her husband Geoffrey has died and she’s gone to the top of a cliff, accompanied by her best friend Rose and Rose’s husband Bob, to scatter Geoffrey’s ashes.

Bob has gone off, leaving the two women alone, and they talk. Gwyneth wants to talk about regrets. There are the little regrets, when you agreed to something because it seemed the right thing to do but you didn’t really want to. Some are much bigger regrets which can stretch across a whole lifetime.

The conversation makes Rose a bit uncomfortable and she tries to stop it but Gwyneth isn’t having any of it. Maybe, at last, it’s time to do things her way.

Sophie Ellerby’s play is challenging. It breaks taboos and some people might not feel comfortable with that but I think it also makes a really good point about regrets and why we might have them and also the importance of not giving up. Sometimes a dream really is lost forever but sometimes it isn’t too late. And maybe sometimes you don’t need to hold back after all.

Director Toby Clarke is obviously a believer in not holding back and good for him. Gwyneth could have expressed her thoughts more tentatively and that might have been safer in terms of getting the sympathy of her audience but that would completely have gone against the spirit of this piece which is about so much more than one lady with the courage of her convictions. It’s like a message to us all. It’s not necessarily too late… but maybe don’t leave it as long as Gwyneth did.

Mina Temple and Jan Woods create their characters strongly. I’m not sure who plays who but Rose is clearly bound by convention while Gwyneth slowly becomes more determined and more certain of what she wants. John McRae is lovely when he finally shows up later, giving us all a welcome moment of comedy.

Puffins is definitely one to listen to with an open mind but it’s worth it.