24:7 Festival - Various Venues by Julia Taylor

An exciting way to see innovative new plays presented in the 24:7 Festival is to set aside a day to see several. I did that on Tuesday and managed to cover four.

If you enjoy stories about people’s reactions to unusual circumstances then see OUT OF DEAD AIR by Mark Murphy. It’s about the endless routine of three prisoners of war whose daily grind has blotted out the real world. Are they to be contained in the restricted world of prison or will they escape?

The three prisoners, Mike, Lenny and Al are played by Banji Ojo, Lewis Marsh and Mark Butt who immediately enfold you in the emotions their circumstances induce. All three are accomplished actors who make their contrasting characters come alive as their narrow world crumbles around them.

Mark Murphy is a promising new writer but he should clarify where the prison is and when the action takes place.

Mike Peacock’s THE COFFEE HOUR is different. Mike also plays Adam, a man who meets a woman called Laura in a café bar. After breaking the ice, Adam listens whilst Laura pours her heart out about her sister’s death at the hands of a drunken driver. Sarah Wylie illustrates well the anger she feels at the man she will see in court the following day.

They return to her place and Laura discovers they have more in common than they thought with dramatic effect. This well written play has what all good plays should have – an interesting opening and an unexpected ending.

An equally well constructed contribution is FRESHERS by Steve Pearce. Miles and Scarlett, a father and daughter who have lost touch, meet up again when both enrol for University. They have axes to grind since Scarlett’s mother and Miles’ wife, Hephzibah committed suicide and Scarlett, then 14, discovered her body.

There are flashbacks to when Miles and Hephzibah met at the same University. The actors, Richard Hand as Miles, Christine Clare as Hephzibah and Laura Danielle Sharp as Scarlett relate well. I admire the way Hand switches from immature student to troubled father.

By an amazing coincidence, my final production was on exactly the same theme. The couple in Jason Crouch’s play REMEMBER ME, meet in the Hacienda night club in Manchester. The Hacienda atmosphere is recreated with the Manchester Sound in the background and mention of Tony Wilson, Morrissey, Ian Brown and Gary Barlow.

The pair split up when their child is three. Their daughter, who is 16 at the time, also discovers her mother’s body but this time she has died naturally. She, in turn, is reunited with her father. This should be an intimate play but the vast expanse in Pure – Round in the Printworks makes this impossible. At times the background music drowns the speech and the noisy air conditioning system doesn’t help either. The clever ideas in the piece don’t quite come off but former visitors to the Hacienda will love it.

This year’s festival is a success but the lack of trams in the city centre make the venues at the Printworks and New Century House difficult to reach and I do miss the comfort of the Midland Hotel used every year until this.