Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Library Theatre - 4/06/07 by James Ellaby

There's a bunch of strangers in a room, with no contact with the outside world and nothing to entertain themselves with apart from themselves. They know they are being watched at all times but cannot see their audience. Nothing really happens apart from them just sitting around and talking to each other. And yet millions tune in night after night to watch it. Yes, it's Big Brother, but it could also be Frank McGuinness' play Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, even though it was written long before any of us had even heard of Jade Goody.

Unlike Big Brother, the three characters in this play are not confined by choice or for the hope of fame, fortune and everlasting appearances in Heat and the Daily Star. They are hostages, having been kidnapped in Beirut. American doctor Adam has been there the longest (hence he has more of a beard, see?), having been joined after two months by Irish journalist Edward, while fuddy-duddy English stereotype Michael (a university lecturer) is thrown into the mix during the play, two months after Edward's arrival.

McGuinness uses his play to explore what it must be like to be locked away in a foreign country, for reasons you do not understand, by people who say nothing to you, and without knowing whether you will live to see the outside world again, or die. With BBC journalist Alan Johnston still being held captive in Palestine, as director Chris Honer discusses in his programme notes, this play has become topical once again, but it is always relevant even without the grim realities of hostage-taking.

That's because it's about so much more than just the awful situation these three men find themselves in. Without wanting to sound like a corny Hollywood trailer voiceover, it's about hope, identity, friendship, religion, faith (differing from religion), fear, sanity and about laughter. Yes, laughter, because Adam, Michael and particularly Edward all manage to make themselves (and us) laugh despite what they are going through, even if they have to make themselves laugh, as when Michael first arrives.

Their laughter and joking around is the only way they can hold any power over their captors, because the captives don't want to give them the sense of satisfaction of knowing that they have broken them. At times all three of them come close to caving in, and McGuinness and Honer handle these darker moments exceedingly well, as do the three actors who all give very emotive performances, showing the highs of lows of their characters' experiences. With a sparse set and almost no action at all, the performances have to be excellent to keep the audience's attention, and they are.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is a moving and thought-provoking play that asks many questions, not least how long it'll be before Endemol start taking people hostage and making reality TV out of it. Some people will watch anything...