Fringe Online 2021
Walk of Shame
Glass Half Full Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Fringe Online Theatre, Fringe Theatre
Venue: The Space Online Season 2
Festival: Fringe Online, theSpaceUK online
Low Down
Alice is bored with boyfriend Billy and leaves their flat in search of sex. Her anger comes from his less than romantic vision of a night in – a freezer dinner. Then he mixes the mayo and the ketchup which sends her over her edge. As she takes us through her night, she hits one bar after another until she encounters Liam. Full of bombastic confidence, he is the right man for the wrong situation. Liam has taken enough drugs to make his senses tingle and dull his sensibilities but as the night wears on, Alice finds her sensibilities heightened and when she says no, she really means it.
Review
Starting out as a shouty and sweary ladette style examination of a dull and boring relationship, you need to stick with it. The target audience here is young people, who are more likely to feel these emotions and try to deal with them as best they can but end up exploring them until they find themselves in real trouble: Liam represents that real trouble. That having been said, there is plenty from within it that, if you analyse properly, both terrify and educate in somewhat equal measure.
Once we meet Liam the subtlety and the craft in the writing takes over. I did find myself hoping for something better to turn up as Alice’s relentless, me, me, me monologue was grating. It did however set up what came next very well indeed.
Stephanie Silver as the writer, along with Amelia Marshall, has really captured the emotional disengagement of Alice which exposes her vulnerabilities, whilst Stephanie Silver, the actress has got hold of Alice and shaken her out into a rounded character, thanks to the plot twists. I did find Sam Lando as Liam, at first annoying. His opening few lines looked like he was reading from a script but as the piece developed and matured, it became a more rounded performance from him and a more impressive production all round.
Delivered directly to camera with a variety of backgrounds and told in a confessional reality show style, this gave it an intimacy and authenticity that used the restrictions placed upon it to their advantage.
Directed with some skill, it is worthwhile in its short form to be worth the watch. A full scale performance onstage would heighten that intimacy but as a piece that has captured the moment and delivered a powerful warning, this does more than what it says on its tin.
