FringeReview UK 2023
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz
Royal Court Theatre Ellie Kell Productions, Paines Plough and Belgrade Theatre Productions in Association with Royal Exchange Manchester
Genre: Character Stand up, Comedy, Contemporary, Fringe Theatre, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Solo Play, Theatre
Venue: Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Nathan Queeley-Dennis brings his debut one-person play Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs straight from Edinburgh and Royal Exchange Manchester. It’s refreshing, and the space ends the year – and Vicky Featherstone’s tenure – with two back-to-back fringe shows. Distinctly superior ones. The other’s Chris Thorpe’s Talking About the Fire.
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz is neither complex or fiendishly plotted. But it’s very witty, linguistically inventive and light-hearted: so its downside is highlighted.
Written by and performed by Nathan Queeley-Dennis, Directed by Dermot Daly, Set and Costume Designed by Ruta Irbite, Lighting Design David Doyle, Sound Designer and Composer Tom Foskett-Barnes,
Till December 20th
Review
Nathan Queeley-Dennis brings his debut one-person play Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs straight from Edinburgh and Royal Exchange Manchester. It’s refreshing, and the space ends the year – and Vicky Featherstone’s tenure – with two back-to-back fringe shows. Distinctly superior ones. The other’s Chris Thorpe’s Talking About the Fire.
Directed by Dermot Daly, Bruntwood Award-winning Bullring Techno marks a change from experimental, heady sometimes brilliant end-of-year offerings we’ve had over the past decade.
I’d not come across the black heart emoji before. Purple, green, blue we might send out with shades of sympathy on social media. We’re used to this: a red-heart shades wrong signals. But black heart defines particularly Black brotherhood, solidarity, reinforcement, expressed in group chats.
Queeley-Dennis’ show is disarmingly straightforward. Based round a character named Nathaniel, a fine-arts graduate who works in a desolate Birmingham call centre, it’s set around dating. That’s like several new shows recently, but also around this hovers the perimeter of unresolved depression, the need to engage a Jamaican father who can’t get over how English his son is (as Nathaniel points out, he’s brought him up in Birmingham, what does he expect?).
Queeley-Dennis is a consummate performer: he has the material firmly under his hand, and the audience too. It engages over its hour-long blast, which include snatches of singing, as Queeley-Dennis picks up items of clothing round Ruta Irbite’s large red cloth set; where David Doyle’s lighting plays with fades and Tom Foskett-Barnes’ music and sound morphs into brief partying blasts.
But the call centre has numbed Nathaniel’s desire to create; his moving out means he can do nothing but work – and date. There’s fun first with cheating on his Turkish barber to try out a new one: with disastrous consequences that has Nathaniel self-eject from the follicle-specialist’s chair and run contrite to his faithful barber.
But Nathaniel’s core story – and identity – is around finding love, well at last the unearthly thrill of a first date and a first kiss sometime after. He’s a serial dater he has to confess later. Nathaniel conferences with his imaginary advisors, a no-show, wrong moves and finally Nathaniel’s told he has two co-workers who’ve expressed interest. Research is done. Nathaniel might do this himself, but this storyline reinforces group effort). Then the audience is asked to vote on which of two young women expressing interest in Nathaniel (no false modesty here) he should take out. In truth, it’s heavily biased reporting or the next few pages, indeed play, might get scrapped.
The arc of mutual recognition, the perfect date of course hits a snag. Can Nathaniel overcome it?
This isn’t a formless monologue. Its 43-pages are divided into four parts and many subsections, populated by other characters conjured by Queeley-Dennis. This oncludes Robin, his facilitator and music degree graduate. In brief strokes Nathaniel depicts a highly-educated workforce at the hest of degrading, destructive capitalism. Jobs soon to be automated.
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz is neither complex or fiendishly plotted. But it’s very witty, linguistically inventive and light-hearted: so its downside is highlighted. The final fading monologue in another voice is affecting. It might have been more daring, though risky, to sound those fathoms that overtake Nathaniel, considering their effect. They’re only touched on. It might make for an edgier, less uplifting show, but is possibly where Queeley-Dennis is headed next.
