Theatre review: So Here We Are

DRAMA SCHOOL DISCLAIMER: Drama school productions are classed as amateur performances, which is why I always make this disclaimer; that said, I’ll hopefully be seeing everyone involved in professional productions soon, so I avoid judging them differently.

Yes, catching the odd LAMDA production does open up the possibility that I’ll get bragging rights for spotting a star of the future, but it can also be a chance to see a play I missed the first time round – in this case because Luke Norris’ 2013 play So Here We Are premiered in Manchester. While Norris-as-playwright is yet to have had as big an impact as Norris-as-actor had on that girls’ school party when he took his shirt off in A View From The Bridge, I’m pretty confident he’s got it in him, as the first half in particular of this play about young men’s mental health demonstrates. Nate Gibson’s set is a concrete wall on the banks of the Thames, where four men in their twenties are hanging around after the funeral of their friend Frankie, drinking, smoking, and waiting for the dead man’s girlfriend Kirstie (Amy Vicary-Smith) to arrive with balloons for one last ceremony she has in mind.

Pugh (Samuel Morgan-Davies) is the sensible one of the group, Pidge (Stanley Morgan) the gobshite – literally, he can’t seem to stop talking about his bowel movements – and Smudge (Akiel Dowe) was dropped on his head as a baby and it shows.

Standing to one side and not engaging with the others is Dan (Alex Heath) who was due to start a new job in Hong Kong, and considered skipping the funeral to catch his plane; he’s keeping one piece of information from his friends which could explain something they keep coming back to: The word “suicide” is never mentioned, but there were definitely mutterings around the funeral that Frankie’s death might not have been the accident it seemed. Caroline Leslie’s production gets subtle performances out of its cast as the four men deal with their grief and confusion; the single scene that comprises the first act is mesmerising in its slow, humour-filled reveal of the story and its characters.

But in a play peppered with football references, this is a game of two halves, and for the second act Norris changes the structure to take us back in time to Frankie’s (Ethan Moorhouse) birthday, which was very possibly also the last day of his life. From well-meaning but misjudged gifts to celebrations nobody turns up to, it seems like none of his friends actually understands Frankie that well – apart perhaps from the soon-to-depart Dan. After the nigh-on-perfect first act this second one doesn’t quite hit the same heights, its many short scenes leaving it choppier, a more kaleidoscopic look at Frankie’s life than the in-depth moodiness of the first long scene.

But Moorhouse gives a convincingly haunted performance that holds all of it together, while Norris’ writing continues to show a trust in the audience to understand the subtext without having to spell it out: Like the circumstances of Frankie’s death, the real nature of his relationship with Dan is strongly implied but never made explicit. The sad truth explored by So Here We Are is the fact that even in a seemingly supportive network of friends you can feel completely alone. As with its plot points, it’s more concerned with questions than answers because there aren’t any easy ones; the play’s sharper than the conclusion that everyone just needs to keep an eye out for each other, but that doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing to take from it.

So Here We Are by Luke Norris is booking until the 11th of April at LAMDA’s Carne Studio Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Richard H Smith.