Walking in to the sound of Sad Piano Music
TM isn't the most auspicious of starts but it all gets better from there in Ella Carmen Greenhill's simple but striking
Plastic Figurines. Rose (Remmie Milner) had moved to Edinburgh to start a new life for herself, but when their mother died of leukaemia, she had to return to Manchester to look after her autistic brother Mikey (Jamie Samuel.) The play opens on his 18th birthday but is told out of order, flashing back to their visits to their mother in hospital, the hopes for her recovery and eventually her funeral, and forward to a time when Mikey himself is in hospital for reasons that aren't initially made clear. Other than that this isn't an eventful play but more of a character study of both Mikey and his autism, and his relationship with the sister who's given up a lot for him - but genuinely doesn't appear to feel she's a martyr for it.
