"Once Upon A Bridge" by Sonya Kelly
Nottingham Lace Market Theatre

This play was inspired by a real incident: in 2017, a jogger, racing across the city and up the corporate ladder, pushed a woman, an Irish barrister heading for a prominent career, into the path of an oncoming bus on Putney Bridge in London. After the push, the jogger kept running and didn’t look back. The quick-thinking bus driver managed to swerve and narrowly avoid the woman. CCTV footage of the incident was released at the time, but the jogger was never found.

"Once Upon A Bridge" unravels a life-changing moment and its aftermath through three completely different perspectives, building up to an exciting and shocking climax where tensions collide with human decency, and highlights how a split-second decision can alter a life forever.

An added bonus to this production is a short film, just before the play itself, shows the original shocking footage plus gives a background to the incident and also shows sections of the newsreel that reported the incident, also confirming that the jogger never came forward after the event.

The three characters involved in the play are known only as The Woman,  The Man and The Bus Driver.

The Woman is played by Clare Moss. The Man is played by Luke Willis. The Bus Driver is played by Gurmej Virk.

Most people know that I love accents and between the three actors, they present a plethora of accents as they tell of other characters that intertwine their lives at this time, as well as the characters own accents.

All three actors give us background to their characters via monologues, enabling us to paint picture in our minds. They also give us their version of the events, where they were heading, what was on their minds and how that push affected their lives after the event. Obviously because The Man never came forward and The Woman did not want her name to be disclosed, what is shown in the play is all from the mind and the pen of the writer.

From start to finish this is a play that tells a story, and makes you wonder what happened to all three of the people involved. It is a definite conversation starter and you'll leave the theatre discussing what you've seen and heard.

Directed by Beverley Anthony, "Once Upon A Bridge" is performed in the upstairs performance area. For anyone who's seen a play upstairs will be pleasantly surprised at the seating layout this time around. It looked like there may be more seating space the way that it was arranged for the play, which is good news as every show is sold out; something that is becoming quite the norm of late. Possibly as more people are discovering the Lace Market Theatre and the range of theatre they offer.

Lighting design by David Billen and sound design by Phillip Hogarth. Both executed timely with the lighting spotlighting the character the story is focused on, at that time. The sound design again is operated timely with sound effects and music inserts helping to bring the play even more colour.

Matthew Allcock's projection design also adds to the story visually.

The play is a one act play, with just a short interval between the short docufilm and the main event, and coming in at about ninety minutes. A ninety minute cerebral and visual treat.

Read the original article here.

Theatre Review: Once Upon A Bridge at Lace Market Theatre

Ian Kinsbury Reviews Once Upon A Bridge at the LAce Market Theatre...

Just before 8am on 5 May 2017, Oliver Salbris drove his number 430 bus over Putney Bridge in London. Thankfully travelling slowly due to heavy rush hour traffic, he was able to swerve to avoid a woman who fell into the path of his bus.

But the woman's fall was no accident. Dashboard footage revealed a jogger – a stocky white male running towards the women - make a sudden, inexplicable and wholly unpredictable decision to shove her, with violent force, into the path of the bus. On doing so, and without breaking stride, he carried on running, not even glancing back to see the near-miss he had so callously caused.

Following this shockingly random act of violence, the police and myriad internet sleuths attempted to uncover the identity of the mystery jogger, quickly dubbed the "Putney Pusher". Perhaps just as mysterious as his motivation for recklessly endangering the life of a total stranger is how he has never been caught. The crime took place in London, one of most surveilled cities in the world, with almost 700,000 of the UK's 5.2 million CCTV cameras.

Commissioned to write a new work for the Druid theatre company in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Sonya Kelly chose the bizarre incident of the "Putney Pusher" as her jumping off point for this speculative game of "what if?".

and we are quickly sucked into the unfolding drama as the three narratives

This adaptation by the Lace Market Theatre presents three unnamed characters' points of view: the jogger (Luke Willis) late for a crucial interview in the City who comes to realise he can't change what happened, much as he has bent the truth in the past; the woman (Clare Moss) striding over the bridge, on her way to an interview in the hope of embarking on her legal career, and left asking "why me?"; and the bus driver (Gurmej Virk) under pressure to finish his morning shift on time who faces a much bigger problem of trying to make sense of how close he came to a fatal accident.

Directed by Beverley Anthony – in what I was told is her swansong as a Lace Market Theatre director  – the staging is simple with clever use of footage projected onto a backdrop, including an excellent documentary put together by the crew which played before the drama started, to bring us up to speed on the crazy split second which inspired the play.

We begin with a series of monologues, through which we get to know our three protagonists as they prepare for the day ahead. All three actors give compelling, fully realised performances and we are quickly sucked into the unfolding drama as the three narratives, unbeknownst to everyone involved, hurtle inexorably towards each other.

I found this production genuinely thought-provoking, with all three actors fully inhabiting their characters and giving brilliantly paced performances that kept the audience rapt, with some wry chuckles along the way thanks to some lovely comic timing.  

The play has been described as a fairytale. Whilst there is a lot of poetic licence with the internal lives of the characters, and a notably karmic comeuppance for the jogger which one can only hope actually happened, at its heart is a fascinating tension between the alienating nature of modern city living, and the enforced proximity to others that all too often brings out the very worst of our natures.

Whilst this production is sold out, the Lace Market theatre have a packed schedule over the next few months if you fancy some quality local theatre.

Read the original article here.