by Fin Kennedy
Follow Charlie, as he navigates the bizarre and often funny side of life, death and faking his own disappearance in this darkly comic award-winning play by Fin Kennedy.
This amateur production appears by arrangement with Nick Hern books
Contains strong language
CAST
Charlie / Adam
Chris Sims
Sophie
Charlie Osborne / Tilda Stickley
Actor 1
Fraser Wanless
Actor 2
Emily Kelsey
Actor 3
Jamie Goodliffe
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Theatre Review: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found
After a two-year delay due to COVID, Fin Kennedy’s How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is finally at Lace Market Theatre for a five-day run. Theatre Editor Rebecca Buck headed down there to see if it was worth the wait...
This production of Fin Kennedy’s How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, directed by Matthew Huntbach, was originally scheduled for 2020 but cancelled as the world went into lockdown. Somehow, the global ordeal of lockdown, and isolation, has added another level of meaning that lends even more resonance than it would have had when it was originally due to be staged.
The play tells the story of Charlie, who lives in London and works in marketing, as he navigates life, depression, crime, and death, trying to fake his own disappearance along the way. Chris Sims, as Charlie, is riveting; the cast he leads are all excellent, but it is hard to take your eyes off his performance. Full of cynicism, pain, and increasing intensity as – rather than unravelling – the story he is part of begins to make inevitable sense. A major theme of the play is identity: what makes us who we are, and can we ever leave that behind? After nearly two years of forced isolation, one step removed from our usual lives, it is a question that resonates. Sims brings the audience with him on that journey. The change in him, between the first and second acts, is not only one of costume – it is told in his voice, his stance, every aspect of his performance. You almost have to remind yourself you’re watching the same actor, playing the same character.
This is a performance that disorientates its audience, intentionally. With five actors, three of them playing multiple characters, and a plot that unfolds in snapshots – are they flashbacks, nightmares, sequential events? – it is a jigsaw, and you won’t see the full picture until the very end. The set and costume choices aid this impression: the plastic curtains, filing cabinets, scrubs and hard chairs of a medical environment offer no comfort, but are also oddly specific and irrelevant to the vignettes of home and office with which the play opens. Why are we in this clinical, cold place, with echoes of the Shipping Forecast, and white noise, lighting that strobes and shines from the plastic. And Charlie changes so markedly between the two acts that you can’t help but ask questions about what makes a character – a person – who they are, underneath the clothes, and trappings of life.
For a show with heavy and serious themes and which, in its conclusion, is truly moving, the thread of dark comedy also comes through brilliantly. This is testament to the cast and Director of this particular Lace Market performance, since much of this is not in Kennedy’s script. The comedy is a nod to the presence of the absurd even in the darkest moments of life and, in some ways, wrongfoots the audience even more, drawing us into Charlie’s state of mind. Fraser Wanless, Emily Kelsey and Jamie Goodliffe, as the supporting cast, show themselves to be versatile and with perfect comic timing. Particular highlights are Charlie’s encounter with a London Transport worker, and the extended mime of him retaking his driving test, both drawing laughter from the whole audience.
A final shoutout must go to Charlie Osborne, playing Sophie, as an understudy – in a period in which understudies have risen to prominence in theatre nationwide, due to Covid tests and sudden changes of circumstance. She brought a real gravitas and depth of emotion to a role that is integral to the story of the play.
The pandemic has broken our habit of theatre going and, for small theatres like the Lace Market Theatre, survival has looked questionable at times. As live performances resume, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found seems a highly appropriate choice of production. A profoundly moving play, which gets to the heart of our anxiety about who we really are, and what matters to us, performed and staged to the highest standards.
Read the original article here.
Ali Patrick
11 Jan 22
YOU NEED TO SEE THIS PLAY!!! What an absolutely fantastic show! I loved it from start to finish. The set was ace, props spot on, lighting and sound were excellent, costumes worked so well and the performances were just perfect... well done Matthew Huntback for bringing this incredibly challenging show together. Well done and thank you to everyone nvolved, I loved it!
Colin Treliving
11 Jan 22
Congratulations to the cast and crew, an excellent production! Not to be missed!!!!!!
Jim Brooks
12 Jan 22
I saw this on Monday night. It was a brilliantly clever and witty script. Excellent performances all round and well directed. Well done all involved. LMT at its best.
Clare Long
13 Jan 22
Came to see this on Tuesday and was blown away! Everything about this play is so professional. From the sublime acting to the clever set and lighting, this is an excellent piece of theatre that will stay with me for a long time.
Stephen Freyne
14 Jan 22
Fantastic performances all round from the powerful lead to the lass who stepped in at the very, very last minute with no time to learn lines so understandably had to use a notebook (didn't distract at all). Well done all
Paddy Signorini
16 Jan 22
Watching on Friday night I felt as if I was watching a professional production, marvellous * * * * *
Review: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. Lace Market Theatre. Nottingham.
If there is any amateur production fully deserving a five star review then it surely has to be The Lace Market Theatre’s current main stage production of Fin Kennedy’s How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. The word 'amateur' in all its interpretations, doesn’t describe this fabulously good iteration. It is totally professional from the direction, the acting and to the impressive set, superb lighting and sound.
Guy Evans’s startling set design is a marriage of clinical hanging clear rubberised sheets that form theatricalised curtains on the stage that reflect the top-notch lighting design by David Billen. Billen’s lighting team, Allan Green, Eaton Thorley and Simon Carter are lighting and sound box magicians. The stage furniture is well chosen and simply wrought allowing for maximum quick changes of venue and mood. Darren Coxon’s multiple soundscapes and sound effect applications throughout the piece are a wonder to hear and a real professional credit to the piece that unfolds in all its dramatic absurdity.
This is a technically complex play, so easy to mess up and the skills of Nottingham’s Lace Market Theatre technical teams ensure it never puts a foot wrong. Max Bromley’s costumes of hospital scrubs, doctor’s coats and other character defining costumery are well-considered choices that allow the play to unfold with practical ease. How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is so well stage-managed you cannot see the joins.
Matthew Huntbach’s exemplary and creative direction uses every bit of the stage and beyond and his sterling dedication to this play and its players is subtly evident. His directorial generosity, and dare we say, genius, is amply rewarded with a highly professional (there’s that p word again) cast.
Fin Kennedy’s dramatic comedy utilises a cast of five actors. The emphasis is on the drama with some dark comedy thrown into the many layered cake mix for extra flavouring. It turns out to be a very tasty choice of play to present in this Winter/Spring programme and certainly a must-see before it closes on Saturday 15th January.
The cast consists of Chris Sims as Charlie/Adam, Charlie Osborne filling in at the very last minute as Sophie and Fraser Wanless as actor one, Emily Kelsey as actor two and Jamie Goodliffe as actor three.
Sims totally owns the stage throughout the whole piece and is quite remarkable as he morphs into two characters in styles that vary from In Yer Face Theatre to Verbatim Theatre style dialogues as well as realistic and quasi-poetic text and natural exchanges. Like the alcohol and drug fuelled world his characters are part of – his playing of Charlie and Adam are addictive viewing. One might say – magnetically so.
The talented trio of Wanless, Kelsey and Goodliffe give us very realistic and often witty interpretations complete with authentic voicings of their myriad of personalities that haunt the mind and lives of Charlie and Adam. As Sophie, Charlie Osborne completes the cast with her assured depiction of hospital authority and mortician. Her brave choice of taking on the role after two other cast members have recently fallen victim to Covid is to be commended as the play may have had to be cancelled without her. We hear a lot in the professional world of how understudies, swings and covers have saved productions from closing and this just proves there is equal resilience and passion in the amateur world.
How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is a true must-see production at The Lace Market Theatre and this very impressed reviewer recommends it highly. You will be blown away by the quality. In the director’s programme notes Matthew Huntbach begins; “What makes you who you are? A name? An address? A random collection of experiences? You are who you can prove you are. You are what people think. And that’s the easiest thing in the world to change… What circumstances would compel you to completely abandon your established life and identity in order to forge an entirely new one?” Compelling arguments are the joy of experiencing live theatre so please go and be thrilled by this before it disappears.
Read the original article here.
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