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Mind the
Gap
Written by Ella Carmen Greenhill, Rachel Worsley and Joe Ward
Showing at 30th April – 1st May 2013
Reviewed by
Mind the Gap is A Pimento Theatre production written by Ella Carmen Greenhill,
Rachel Worsley and Joe Ward Munrow. They invite the audience to immerse
themselves in the characters external and internal thoughts and watch
as their stories unravel and become clear. Billed as an innovative theatrical
experience which explores modern Britain and the gaps that exist between
us and others - it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
The audience is ushered in to the theatre which has been unusually yet
impressively set out to look like a tube platform and tube carriage in
London, along with two of the actors we ‘board’ the tube and
sit alongside the characters. As we sit in the obligatory tube carriage
silence the tube shudders to a halt for reasons unknown and the characters
have to interact. It starts with Nina, the over friendly, chatty Scouser
who wonders why no one is taking, she urges people to open up and begins
quizzing a Polish pot washer called Poitr who happily informs her of the
ways of the tube and how he is leaving London as he hates the city and
is heading back home to Poland. It’s not long before we meet the
self assured cockney Darren who is angry, scared and suspicious of the
reasons the tube has stopped after having experienced the previous tube
bombings. Then finally we meet Faisul, a chemistry student from Bangladesh
who quickly becomes the object of the other characters suspicions. As
we sit there the characters go through many emotions and as the open up
about their own lives, they allow their pre conceptions and ideas of cultural
stereotypes to reign over their common ground and their rationality as
the tension in the small carriage gradually builds.
Mind the Gap is beautifully written, allowing the audience to fully identify
with each of the complex characters. In a modern world where fear is pushed
down within as we continue to live our lives, we are reminded that it
still lurks below and often rises to the surface when the unexpected happens.
We are also reminded that for all our differences, we are still all just
people, trying to make sense of our individual lives as we travel together
in one carriage.
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