Going Viral

Going Viral

By Dan Bye
Produced by ARC Stockton
Directed by Dick Bonham
Unity Theatre, Liverpool
29th – 30th April 2016

Reviewed by Colin Serjent

On my way to the Unity Theatre to watch this play I was suffering from post-bad flu syndrome – definitely not man flu! – combined with breathing in the rank bad air pollution, caused by the vast multitude of cars all belching out noxious fumes, so I could fully empathise with the themes of Going Viral.

A disease is plaguing the world, it’s highly infectious, it’s a never before known pathogen and people who contract it are reduced to constantly weeping. Perhaps the weeping is symbolic of the pitiful and heartrending state of the environment.

In Daniel Bye’s one-man performance he converses in a friendly way with the audience, talking, for example, about the reasons why infections occur, about the facts and figures relating to the spread of viruses, almost akin to an Open University lecture on the BBC, but much more absorbing. It has been described as a ‘performance lecture, which I concur with.

It is a tribute to Bye that he has written a piece about the parlous state of the environment for the theatre, which you seldom come across.

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