REVIEW: Are You Still Watching? - The Waterside Theatre, UCEN Manchester.

The current third year students on the Theatre And Performance course at The Arden collaborated with The Eggs Collective to bring about, after just over three weeks' rehearsal time, a completely original devised piece all about the popular culture that is television and why we watch.

Eggs Collective's style suited the students nicely as it complemented their ethos of boundary-pushing non-sequential non-naturalistic theatre. Each student was asked to find a TV character or personality which they had some empathy with and through rehearsal found a way of projecting that character onto themselves. We therefore watched a performance where there were 12 well known TV characters or personalities inhabiting the same space and working with and around each other.

My first problem then was - who were these people?! - I seldom watch TV and can hardly be said to know anything about modern popular culture - I felt a little 'out of the loop'  with this since I was able to identify less than half.  I am not sure whether my enjoyment of the piece would have improved had I have known the others or not, since in the end it didn't actually matter who they were or represented.. They were just representing the idea of TV, the idea or notion of something which we turn to in times of trouble to relieve stress, to find comfort, or to entertain and numb our over-worked minds. The TV has become a place of community, of family, of habit.  As the play suggests, it is the glue which binds us all together. We are all human, individual, and unique. We all have issues or problems, and need a release from societal pressures, and this is where TV comes in.

The overall message of the piece being that TV can be a refuge; a place of community, a place of escape. Whether you are escaping yourself - as many people have anxiety or image issues, or even illnesses more serious which they can't or don't want to discuss openly and so find succour in watching TV - or whether escaping others; it really doesn't matter; we all love to be voyeuristic and watch other people hence the huge successes of reality TV shows and fly-on-the-wall documentaries. We glorify in others' downfalls, and aspire to others' successes.

With some live original music, and a few turnips [one of the few characters I did recognise was Baldrick!] and this self-exposing narrative style which Eggs Collective do so well, this was a student production which ticked all the boxes. I am uncertain of the life this piece as it stands has outside the premises and bounds of the school exercise that it was, but I also feel that with some development it could become a piece which has a life beyond The Arden.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 18/10/18