This new play about time travel is the debut production of recently-formed company DMT Theatre. It has strong acting, strong directing – but a slight script. Mildly entertaining, but overall a bit unsatisfying: this evening’s performance took place at the King's Arms as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival.
The time traveller, Adam, never gave us any indication of his personality, his back story, or how or why he came to be the first person to invent time travel circa 2019. He was a sort of Everyman wandering about the space-time continuum, taking a superficial look at some of the most famous moments of twentieth century history, and then sharing them with us like they were his holiday snaps in his front room. His opening speech included: “What would you do if you could travel anywhere in time? Do anything? See everything?” which was an exciting place to start…… and then he really didn’t do anything at all. He was a very passive character. The character may as well have been watching history documentaries at home, and did not seem to have a need to have invented time travel in the first place.
Moving on to some good stuff: Darren Thorpe, the writer and performer of this one-man show, is a good actor and enjoyable to watch. The Studio at the King's Arms is a tiny space, and both Thorpe and director Joshua Poole utilised the strong points of that, even using immersive theatre as Thorpe physically interacted with the audience, and sat amongst us at one point eating popcorn and cheering the action on. This was most effective in the scene set at the 1966 FIFA World Cup, where Thorpe was bouncing the ball around the space and off audience members’ hands, and a lucky audience member was cast as Bobby Moore. It was the one time in “Tomorrow” that history was made to feel real and visceral, possibly because Thorpe appears to have a genuine passion for, and previous experience of, football.
There were trips to Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” in 1963 and again to his assassination in 1968, VE Day celebrations in Britain in 1945, an undated dance with Edith Piaf somewhere mid-century, and the Y2K bug scare of 1999. In all of these, Adam dropped in out of seemingly casual curiosity, took a benign look round, and disappeared again. There wasn’t really any depth or purpose to the visits, and an assassination, in particular, is not something that the typical tourist just drops in on with a benign expression.
What theme the piece contained was explored when Adam got tired of the past, and journeyed to the year 2389 instead. Even that was treated passively: Adam’s DNA revealed him to be 400 years old, and he was sent to sit in a pod in an old people’s home with nothing to do except watch virtual reality shows and complain about his food. We did discover that artificial intelligence had taken over society, and consequently humans were well-cared for, but not allowed to disrupt the enforced peace. And extended peace, it seems, is very dull.
This was a script that needed a good overhaul by a dramaturg. However talented and skilled the actor and director are – and both Thorpe and Poole are talented and skilled – in a text-based piece, it begins with a strong script.
Reviewer - Thalia Terpsichore
on - 15/7/19
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