THEATRE REVIEW: The Glad Game - The Playhouse, Nottingham.

In 2018, Phoebe Frances Brown was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour in the area that controls speech, language and memory.  A devastating diagnosis for anyone, but particularly so for an actor whose trade is so reliant on voice and powers of recall.  In addition, it came at the worst possible juncture in her fledgling career, when she’d just been offered a part in the National Theatre’s production of 'Small Island' at the Olivier Theatre. 

Her reaction to this life-changing news is the theme of her one-woman show 'The Glad Game', named after the game played by the titular orphan in the cutesy children’s film 'Pollyanna' - in which she tries to cheer herself up by relentlessly concentrating on the positive aspects of a grim situation.  It’s a very human response, once the grimness of the prognosis has been conveyed, for the patient to look for light in the black, and Brown does by so concentrating on all she’s managed to achieve in her young life so far. 

Inevitably, though, there are times when optimism gutters and she rails against the injustice of it all - not only the injustice of this frighteningly arbitrary disease but the fact that her travails occur at a time when, though the world is in a mess, her own life both personal and professional, seemed to be going so well. 

The presentation of this 75 minute performance is necessarily very simple - the stage is set up as if for a 'get-in' with the flies and rear wall exposed.  Banks of speakers relay pre-recorded interjections from family members, consultants, Macmillan nurses, agents and friends.  The monologue is free form: Brown has a basic script which she makes occasional detours from to enlarge or expand upon some points and audience participation (as a local person, a lot of friends were in), though not solicited was not discouraged, either. 

To create a solo show out of a life-changing situation is both brave and the most positive response a performer could make, and I hope Brown and her director Tessa Walker get to hone and develop it in front of different audiences.  At the first performance, I occasionally lost some of the words and detail and a couple of punchlines eluded me due to audience laughter.  Non-millennials may also be unfamiliar with some of the names referred to (I’d never heard of Charly Clive or her programme ‘Pure’ before, but then I don’t own a television set!).  All in all, this is an inspiring seventy-five minutes which provides much food for thought. 

Reviewer - Richard Ely
on - 24.9.21