Going underground.

If the barrier's angry -  you 'aint got no money, 

No use in holding us up it's not funny.

Just top up and pay up

and get on the stairs, 

If you're not in a rush then don't stand on the left! 

Cheery conductors you'll find on the tube,

Wish they'd just get the damn thing to move,

BEWARE: Smiles are banned at most times of day,

Alongside giving your seat away.

Watch out for the rats though they can't reach to foot level, 

Get rid of the screaming child - give it some revels! 

Shouting and swearing and huffing, harassing, 

More tube delays

the crowds start amassing. 

Shouting and huffing and sweating and swearing,

Crumples appear on whatever you're wearing, 

"Red Signal ahead" "but all lines are fine", 

Doesn't seem that way: "Body on the line". 

"Train terminates here" wherever you're heading, 

No tubes to your workplace or café or wedding,

It's hot

no-one cares

there's no geography here, 

It makes no use knowing the city streets clear, 

For tubes have their own own routes, their own rights and rates, 

And all you can bet on is that YOU'LL BE LATE. 

The Kitchen Sink - silliness and sincerity.

(As featured in the KCL English Society Journal)

 

A kitchen bizarrely like my own Preston-based Grandma’s and a family as northern as can be to go with it – The Bush Theatre’s rendition of Wells’ ‘The Kitchen Sink’ captures the north of England with all the grit of real life that drama can contain.

The kitchen sink style takes on an interestingly direct manifestation on the stage in this play, the kitchen literally created by a fully functional kitchen unit. Used for the copious brews made, the preparation of meals, eating of biscuits, - and even as an emotion-cooling fountain: the kitchen and it’s blocked sink are truly at the heart of the drama. Realism does not replace artistic subtleties here, as our fly-on-the-wall audience status lurches the audience right into the domesticity of family life in a place where old societal systems are fading, and the trustworthy milkmen of the old days such as Martin are becoming a memorial of the past.

The south, London, art and ‘boys from Eton in pashmina’s’ are ostracised from the rural town only alluded to from within the kitchen walls. Withernsea is stuck in the customs of the past whilst the characters with their individual eccentricities attempt to escape. Slight claustrophobia ensues from the staging in the round chosen for the performance, yet rather than an intruder one comes to feel welcome in Martin and Kath’s home. As dimmed lights are all that accompany scene changes, the family members visibly clear the debris of props away as if tidying for visitors- you almost expect someone to reach over and offer you a mug of Yorkshire tea. Their kitchen becomes a place of unity where the working class characters meet, eat, chat, argue and celebrate: a welcoming hub of familial love.

Comedic as well as compassionate, the trivialities and absurdities of everyday life are greatly drawn upon in order to create pure laugh-out-loud comedy - ‘dead funny’, one might say. Sampson consistently brings hilarity, from his dancing and yodelling along to Dolly Parton in karaoke duet with his mother, to his expostulation about the necessity of sequins covering the star’s nipples in his portrait of her. Coming from a town where Preston seems exotic, one can understand why the his dreams of London seem outrageously inappropriate to his father, who can barely even come to the terms with his son’s sexuality. Whilst hilarious, Sampson’s characterisation of Billy begs sympathy. Nevertheless, with Rhodri’s portrayal of his stubborn father and our proximity to the intricacies of the family, one is also drawn to feel strongly for a man whose narrow-mindedness alongside his own problems only manifests itself into upset and a level of self-loathing.

             

At a time when our own professional futures are uncertain, the poignancy of the father’s ending “There’s life after milk – I hope” sets an optimistic endnote undermined and somewhat unsatisfying in its attempted reassurance. Dashed hopes of urban migration are all the more resonant when watched from a London theatre, the city that shattered Billy’s creative dreams and only holds limited offerings for fledgling professionals in the present day.

What a delight it is, therefore, to lose oneself in the frivolities and silliness of daily life through the kitchen of one family. My only complaint is the occasionally soap opera -esque feel to the play, yet this mainly leaves one wanting to come back next week for more. Despite the uncertainties faced in their changing lives it is warming to watch the reassurance gained through the infrastructure of the family. 


A performance for anyone needing a pick-me-up and a reminder of the joy in life’s simple things, take your chocolate digestives along and enjoy.