48. Project Snowflake - Brockley Jack Theatre

Another new pub theatre for me and I have to admit I was a bit impressed – the Brockley Jack looked like an ace pub (even if I was accused of dying my hair to be Irish) and the theatre upstairs had the most comfortable seats I’ve ever seen in a fringe venue. Highly looking forward to their Midsummer Nights Dream now. The theatre also has the advantage of being close to a co- workers house, so I was treated to a ridiculously good home cooked slap up meal before heading to the theatre (there were three courses and homemade pesto and hors d’ouevres and cats – though should point out the latter were not part of the meal and were mostly just eyeing me suspiciously).


Onto the actual production, must admit I found Project Snowflake a bit uneven with some parts I really liked and others I was less certain of. Partly this might have been down to the really weird audience, who were taking the entire thing very, very seriously. Whereas I was fairly convinced I was at a socially conscious sci-fi comedy (and an actually funny one), I mean the cast were throwing nappies into the audience, I’m not sure how people thought it was meant to be a serious piece (checking the leaflet again, it even says it’s a comedy). It meant I was in the slightly uncomfortable position of being the only person giggling, plus it must have been difficult for the actors to be getting so little response. It also made it a little difficult for me to judge whether its flaws were down to the awkward atmosphere or whether they were more intrinsic to the production as a whole.

One of the problems was that I simply wasn’t invested in the central relationship between Jeremy (Simon Desborough) and Martha (Laura Evelyn). I enjoyed their opening scene a lot, particularly the playfulness of it and the way it cleverly used a very limited set of dialogue (sort of HR data) to reveal aspects of the society, the atmosphere, the characters and their relationship. But after this scene I felt a lot of their sections were mostly treading old ground and the remaining dream sequences, whilst entertaining, showed their frustrations with the project more than any underlying sense of them loving each other. This meant that their breakdown and betrayal and the final scene, though I enjoyed it’s tonal shift, lacked any real power for me.

In fact, I found myself enjoying the corporate scenes more – particularly an excellently controlled, argument between Liz Jadav and Imogen Vinden-North where each insult was started with a disclaimer. Though my favourite performance had to be Jonathan Leoinmuller’s somewhat manic and heightened appearance as John Barr, always just on the edge of hysteria. Generally I really liked the slightly off-kilter feel that this performance and other elements of the production created – such as the set changes which were accompanied by quirky music and questionable dancing and, of course, the use of dream sequences. Though the set was fairly standard and I thought more could have been made of the lighting.

Perhaps that was the biggest problem for me here – there were parts I really liked and moments where it seemed to be approaching something interesting- but it never quite managed to shake the feeling that I’d seen it all before. It looked how you’d expect low budget sci-fi to look, it followed the plot path that you’d guess and explored ideas that I’ve seen again and again. But there was definitely potential here, glimmering frustratingly, under the surface.