53. Sunday Morning At The Centre Of The World - Southwark Playhouse

Possibly one of the oddest theatrical experiences I’ve had this year so far – if not least because I actually have no idea whether the people in the pictures below were the ones I saw perform, since I was blindfolded for the entire show. It’s odd knowing that I wouldn’t spot them again as I quite enjoy those oddly disorientating moments when you try to work out what you saw someone in. Curiosity more than anything else probably leads me to book for shows (though there are other, weirder, reasons – I might be about to book a show simply because one of the actors has an awesome name – it’s a thing). Anyway, the idea of a spoken word play where the audience is blindfolded inspired by Under Milkwood definitely raised the curiosity factor sky high, luckily for me.



As well as being odd, and it was odd being guided to your seat (though partly it was the element of trust inherent in the audience-actor relationship here that appealed to me), it was also a highly rewarding experience. Challenging my imagination in a way that it often isn’t in the theatre.

Being blindfolded takes away one of the tools I rely upon – no set, no costumes, no visible cast – especially having not seen the venue before, I had no point of reference for it and was, therefore, able to create mental images that were completely personal to me. The story was furnished with places and people and animals from my own little corner of the world. This was more than helped by the excellently quirky language used throughout – with lots of the sort of descriptions that manage to both not mean anything in reality and to be instantly, vividly understandable. So whilst I was curious about what the cast were doing and how they were achieving it – I couldn’t bare to burst that created mental image and take the blindfold off. Which did make it slightly disorientating when I finally took it off for the applause and found out where we actually were.

Most of all though, it was the added elements of the piece that made it really wonderful – the smells like coffee, perfume, toast, vinegar and the physical effects of footballs, feathers, and especially the cats brushing up against you. Each had a shivery quality to them that was a bit exhilarating. I did wish there had been a more human element to this touching occasionally but I suspect that might have freaked other people out. The blindfolds also heightened your awareness of the peripheral sounds and the cast did an incredible job of contrasting their varied roles and creating a very rich aural tapestry.

I loved, especially, the feel of London about the entire thing, the variety, the richness of it, the small details – it was beautiful to have that sort of portrait. The characters too were excellent, with Martha the most horrible cat on the street emerging as a strong favourite (there is a cat exactly like this on my street). The only downside, was that as someone who unconsciously lip reads a great deal, I did lose some of the dialogue – so for example have no idea why Posh Katie was crying – this, however, is likely not a problem for most people.

Which just leaves one last thing to say. Tweet sodding tweet.