Review: The Same Deep Water as Me' by Nick Payne at the Donmar Warehouse

First of all, for those who have not yet visited the Donmar Warehouse, let me tell you that it is a lovely little theatre.  For the calibre of productions it houses I must admit that I expected something far more grand and lofty and a lot less intimate, and was pleasantly surprised.  In the stalls section, the seating is an arrangement of tiered benches around a thrust stage that is level with the front row allowing all-encompassing immersion in the play.  With my feet rested on the stage, I felt like a fly on the wall, dangerously close to joining in the dialogue of this brilliant play.

The action of the play circulates around the world of 'no-win no-fee' compensation claims in a modest solicitors' office, run by Andrew Eagleman and Barry Paterson, specialising in personal injury claims.  While they stand in the midst of their struggle for business, an old school friend of Andrew, Kevin Needleman, is struggling to make ends meet for his growing family.  They work together to stage an accident that culminates in a fraudulent claim for compensation in a bid to serve both of their fraught circumstances, but the conflict escalates, and the group are unexpectedly taken to court.

For a story that brings our own society's attitude towards morality under the microscope, the light, bright, crippling humour in Nick Payne's writing maintains our sympathy with some otherwise revolting characters.  Kevin, immaculately played by Marc Wootton, provides the majority of the darkness to the play while Monica Dolan's perfect performances as both the quirky taxi driver Anne and the nauseatingly pretentious defence lawyer Georgina, provides a considerable portion of the light.  Of note also is Nigel Lindsay's performance as Barry for some one-liners that are utterly unmissable and a raw, if somewhat unexplained, sensitivity to his past.

Indeed, there are some loose ends to the characters' back stories that the play would benefit from tying up, if only for the sake of letting us understand and warm to them more.  Daniel Mays' performance as Andrew Eagleman is particularly good, but his character does not vary enough to see the full range of emotion that we would expect.  Regardless, Mays pushes the boundaries as far as he can and leads the production with a real, captivating energy.  Trivialities aside, for the sake of a play that is undoubtedly enjoyable and furtively intriguing, this production meets the requirements with effortless naturalism.  The deft direction by John Crowley brings us into a world unknown to most of us with a thrilling pace and the uncompromising honesty that renders an audience unaware of much beyond the truth of the lives portrayed before them.


'The Same Deep Water As Me' plays at the Donmar Warehouse until 28th September.
Tickets £7.50- £35
For bookings, go to: www.donmarwarehouse.com
Running time 2h 10 min including interval.

Back to Ballet

http://www.roh.org.uk/about/the-royal-ballet

After a two year hiatus in which the most dancing I did was in the morning to BBC Radio 1, or in the evening to a live band in London’s Soho, I have returned to ballet classes with my home dance school, Basingstoke Academy of Dancing.

Well first of all, I have to admit that two days since my first ballet classes, my muscles are still in pain.  While at University, I maintained an exercise regime with running, walking, yoga and swimming but, seemingly, ballet demands a whole other layer of insatiable strength and endurance.  In my first evening back, Sandra Doling, a visiting dance teacher from the Royal Academy of Dance, introduced us to the brand new Advanced 2 syllabus.  Let me tell you, it’s no easy feat.  It is lovely, it allows room to really dance and feels something like a révérence to the eleven grades (if you took the same route as me) previous to it.  But a pirouette with your leg straight out to the side that finishes, indeed, with that leg still perfectly poised, was not quite in the skill set that I had stumbled back to the floor with.

Beyond the laughable idea of mastering Advanced 2, and the fact I currently struggle to walk down stairs, to stand up, indeed, to move my legs at all, placing my hand back on the barré and my feet in fifth position held such familiarity that it felt like I hadn’t been away at all.  Muscle memory fascinates me in this respect.  All those hours in previous ballet classes frowning at my turnout, peeling my foot off the floor in order to dégagé evermore gracefully, lifting my body up even when it’s lowering down to plié.  All those frowns were entirely worth the time to allow me to come back and remember it all, even when my leg was screaming to find itself performing a ronde de jambe en l’air.  And yet I believe that with ballet, as a rule of thumb, if it hurts, it means you’re doing it right.

I think ballet means different things to different people.  Whereas for the lucky few it is a way of life, for others it is simply a fun way to exercise, and how much you love or hate it weighs in accordingly.  For me, it feels exactly the same as it did when I was four years old and performing the lost toy exercise in pre-primary.  It is in the moments between movement, the very notion of breathing while your arm breathes, of following your arm with your head, of finishing an exercise with your head poised toward the far corner: these are the moments when I remember how much I love it.  It is a friend just as much as a disciplinarian, an impossible prospect blended with attainable success.  It has been with me every day, physically, mentally, and in every twitch in my arms and legs when I watch other people dance.  I may have thought I left ballet, but really, it never left me.

http://www.roh.org.uk/about/the-royal-ballet

Interested in starting dancing?  Starting again?  Trying somewhere new?  Everything you need to know for Basingstoke Academy of Dancing can be found at: www.basingstokeacademy.co.uk

For London, I recommend:

The Place: http://www.theplace.org.uk/engage
Danceworks: http://www.danceworks.net/ 

Pineapple: http://www.pineapple.uk.com/