This Might Not Be It review: Behind the Perspex partition
Time:2024-05-21 16:26:09 Source:travelViews(143)
This Might Not Be It (Bush Theatre, London)
Verdict: Could be it
Thanks to this week's depressing news of a deepening crisis in children's mental health care provision, Sophia Chetin-Leuner's new play, This Might Not Be It, is regrettably timely.
It is, however, also a sweetly hopeful, broom cupboard-sized drama set on the other side of the Perspex partition in a children and adolescent outpatient department.
The action hinges on Angela and Jay, a double act of an old-lag receptionist and a young idealist.
Angela runs her own bespoke filing system under the mantra of 'refer, refer, refer'.
Jay is a trainee therapist who is determined to digitise the folders scattered all over the office floor.
This Might Not Be It production photos taken on the 30th January 2024 taken at the Theatre Bush, London
The action hinges on Angela and Jay, a double act of an old-lag receptionist and a young idealist
Both answer to unseen Gary — the NHS's answer to Samuel Beckett's Godot, handing down rulings from the 4th Floor.
Chetin-Leuner exhibits a talent for tautology with lines like Jay's 'you don't know stuff until you know stuff'.
But she also suggests how the dysfunctional NHS does somehow still manage to function — and how staff can connect with patients despite crushing bureaucracy and the temptation to despair.
This could be more fully explored in a longer play but, like the writing, Ed Madden's production is a hyper-realist distillation of a dog-eared hospital office.
There are neat turns from Debra Baker's officious yet warm-hearted Angela, Denzel Baidoo's naive and bashful Jay, plus Dolly Webb as an all too familiar, vulnerable teenage girl.
Previous:The Latest
Next:Kate Hudson hits the stage to debut songs from her new album Glorious at star
You may also like
- Kristin Cavallari, 37, ignores critics of her age
- Scottie Scheffler confirms birth of baby son in heartfelt Instagram post
- Risks of handcuffing someone facedown long known; people die when police training fails to keep up
- Heidi Klum stuns in black mini dress with sheer panel during the 77th Cannes Film Festival
- I was 'brokefished' by my friend for £400
- Body language expert reveals the one thing keeping Queen Mary and King Frederik together
- Ashley Roberts, 42, borrows Amanda Holden's 18
- North Carolina congressional runoff highlights Trump's influence in GOP politics
- Elon Musk gets approval from FDA to implant his Neuralink brain chip into a second patient