Critical Chinwag "The Drowned Girl"

Hello Chinwaggers!

This is admittedly a delayed response to the Critical Chinwag event on October 1st at Chapter Arts Centre. please accept my apologies.

"The Drowned Girl"

Written  and performed by Kelly Jones, Directed by Anna Poole, Music by Chris Young, and Produced by Olivia Harris

Mermaids! I was intrigued to begin with and my young daughter was clearly disappointed that she couldn't come too, to see a play about mermaids. I did explain that I doubted it would really be about mermaids at all...but I don't think she was convinced.

Of course, it's not all about mermaids. Though I suspect my daughter would have admired the dress almost as much as I did. But, I digress! And yes, mermaids do feature in this one woman show about a young adult finding her way through her seemingly "average" and "dull" existence...

Not that this is an average or dull piece. In the mundane life of our main character there are moments of wonder and beautiful rebellion involving cans of tuna; possibly my favourite moment of all. There is a good smattering of comic moments to make you chuckle or belly laugh, and a few soft moments of sympathy and, for me, almost a tear or two.

There were times when I felt the pace could have varied a little more, but, on the whole I found this a very engaging piece which touched on plenty of common kinds of experience that everyone can connect with in some way - even if mermaids are not your thing.

Our main character...Ah yes,..I did say "0ne woman show", but Kelly does also play some other characters whom most people would probably recognise as familiar types in their own lives...as I was saying;

Our main character discovers quite early on in the piece that her beloved Grandmother has passed away and she is obviously devastated by the news. Having felt a strong bond with her Grandmother from an early age (involving aspects of "mermaids"), she now feels particularly alone in her grief and confused about how best to deal with it.

I think that about sums it up without giving too much away. All I can add at present is to say that this came at a particularly relevant time for me, and I started off finding it hard to concentrate on being constructively "critical" when confronted by swimming, mermaids, cornflakes and family losses. But, I forgot about taking it personally and enjoyed seeing it through my personal perspective instead. And, being a Critical Chinwag - it does help to talk about it !! x

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