‘Five new plays exploring the world of the office Christmas party.’

The concept behind the whole event was an extremely intriguing one: a small conveyor belt of original writing excerpts situated in different venues on Cardiff’s city road.  It was difficult to know what to expect, but this ambiguity transpired to be one of the attractions of the evening. Starting at the conservative club next door to Milgi, we were ushered inside and divided into three groups.  A choice of chocolates and festive gifts greeted us as we got upstairs before we were invited to get a drink at the bar and take a seat. As 8pm neared, the place had really started to fill up; the turnout was excellent. It just goes to show that people are still interested in innovative new theatre projects.

A scene by Aled Roberts entitled A Cold Coming signalled the beginning of the evening’s performances. A dead body was carried through the crowd and put onto the table in the middle of the room. The fifteen minute scene, which centred on the desired last rights of a Catholic man, was a pleasing piece of script despite occasionally slipping into some clichés. An extract written by Beth Granville entitled Foiled followed. The script was slightly more generic than the first. The performance was punctured slightly by members of the cast forgetting lines, but on the whole, it seemed to appeal to the audience. Next up was Mistakes have been made by Duncan Macmillan situated in Ambala, an Indian takeaway.  This small one-man play was, in my opinion, the strongest of the evening. The piece recounted the history of a disliked, corrupt Regional Manager of a company, perfectly portrayed by Ceri Murphy.  The audience were forced to become a part of the scene taking on the role of his employees. Rich in sarcastic wit and amusing anecdotes, the piece ended with the sabotage of the Manager’s toast as he was manhandled into the toilet by two plants in the audience. Arguably more  daring than the other scenes, I felt the piece was perfectly rounded for such a short performance.

Nestled in the cosy Milgi’s Yurt, the next scene took place. Written by Alan Harris, Before I go was another one-man play which explored the feelings of a man jilted in love and ignored by an unsuspecting co-worker. The script was enjoyable, but didn’t really take off; perhaps this was due to the time constraints of the evening. The last performance  required us to be squashed into a small bus stop on City road as we listened to the ravings of Mary, depicted wonderfully by actress Hanna Jarman. An extremely eloquent and well written piece, The Demise of Photocopy Boy definitely differed from the other excerpts. I couldn’t help but wish that the conclusion didn’t see Mary saunter off casually to commit a murder, as the script up until that point had been perfectly plausible. However, this could be considered as pushing the boundaries and venturing into the unconventional.

Considering the nature of the event, the organisation of the evening was fantastically smooth. There were occasional delays, but nothing that wasn’t to be expected from such a creative venture. Hopefully, similar events will occur more often; the turnout certainly indicated the public’s desire to see new writing outside the conventionality of the Theatre. Hats off to Dirty Protest for succeeding to showcase original, new writing talent in innovative and creative ways!