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Storied physical theatre troupe Frantic Assembly’s latest is a feverishly intense drama about post-traumatic stress disorder, that kind of semi-blows it by trying to cram three stories – not just one – into its 100-minute running time.
Anna Jordan’s text follows a trio of men from Scarborough in three time periods: George (Jared Garfield) in 1918, returning home from World War I; Frankie (Joe Layton) in 2013, coming back from a tour of Afghanistan in disgrace; and in 2026, Nat (Jonnie Riordan), attempting to infiltrate a fallen, wartorn Britain, desperate to find his brother.
Any one of them might have been a good story for a play, if fleshed out more. Instead they all sort of tread on each others’ toes and feel under-expanded: the George storyline struggles to rise beyond the level of First World War aphorism; the Frankie section is the strongest, but cries out to have been the entire play; the Nat section’s vision of a post-apocalyptic Britain has some intriguing moments of world building but essentially feels crass (I think Brexit – which is presumably the unspoken source of this collapse – is going to be dreadful it feels a bit insulting to the people of Syria to suggest it’ll turn the UK into Syria).
Still, if it’s easy to pick holes, it’s because ‘The Unreturning’ frequently teeters frustratingly close to being great. I liked Andrzej Goulding’s simple, effective cargo crate set and watery projections; I loved Pete Malkin’s blaring, overloaded score; and at the heart of the show there’s a really excellent performance from Layton as Frankie, the ex-squaddie who returns home from the Middle East in disgrace and agonisingly disorientated. He doesn’t know who his friends are anymore, his family don’t know who he is anymore, and he is totally unable to process the monstrous thing he did – half-thug, half lost-little boy. Accounts of shellshocked WWI soldiers are ten-a-penny: but Neil Bettles’s production really brings home the modern Britain’s oft-discussed abandonment of veterans. He’s both a monster and victim, and he’s simply been dumped back into society and left there.
‘The Unreturning’ is visceral and well-meaning, and at its best insightful, but it tries to do too much, and trips itself up.
Anna Jordan’s text follows a trio of men from Scarborough in three time periods: George (Jared Garfield) in 1918, returning home from World War I; Frankie (Joe Layton) in 2013, coming back from a tour of Afghanistan in disgrace; and in 2026, Nat (Jonnie Riordan), attempting to infiltrate a fallen, wartorn Britain, desperate to find his brother.
Any one of them might have been a good story for a play, if fleshed out more. Instead they all sort of tread on each others’ toes and feel under-expanded: the George storyline struggles to rise beyond the level of First World War aphorism; the Frankie section is the strongest, but cries out to have been the entire play; the Nat section’s vision of a post-apocalyptic Britain has some intriguing moments of world building but essentially feels crass (I think Brexit – which is presumably the unspoken source of this collapse – is going to be dreadful it feels a bit insulting to the people of Syria to suggest it’ll turn the UK into Syria).
Still, if it’s easy to pick holes, it’s because ‘The Unreturning’ frequently teeters frustratingly close to being great. I liked Andrzej Goulding’s simple, effective cargo crate set and watery projections; I loved Pete Malkin’s blaring, overloaded score; and at the heart of the show there’s a really excellent performance from Layton as Frankie, the ex-squaddie who returns home from the Middle East in disgrace and agonisingly disorientated. He doesn’t know who his friends are anymore, his family don’t know who he is anymore, and he is totally unable to process the monstrous thing he did – half-thug, half lost-little boy. Accounts of shellshocked WWI soldiers are ten-a-penny: but Neil Bettles’s production really brings home the modern Britain’s oft-discussed abandonment of veterans. He’s both a monster and victim, and he’s simply been dumped back into society and left there.
‘The Unreturning’ is visceral and well-meaning, and at its best insightful, but it tries to do too much, and trips itself up.