The Royal Exchange has hit a seam of remarkable young writing talent, having recently presented Rory Mullarkey's disquieting debut Cannibals, and now this Bruntwood prize-winning piece of homespun sci-fi, jointly presented with Live Theatre, from 25-year-old Teessider Alistair McDowall.
Teenage geek Luke lives on his own in a chaotic flat on a rough Middlesbrough housing estate. It's pretty much as you'd expect the home of a young man with a stammer and poor social skills to be, though the details of McDowall's world are decidedly askew. The fact that Luke's drug-dealing brother is accompanied by a mute, elderly heroin addict on a dog lead goes unnoticed. And there is a large time-machine in the corner. The device, which resembles the cardboard space consoles built by artist Brian Griffiths, doesn't look capable of transporting anything other than a fridge-freezer from the nearest branch of Currys. But McDowall takes the theatrical potential of time travel for granted in the manner of JB Priestley and Alan Ayckbourn, and spins an increasingly manic plot in which characters from the near-future literally bump into themselves coming back. Although McDowall's liberties with the laws of physics strain credulity, there is a convincing tang of lived experience in the evocation of a practically lawless pocket of the north‑east where children tear about on stolen quad bikes and feral horses chew the grass.
Director Caroline Steinbeis is never fazed by the more gruesome actions she has to direct – the graphic jacking-up seems a bit gratuitous – but the performances of Robert Lonsdale and Lee Armstrong as Luke (present and future) have a childlike vulnerability that will appeal to anyone who has ever put a goldfish bowl on their head and pretended to be a spaceman.
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