Night London: Theatre Adventures in a Splintered City

‘There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion’, as Sir Francis Bacon once quothed, perhaps at a low moment in front of the mirror. Improvised theatre is guaranteed to be hit and miss, but the spontaneous drama that Night, London: Adventures in a Splintered City produces, is more than beautiful enough to make up for its strange proportions and terrible title.

Or, should I say: ‘produced’? Given that each performance is a loosely structured series of interactions between roughly sketched and continually developing characters, every show is unique, and I can only go so far as to say that the characters and situations, as they have developed so far, surely have enough mileage to keep the rest of the 18-show run firing.

Experimental theatre, like experimental jazz, is not a term that readily inspires confidence, but the cast of Night: London… were enthusiastic enough (sometimes, dare I say it, enjoying it more than the audience), the bare bones of the production just structured enough, to allow some real dramatic gems to emerge, both comic and serious – moments made all the more precious by their transience and instancy.

From drunken meetings in back rooms of parties, to market stalls and gravesides, we delved voyeuristically into what felt like very real lives. We heard a man confess to his daughter that he was partly responsible for her mother’s death under a bus, having ridden off on the bicycle with lights on it, and the same man was later seen in a hilarious encounter with a prospective cleaner, who had a few issues of her own.

The director kept a close eye on developments at all times, allowing the interactions some space to breathe, but also knowing when to cut and move on, and avoiding the danger of veering into farce. There was always a depth to the characters, almost all of whom were at once unpredictable and wholly three dimensional, and a good selection of pop tracks set off an innate vibrancy and multiculturalism about the performance, making it feel very much like a look beneath the surface of London.

Quick thinking, endless possibilities and sheer unpredictability kept, and will keep, the audience on its toes, and I was intrigued to see the actors let their characters develop. The show is running consecutively, except for Sundays, and there are incremental discounts if you go back. All in all it has much to offer in terms of entertainment and knocks the socks off many traditional theatre performances. I would be surprised if a visit were not well rewarded.

Night, London: Adventures in a Splintered City is showing until Saturday 21 March
Tristan Bates Theatre
1a Tower Street
Covent Garden
WC2H 9NP

Box office: 020 7240 6283