☆★★★★ Little Echoes
Tom Powell’s Little Echoes, currently playing at the Hope
Theatre, is a tightly observed portrayal of a disparate group of people all
with their own problems and issues that seemingly have no connection with each
other.
The synopsis from the Hope website explains, ‘Shajenthran’s
brother has had acid thrown in his face, and Shaj is out for revenge.
Danielle’s teenage crush on a pop idol develops into an illicit relationship,
‘professional mentoring’ becoming something much darker. June has spent over a
decade serving the private needs of the super wealthy, but her new assignments
confront her with the questions she’s spent a lifetime running from.’
 |
| Mikhael DeVille |
Little vignettes are drawn from each of the characters, Shaj,
Danielle and June, slowly give an insight into their particular life and issues
without seemingly any real linkage. Clearly, there is ultimately a clash of
their stories, at which point they become sadly entwined and intrinsically
linked - no further spoilers here.
 |
| Ciara Pouncett |
Director Stephen Bailey, superbly aided by composer David
Denyer, designer Jessica Staton and lighting designer Chris McDonnell have created a worrying environment in which there is some genuinely
superb acting, which kept you engaged, albeit at times frustrated by the speed
of plot exposition, from start to finish.
 |
| Maisie Preston |
Maisie Preston as Danielle is a quick-thinking teenager who
takes life at face value, superbly naive and wide-eyed until her world
spectacularly falls apart into a murky land of intimidation, mistrust,
shameless abuse and exploitation. Her performance is captivating, charismatic
and real, yet at the same time gut-wrenching as the darkness ultimately
descends. Mikhael DeVille as Shaj conveys his despair at his brother’s
predicament with a beautiful sense of panicked powerlessness and encapsulates
the thoughts and action of a human being in despair and enforced vulnerability.
Ciara Pouncett as June is wickedly cold, antagonistic and difficult to fathom
in terms of her motivation but her performance is ultimately the most
enigmatically disturbing and worrying.
Little Echoes is not an easy watch, but it is, without doubt, a
strongly conceived and executed exposition of mistrust, abuse and intimidation
- theatrical sophistication and performances like this don’t come along every
day.
Photography by Will Alder
Little Echoes plays at
the Hope Theatre
19 Feb - 9 Mar 2019
7.45pm
£15/£12
Tues - Sat only
For tickets, click HERE
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