No Place to Go at the Gate Theatre

If you’re facing harsh times, let’s say you’re jobless or continuously haunted by the shadow of redundancy, you have a friend to visit at the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. His name is Ethan Lipton, and with his show No Place to Go, he will help you to get through it with a smile.

Unfortunately, the story of Lipton is familiar to a lot of people: he is on a “permanent part-time” job (“which means I’m there for most of the work and few of the benefits”) working as an “information refiner”, but the company has decided to move to a cheaper location (the planet Mars). He also has a modest career as “an emerging playwright and an old-timey singer-songwriter” and now he has to choose between relocating to Mars and looking for a new job.

The show, a curious hybrid of jazz concert and monologue, is a brilliant musical ode to unemployment and the problems people are facing today. Playing a repertoire varying between jazz, blues, country, and classic rock, Lipton is well-accompanied on the (very) small stage by bassist Ian Riggs, guitarist Eben Levy, and saxophonist Vito Dieterle. In fact, the small venue is perfect because sometimes Lipton speaks directly to the audience like friends in a bar.

With surrealist touches, Lipton pulls punches with jokes about his (our) sad truths, and tears of joy can turn to sadness within that same joke, and vice versa. As he drives from the hilarious final company soccer game to his sorrowful “three-tear-plan” for the future, you know you want to face the future’s uncertainties with Lipton’s rhythm and humour.

Marc Vargas

No Place to Go is at the Gate Theatre until 14^th December 2013. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch the trailer for No Place to Go here: