The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

Almost Near at the Finborough Theatre

Almost Near at the Finborough Theatre | Theatre review
1 April 2014
Timothy Bano
Avatar
Timothy Bano
1 April 2014

“Our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering” suggests Susan Sontag in Regarding the Pain of Others. It is this quotation that was the inspiration for Pamela Carter’s Almost Near, a play that depicts the two extremes of banality and intensity.

In Helmand Province four soldiers find that they have been blown up by a suicide bomber; in London a husband and wife negotiate a bitter separation that seems to have impacted their son’s behaviour.

Louise (Kate Miles) is an artist making sculptures and taking pictures of people wounded in war, but the people who are her models in the first scene are actual soldiers in the second scene. Miles has a natural, conversational delivery style that especially complements Kevin (Adam Philps), a cocky and vain Yorkshire lad who after being Louise’s model decides to sign up to join the army.

Carter plays with narratological complexity, and she takes advantage of the fluidity of theatrical space – she forces the audience always to question the (un)reality of what is on stage. But good theatre is not just about a play’s structural trickery, and Almost Near suffers not from a lack of anything to say, but the decision not to say it. Despite the politically-charged setting of Afghanistan, Carter does not explore the realities of living in a war zone, but instead imagines a necessarily fictionalised and fantastical account of what it is like after dying there. It seems a shame to explore what these characters are feeling after they are dead when there is so much to examine in their circumstances pre-death.

Where the play succeeds greatly, however, is in presenting the jarring disparity between something as mundane and familiar as ordinary London life and something as unimaginable as a soldier’s life on tour – a setting made even more grim by the hot, orange lights and subtle references to the infernal.

Quasi-supernatural elements, mostly left unexplained, plant the play more in the realms of fantasy than political or social comment. The painted wounds, stuffed, detached limbs and slapstick violence add to the artificiality of the production. Almost Near relies on shocking scenes, gore and violence to make its point rather than relying on depth and power in its dialogue. Yet director Audrey Sheffield and the cast do a very good job with an unusual and often intriguing play.

Timothy Bano

Almost Near is at the Finborough Theatre until 15th April 2014. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Theatre

The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre

★★★★★
Natallia Pearmain
Read More

Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre

★★★★★
Jim Compton-Hall
Read More

My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

“When you’re presented with different dilemmas in life, you respond accordingly”: Debbie Kurup on The Cher Show

Mae Trumata
Read More

2:22 A Ghost Story at Criterion Theatre

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

The House of Shades at Almeida Theatre

★★★★★
Csilla Tornallyay
Read More

Grease at Dominion Theatre

★★★★★
Cristiana Ferrauti
Read More

House of Ife at Bush Theatre

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Banter Jar at Lion & Unicorn Theatre: “An authentic and timely one-woman show”

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Five Devils (Les Cinq Diables)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Stephen Fry enters the Radio Times Hall of Fame in conversation with Alan Yentob at the BFI Imax
    Cinema & Tv
  • Roma Bar Show returns for a second edition in Rome next week
    Food & Drinks
  • Elvis
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Dodo
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Beach House Summer by Sarah Morgan
    ★★★★★
    Literature
  • Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Michael Kiwanuka at Alexandra Palace
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Michael Kiwanuka at Alexandra Palace
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Innocent (L’Innocent)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • “You don’t need a green screen if you have Tom Cruise”: Miles Teller, Jay Ellis, Greg Davis and Danny Ramirez on Top Gun: Maverick
    Cinema & Tv
  • Metronom
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Rio 2 | Movie review
Foster the People – Supermodel | Album review