pyekan

Joe Tully, humorous, indomitable and a staunch individualist, has spent a hectic life around the world as a professional musician accompanying vocalists both classical and jazz. Now he is seventy five and has found himself back in London and pushed into sheltered accommodation by his unsympathetic son in law. He spends his time smoking pot, swearing at his cat and reluctantly getting to grips with modern technology.

A chance encounter with an old friend recalls the turbulent romances of his youth in swinging London and he is forced to confront and perhaps understand the events responsible for his current situation.

‘A Thing Called Joe’ is about this hero – his heady past and his hopeful present .

BUG by Tracy Letts

at Found 111

‘Bug’ is the only play in the West End where you come out scratching furiously and longing for Pizza.

We are in a seedy motel room in Oklahoma where lives Agnes (Kate Fleetwood) a forty something cocktail waitress. She has a story of violence and loss. A bullying exconvict of a husband Jerry (Alec Newman) and the unexplained disappearance of her little boy Lloyd aged six. Her best friend RC brings Peter, (James Norton) a young soldier friend to visit. He and Agnes become good friends, and he moves in with her. It seems he is hiding from something and she craves company as he takes the place of her missing child.

It all seems fine until he finds a bug in the bed, sees them everywhere and persuades her to see bugs too. He thinks he has been injected with the eggs of blood sucking aphids by the Government while undergoing treatment for a mild mental breatkdown. From then on it becomes a terrifying horror story as the two of them believe so completely that the medical establishment is using them for experiments. After a while the psychological drama turns physical as they start self hurting – some of the treatment they give themselves is the kind of thing that makes the audience look the other way especially his efforts to remove the bugs eggs from his gums.

The environment sets up an uneasy feeling from the start. Ben Stone’s set, festooned with fly papers in an effort to catch the insects is bathed in a kind of blue light by Richard Howard which gives a creepy effect. One feels trapped in that intimate and tightly packed theatre while the bloodcurdling sounds by Edward Lewis include crickets chirping, a low flying helicopter overhead, and creepy crawlies bustling around. You never feel very safe. The play exposes fears, real or imagined with an overall feeling of dread lightened occasionally with odd moments of black comedy.

Fleetwood and Norton are perfectly matched and perfectly directed by Simon Evans. The whole company work well together to set up the nightmare atmosphere with taut energetic performances making the most of Tracy Letts’ crackling, scintilating dialogue.

Not for people of a nervous disposition!