On the look for something a bit different, I went to see ‘Lost Without Words’ yesterday evening. It’s a co-production between the National Theatre and Improbable, a company who work heavily on improvised pieces.
In this case the actors are a group of veterans all over seventy. Caroline Blakiston, Lynn Farleigh, Georgine Anderson, Anna Calder-Marshall, Tim Preece, and Charles Kay (although he did not appear last night). They are gently prompted and given suggestions by the directors (Lee Simpson and Phelim McDermott) who are on the stage, and there are additional people improvising lighting, sound, and musical accompaniments.
Tim Preece, Anna Calder-Marshall, Caroline Blakiston, Lynn Farleigh. Photo by Atri Banerjee.
I really liked it. It ran for an hour and I think we had six different scenes. The first was a mother and daughter at the beach, eating fish and chips, then swimming (Farleigh and Anderson did this one, with some nice work relating to Anderson’s reappearing walking stick).
Then a ‘game’ where the letter s could not be included, which was played as a father emigrating with work and his daughter worrying about it, with slips from both getting oohs from the audience (Preece and Calder-Marshall). Following that a piece between two people who have lived together a long time but still find everything interesting, at breakfast (“Marmite toast!”), which turned out to be two sisters plus a ghostly visit from mum when one sister had gone for a lie down (Calder-Marshall and Blakiston, plus Farleigh at the end).
A piece where a couple trade wishes and have the last dance of their lives under a conveniently descending glitterball (Preece and Farleigh). A group scene for a birthday which ended up hinting at cross-dressing and a lovely line about being allergic to rabbit skin (all five). And a largely solo piece including a brokenly sung aria about love, with a ghostly husband visiting at the end (Blakiston, and briefly Preece).
It was a joy to watch this group of actors at work in a playful, funny, and ultimately touching piece about relationships, age, and dreams. It is, apparently, totally unscripted, so there were prompts like “this is called Mum decides to swim for the first time”, “one of you says they feel tired and are going for a lie down, leaving this character alone”, “this is the last dance of their lives”, “you were singing something then and it was lovely, so let it come out”, etc.
It doesn’t feel forced or fake, and is beautifully performed. I’m assuming each show is unique given the improvising aspect.
It plays until the 18th of March and if this sounds like your kind of thing, do check it out.