BWW Reviews: ISLANDS, Bush Theatre, January 22 2015

Islands at the Bush Theatre is written by and stars Caroline Horton as the grotesque character Mary, a self-proclaimed god who lives in Haven with her two assistants Swill (Seiriol Davies) and Agent (John Biddle). Floating safely 30 feet in the air above Shitworld, the inhabitants are free to make their own rules as they look down on the citizens below them through a drain in the floor.

The set, designed by Oliver Townsend, consists of an empty, dirty swimming pool, some plants and a diving board where Mary spends lots of time watching over Adam and Eve (played by Simon Startin and Hannah Ringham) - two ordinary humans she enlists to help her collect cherries. In a parody of the Bible story, they're not to eat the forbidden fruit (in this case cherries), otherwise Mary warns them they will be banned permanently from Haven and forced to return to Shitworld. When Eve decides to eat the forbidden cherries she is banished from Haven, leaving naïve Adam behind to continue the work of collecting the cherries alone. But with the voices of David Cameron, Barack Obama and George Osborne floating up from Shitworld and arguing that more is being done to prevent tax evasion, Mary and her cronies must think quickly if they're to stay in their little piece of heaven.

Horton has clearly done her research into tax evasion and offshore finance but the performance is so grotesque and abstract that the point that she is trying to make is ultimately lost. In fact, on the night that I went to see the performance half of the audience left before the play had finished. Whether they disliked the bouffon style of the production or just found the whole thing too much to handle, it's a shame to see a play with a topic so relevant and timely fall flat.

Photo Credit: Edmund Collier