ED2014 2/5 Reviews ED2014 Theatre Reviews

Swimming (Menagerie / Mercury Theatre, Colchester / Escalator East To Edinburgh)

By | Published on Tuesday 5 August 2014

There are lots of little moments that shine in ‘Swimming’; some of the dialogue really crackles, and Jack Bence demonstrates impressive emotional range, slipping from frustration, to rage, to remorse in a fluent, organic style. Yet somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. There’s something stilted about some of the lines: something artificial and forced, clashing uncomfortably with the the otherwise naturalistic dialogue. The serious, poetic interludes strive for weight, but achieve only pretension, and an important emotional beat was lost when an actor mumbled her way through the crucial lines, the only moment her character had to show any depth. In striving to say something meaningful about teenagers, this fails to say anything at all.

Pleasance Dome, until 25 Aug.
tw rating 2/5 | [Andrew Leask]



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