REVIEW: Buckled, Unity Theatre
This new one-act play examines society’s problem with drink
Buckled, the latest play by Southport-based Helen Jeffery, sees the writer also taking on directorial duties and performing as one of the cast of three; a project at once close to her heart, but with a much wider message.
She plays Maggie, a lonely single mum trying to repair her relationship with adult son Callum (David Rimmer) and come to terms with her years of alcoholism. Meanwhile, Callum’s relationship with childhood friend Ruby (a strong performance from Samantha Alton) is under strain due to her ever-increasing dependence on the bottle.
This is a tight, well-written and well-executed examination of a wider, recognisable societal problem - of an England where there’s always an excuse to have a drink, and seemingly no good reason to stop.
Topped and tailed with energetic, evocative ensemble verse setting out that very situation, Trainspotting-style, the work is a series of short monologues and two handers that put the flesh and bones on the three characters and their situations.
Ruby is young, and losing friends and opportunities through her binges and blackouts; Maggie has been there and got the t-shirt, addressing the audience as an AA meeting, with an air of one of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads. Callum is the fallout; the one who has suffered from the damage done and sees things from another perspective.
Together this combination of points of view gives the audience food for thought about drink and our personal relationship with it. It’s a hard subject to tackle without ultimately sounding like something of a public service announcement, and while there’s shades of that here, it’s also a reality that there’s nothing to lose by looking a bit closer at our own habits around alcohol, if relevant.
Those of us of a certain age - as the Britpop soundtrack attests - will totally get a lot of what Jeffrey is saying here. Perhaps times are changing for the younger generation, facing different issues.
Buckled is a mature, intelligent work with a plenty to say and a big heart.
