Alex Jones’ play River’s Up is funny, poignant and heart wrenching. It pulls the audience in with its familiar characters and setting, with plenty of laughs about the bickering of the two lead characters, and puts them in an unfamiliar context of crisis.
Set in the nearby English countryside, it finds middle-aged Tom and Sally Millington facing yet another flood in their riverside home. They sandbag the house and move the furniture upstairs, only to awake the next morning to a flood of epic proportions, lapping at the ceiling. They manage to get into a dinghy, and start paddling for dry land, amidst rising waters. As their stock of food and water dwindles over the weeks, it becomes clear that that the world will never be the same, and they may be the last ones, afloat in a giant sea.
Sally is in denial and Tom is trying to be strong; together they manage to keep going. Despite their uncomfortably familiar bickering (she nags, he retaliates), they love each other very much, which gives us hope at the same time as the subject matter of the play, global warming, gives us fear.
Both Nicky Goldie (Sally) and Richard Stone (Tom) boast a wealth of experience with television and theatre, and this is clear from their performance. They play their characters effortlessly, with emotion and honesty. It is a bit of challenge to listen to their realistic arguing, despite knowing it is scripted, but it only brings more reality to the situation which we are all potentially facing. A nice range of props (including a rowboat), subtle lighting and lots of watery sound effects make this interesting to watch.
River’s Up is a performance by the Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company, which focuses on taking theatre to rural settings, and this tour includes a number of performances at village halls. There are four performances left (out of thirty) for OTTC’s run of River’s Up, in Wolvercote, Tetsworth and Chipping Norton.
Set in the nearby English countryside, it finds middle-aged Tom and Sally Millington facing yet another flood in their riverside home. They sandbag the house and move the furniture upstairs, only to awake the next morning to a flood of epic proportions, lapping at the ceiling. They manage to get into a dinghy, and start paddling for dry land, amidst rising waters. As their stock of food and water dwindles over the weeks, it becomes clear that that the world will never be the same, and they may be the last ones, afloat in a giant sea.
Sally is in denial and Tom is trying to be strong; together they manage to keep going. Despite their uncomfortably familiar bickering (she nags, he retaliates), they love each other very much, which gives us hope at the same time as the subject matter of the play, global warming, gives us fear.
Both Nicky Goldie (Sally) and Richard Stone (Tom) boast a wealth of experience with television and theatre, and this is clear from their performance. They play their characters effortlessly, with emotion and honesty. It is a bit of challenge to listen to their realistic arguing, despite knowing it is scripted, but it only brings more reality to the situation which we are all potentially facing. A nice range of props (including a rowboat), subtle lighting and lots of watery sound effects make this interesting to watch.
River’s Up is a performance by the Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company, which focuses on taking theatre to rural settings, and this tour includes a number of performances at village halls. There are four performances left (out of thirty) for OTTC’s run of River’s Up, in Wolvercote, Tetsworth and Chipping Norton.