Big Big Sky - Hampstead Downstairs

[mkb]

Make sure you've fully eaten before seeing Big Big Sky. Watching Matt Sutton, who plays the dad, Dennis, eat pasty and baked beans three times over in the set's detailed café, left me hungry for some comfort food by the end.

Unusually for theatre, this set even has a ceiling. And within those confines, four characters, three locals and a Brummie, play out a gentle and poignant drama set at Kilnsea on the East Yorkshire coast.

While the themes and narrative have been done before, playwright Tom Wells, just as with his earlier play Folk, is a master at drawing characters who seem at once incredibly real -- very ordinary people you might expect to meet in this remote coastal wildlife sanctuary -- yet who nevertheless fascinate and engage the observer. The obvious temptation for melodramatic plot twists is firmly resisted, in favour of something that is entirely believable. It felt like a modern-day kitchen-sink drama, but without the anger and the misery.

There's humour aplenty in the dialogue, although few others were laughing. Maybe that's a London thing? And several moments where I was moved to tears.

There are good performances all round, but Jessica Jolleys, apparently straight out of drama school, stood out as the vulnerable but determined Lauren. A name to watch.

I wanted to rate this as five stars, as I did Folk, but it wasn't quite so finely honed. It's certainly in the upper end of four-star, and well worth checking out, but most performances are already sold out.

One act: 20:02-21:31

[mkb]

Worth noting too that mask wearing was required and enforced. Other theatres take note!

[dlevi]

I love Tom Wells's plays. I'm seeing this in a couple of weeks and can't wait. He's the most underrated of our contemporary playwrights maybe this will be the play that gives him a more wide-ranging popular success.

[zahidf]

I saw this a couple of days ago. Really liked it, Tom Wells is a great playwright

[Steve]

I've seen 3 Tom Wells plays now, including this one (the other two, "The Kitchen Sink" and "Jumpers for Goalposts" I saw at the Bush Theatre), and of them, I should have thought "Jumpers for Goalposts," rather than this one, is the one that should eventually propel Tom Wells to a greater level of success. All it takes is for that one to be made into a movie, as it's a much more commercial story of a perpetually losing five-a-side football team, "Barely Athletic," taking on local heavyweights "Tranny United," and all the personal travails each of the loveable members of "Barely Athletic" go through. It is arguably much funnier than this play, as it contains more witty and sarcastic characters than the eccentric and sincere ones in this play, and includes significantly more dramatic events than occur in "Big Big Sky," which, by contrast, is a gentle dealing-with-grief-and-isolation play.

As such, I don't think this play is particularly funny, so I certainly shouldn't blame "Londoners" for not laughing much. It is quirky and warm and more than anything, utterly sincere in it's love of everyday ordinary human beings.

That last quality, of Tom Wells, is what makes this play, about birdwatchers and cafe owners converging in a small town near Hull, so pleasurable to watch. It's simply lovely to spend time with Jennifer Daley's understanding and generous cafe owner and Sam Newton's stumbling and stuttering and blundering bird watcher, and Matt Sutton's clumsy blustering father figure, and Jessica Jolley's sparky and yearning daughter and cafe worker.

Jolley's character is the closest to being genuinely funny, as her character has a charged attitude to all the other characters that brings a spark to all her interactions, and the actor really captures that so truthfully and endearingly.

But even then, the play's focus on grief doesn't really lend itself to humour, and Tom Wells' heartfelt sincerity would never allow him to plunge into insincerity and wit to make fun of the grieving process. Indeed, in "The Kitchen Sink," Well's funniest joke was an explicit laser-like critique, of London's love of insincerity, when Ryan Sampson's artist character's sincere loving portrait of Dolly Parton is continuously mistaken for some kind of ironic critique of Parton by a London art school.

Another playwright might make fun of the eccentric behaviour in this play, and get major comic mileage out of it at the expense of the characters, but Tom Wells refuses to do that. So this play is more smiles than laughs.

What this play IS like is spending two hours with lovely people, that gives you an insight into the human condition, and leaves you feeling uplifted when you leave the theatre.

An acquaintance of mine compared the play to "Eastenders," because it's "just people talking," but it presents a playwrights's singular conception of the human condition, and is not the work of a string of different writers playing up punchy melodrama to titillate an audience. So for me, unlike Eastenders, this is more than the sum of it's parts.

For me, 4 stars.

[princeton]

I saw it earlier in the week too. I echo what was said above - a delightful gentle play where nothing happens yet everything happens - and the obvious plot twist which I was expecting from having read the website copy thankfully never happened. It felt really special to be sitting there with a capacity audience of around 30 people watching it. And yes, there were tears at several points - though it's laced with gentle humour well as one or two laugh out loud moments.

Well done to Hampstead for having shows in both its performance spaces and doing everything it can to ensure that safety is paramount.

I had to have pasty and beans (and chips) for 'tea' the following day - and also really want to visit Kilnsea.

[tmesis]

I absolutely loved this when I saw it around two weeks ago. Tom Wells, although reasonably well known in theatrical terms, deserves far greater exposure than he has so far received (are you listening NT ?)

[cavocado]

I loved this play. I've posted about how I didn't enjoy Bagdad Cafe, which had similar themes of loneliness and isolation, but this play had everything I wished I'd seen in BC - sincerity, warmth, insight into the human condition, subtlety, clever and believable dialogue. Tom Wells puts the characters ahead of the concept and nothing feels forced - it feels like a distillation of the way real people talk, the humour is gentle and incidental, and it's so well observed - we're shown the little things which change the characters' lives as they deal with their sadness and pain. It was heartwarming while also acknowledging the bad things in the world: a perfect post-Covid play.

The set was lovely, the actors all excellent, and I've no idea how Matt Sutton ate three meals in an hour and a half. I also liked that it deals with environmental issues without being a political commentary, but was more about the ways the characters find solace and joy in nature.

Quite a few empty seats last night, but I saw yesterday there was only one ticket left, so I assume they were all no shows or late arrivals.

I've not seen any of Tom Wells' other plays but I am planning to read some of them now, and I hope to see more by him.

[Forrest]

Based on the fact that absolutely everyone on here loved this - and that I've been wanting to see something Tom Wells has written for a while (and was so sad to see how quickly this originally sold out) - I went to randomly check if any tickets have become available and have just booked one for Monday evening! I cannot wait! 

[Forrest]

I saw this on Monday, and it did not disappoint: it's all been said already, but it is one adorable little play. I loved both the writing and the performances, but an extra special hats off goes to Sam Newton for his nerdy yet ridiculously sweet portrayal of Ed. 

I've finally ticked off "seeing a Tom Wells play" from my wish list. Now I cannot wait to see the next one! 
(Bonus adorable points go to Tom Wells, who replied to say "thank you" to my ridiculously fangirly tweet.)

[TallPaul]

Tom Wells' The Kitchen Sink has just opened at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch. Runs until 2 April.

2-for-1 tickets available as part of that National Lottery initiative.

[Forrest]

Oh, wow, thank you for this TallPaul! :)