Out West at Lyric Hammersmith was a gratifying return to theatre

It is a cautious return to theatre for me and I have deliberately missed several shows that I would probably have gone to in better safer times two years ago. The first show to tempt me back was Out West at Lyric Hammersmith, partially because Lyric is one of my more regular theatres and partially because one of the three plays was written by Simon Stephens. I am enough of a fan of Stephens for him to have his own tag on this blog.

As expected, covid played havoc with my usual Lyric plans, which include eating in the bar there, but the makeshift plan of going to the nearby Hop Poles for a pint an a vegetarian plate. It was also a chance to catch the end of the England v Germany game which had the decency to finish before the theatre started,

It was probably stated on the Lyric website somewhere, which was either unread or forgotten, but this was not a random collection of plays, they all had a connection with Hammersmith (hence, I presume, the Out West title) and they all said something about racism.

The Overseas Student in the first play was Ghandi and it described his time in England studying law, a story I knew nothing about. I liked the way the story was told and it was interesting to learn connections to things I did know, such as the first asian MP Dadabhai Naoroji. I had come across his plaque just off Amwell Street in a road now named after him.

It was also interesting to learn that Naoroji was arguing then that Britain's wealth was at the expense of India's poverty. 

As with all of these plays this was a solo effort and Esh Alladi was excellent as the young man trying to get on in a strange land. The play, by Tanika Gupta, was a simple chronological narrative and that was fine, there was plenty enough interest in the story to not need theatrics.

Blue Water and Cold and Fresh was obviously written by Simon Stephens because of the swearing, though it came nowhere near the record for this that he set in Christmas. It was also obviously written by somebody interesting in the construction of plays and seeing some of the scaffolding added to the fun, as did spotting the recurring themes like sunlight and cups of tea. 

At first most of the interest came from discovering the structure of the story and the geography of Hammersmith then the narrative grew as we learned more about the protagonist and his family's past and then racism entered the story with a jolt.

Tom Mothersdale was measured and convincing as the man trying to understand his father by revisiting his past homes and reliving some memories of those times.

Go, Girl written by Roy Williams and played by Ayesha Antoine also switched between times and in this case it was a mother with a problematic daughter who thought back to when she was her daughter's age and had had the honour of singing to Michelle Obama who made a visit to her school.

Their story was one of both issues and possibilities and, in the end, Go, Girl proved to be good advice.

Three relatively short single-handed plays on a simple set was never going to be an epic but as a cautious return to the theatre this was an excellent and very enjoyable evening.