Admirers of Peter Gill’s work as a director, notable for his productions of Chekhov and D H Lawrence, and admirers of Peter Gill’s work as a dramatist, notable for the award-winning The York Realist, will have been delighted when Jermyn Street Theatre announced they were going to stage a new play by Gill, now in his early eighties.
Something in the Air is a poignant one-act play, lasting just 65 minutes and a bit too complex and confusing to be totally accessible and successful.
Colin and Alex, two gay old men, sit in wing armchairs side by side, holding hands. They remain seated throughout. Dementia has set in and they are in a care home.
They have visitors with whom they engage and don’t engage: Colin (Ian Gelder) has a kindly, caring niece (Claire Price). Alex (Christopher Godwin) has a homophobic son (Andrew Woodall) who is embarrassed by his father holding hands.
There are also two young men in their twenties (James Schofield and Sam Thorpe-Spinks) who stand and sit on the periphery, largely silent, and only very occasionally interjecting a line or two. They could be the older men’s younger selves; but are not. They are their lovers when they were young.
Colin and Alex have over-long monologues in which they remember their youth in London 60 years ago: streams of consciousness, minds full of images, nostalgic and lyrical snapshots of places and people, plus snippets of history. It is very easy to find oneself switching off and listening to the sound of the words rather than the words themselves.
Conversation is limited and fragmentary. Present and past conversations, cross-cut, intertwine and overlap in a mix-up, which is not always easy to follow. I felt I was watching a first draft. The text feels incomplete.
Christopher Godwin skillfully alternates between being senile (unable to recognise his son and speak properly) to being perfectly lucid.
Hopefully, this production will trigger somebody to think of reviving the award-winning The York Realist.
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