Eight by Ella Hickson

Following on from their highly successful ‘Lockdown’ film venture ‘Two’ last year, Godalming Theatre Group treated us to a second film, this time of Ella Hickson’s challenging and thought-provoking play ‘Eight’.  This time we were able to attend a one-off showing at Godalming’s lovely Borough Hall.

The play consists of 8 monologues, surprising, shocking, unpredictable, and totally and utterly gripping. The fact that it was filmed provided an added element of drama, via close-ups of props and characters, quick changes of background, fade-ins and fade-outs of various images or scenery. Sadly I am not well-versed in reporting on filming – perhaps I need a quick lesson on the right terms from Spencer Cummins – suffice it to say that I very much appreciated the fine skills involved in the filming of this piece. It was immediate in a way quite different from the way the piece performed on stage would have been (though I can imagine how powerful that too must be.)

As with their first film, ‘Two’, GTG wished this showing to support a charity. This time they chose GRACE, which works out of Guildford’s Royal Surrey Hospital, and focusses on gynaecological cancers by raising awareness, funding research, and providing local hospitals with vital surgical equipment. A worthy cause indeed.

The programme provided an interesting Director’s Note, where we discovered that Ella Hickson, the playwright, is a local girl, who went to school in Guildford.  We were also told of the reasons behind the creative decision to use an all-female cast, although 4 of the characters are male. Cast profiles were thorough and made good reading.

Various backdrops were used – some bedrooms, a 50s kitchen, a warehouse, an art gallery, a mortuary – to good effect. Props were intriguing – a tennis racquet, travel requisites, a man in bed, and even a ‘corpse’ – but few, as not many were necessary, the faces and the words spoke for themselves.

Keith Thomas (camera) and Mike Wheeler (sound) gave us an excellent cinematographic experience. Everything was smooth, and appropriate. Nothing jarred.  We were allowed to concentrate on the actors, whilst being given the right amount of sound effects, background photos and set changes to aid our understanding.

The decision to film ‘Eight’ using an all-female cast worked very well, in my opinion. Spencer Cummins said in his Director’s Note that the hope was to ‘shed an interesting light on the male characters and the stories they had to tell’. I agree, it did.

The subject matter was tough indeed.  We had the direct aftermath of a suicide (Andre played by Freya Wall); a stifled teenager and her pregnancy (Mona played by Amy Maris); a flippant young adulteress (Astrid played by Nell Rayner); a good-hearted prostitute (Millie played by Charlotte Gould); a survivor of the London 2005 bus bomb (Miles played by Danni Taylor); a single mum with a tough life but an optimistic nature (Bobby played by Rosie Chappel); a young man discovering his sexuality in France (Jude played by Eleanor Sims); a young ex-soldier, recovering from wounds and other scars from Iraq, and now working in a mortuary (Danni played by Elena May Mason.)

The writing was astonishing. The subject matter was very raw, often quite hard to watch, made even more so by the quality of performance of all eight actresses here. That they could each and every one portray their characters with such feeling, yet never be ‘over the top’, and make them so believable, and make us think, think, think, was amazing indeed. Performances that will stay in my mind for a long while.

Entertainment for entertainment’s sake is all very well, and I like that too of course, but above all I appreciate theatre that makes my brain work overtime. This bowled me over. I was stunned.

 

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