Lifelines

Lifelines was part of an evening with two one act plays.

It was insightful watching how Sadleir Drama Club create their stage in Standon Village Hall, it is a very
clever use of the hall, and a lot of thought has been put into how the drama club can perform there.

Lifelines is a one act play set in the 1990’s, about two characts Annie and Robert who speak though Robert
dialling a wrong number and the play is their subsequent phone calls. Amanda Woodrooffe and Keith
Reville played Annie and Robert.

Amanda really seemed to have understood the emotions of how Annie felt it, as an audience we only met
Annie for half an hour, but we had a good sense of emotionally how Annie was feeling, from the moment
the curtain opened you could tell we were in for an emotional rollercoaster.

Keith gave Robert a caring feel. In the first phone call he did genuinely sound like he wanted to make sure
Annie was going to be ok and by the end you could tell he wanted that one meeting with Annie face to face.
Well done, to both performers.

The set was clever, it was split in half between Annie and Roberts home, with a bedroom on one side and a
kitchen on the other. Especially as this is a one act play, pace is important and this was lost a little during
the two scene changes, the second one in particular felt very long, I was also not sure the set change was
necessary as the dialogue between the actors told the story, I understand a costume change was
necessary but could this have been covered with Robert procrastinating about whether he was going to call
Annie or not, rather than closing the curtains?

There was a lot of thought put into the props, this was obvious with the cigarette boxes and the tiles in the
kitchen, however it is important to make sure all props, set and costumes are time specific, for example a
smart watch was worn, and these had not been invented in the 1990’s.
I felt genuinely invested in the two characters, and I could feel myself wanting Annie to not rip up Robert’s
number, this a testament to both actors, who only had half an hour to tell their story.

Thank you to Liz and the front of house team for their hospitality and the fish and chips were delicious.
Scott Welch
District 9
NODA East
© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.