UNKNOWN - AT THE TOWN AND GOWN
Who are the people sleeping rough in the doorways of central Cambridge? They are nameless, anonymous, blank pages in the roll call of humanity; they are the ultimate unknown. Unknown is a very apt title for a brilliantly wrought piece of drama, simple yet complex in its exciting theatricality. The story is horribly predictable: a young boy abused and neglected at home is cast out by illiteracy, school bullying and desperate loneliness. Ricki is rescued by a lost half sister Mel but things do not work out and he is sucked into a vortex of homelessness with bureaucratic obstacles to finding him any kind of succour. There is the almost inevitable quicksand of petty crime, drugs and booze. What follows is a Dante-esque descent into a modern hell.
Director Moira Hunt of Roughhouse Theatre tells this depressing story with the lightest of touches. Scenes of Ricki’s benighted life are brought to life with wonderfully rapid changes in characterisation. Scott Bayliss was mesmeric as the child-adolescent-grown man Ricki. He brought a painful humanity to the part. Sabrina Laurison was also utterly watchable in a variety of roles – Ricki’s tragic mum, his caring sister and sometime partner sharing a blanket in a West Country doorway. Dan Gaisford was astonishingly good in a huge variety of characters – turning on a sixpence from sinister stepfather to faceless jobsworth. Scenes were punctuated by reading the names of real life Rickis who lost their lives, and their very names as forgotten homeless.
With a very simple set (essentially a blank stage), few props apart from a brick wall of box files – the production had a restless energy, even moments of dark humour, which brought to life the visceral story of Ricki’s nightmare journey. The script by Dougie Blaxland was based on verbatim accounts by several sellers of Big Issue. No wonder it had a strong sense of authenticity and opened doors into the normally forgotten world of the homeless. The play did a lot to make the unknown a little more known.
