Symphony is about finding your own story among the advertised illusion of lifestyles, opportunities and pre-written shoulds and woulds. Fluidly slipping in and out of characters or behind the keys, various guitars and the drum kit, the performers are a talented bunch, and especially at the kick-off with Tom Wells’ Jonesy, often manipulating the instruments to comedic effect.

Iddon Jones plays a 15-year old Welsh underdog who gets the PE GCSE blues. It’s all skimpy shorts, adolescent dreams and grinding expectations of lad culture but it also manages to take a witty look at how we measure our own success against expectations we draw from existing narratives. In Jonesy’s case Cool Runnings was his forming narrative, and why not? In Tom Wells: Plays 1 published in 2021 Jonesy will be right next to Jumpers For Goalposts, part of the playwright’s “Young Men and Sports”-Cycle and it will feel like foreplay, an amusing side note to the infinitely superior Jumpers.

A Love Song for the People of London by Ella Hickson makes Symphony slide unashamedly from dick jokes with asthma inhalers to pie-baking Zooey Deschanel admirers on this years’ universal kookiness scale. Bemoaning kindles for ruining chances to flirt and damning fateful brollies for communication mishaps, the players in this menagerie are serenaded by London (in shape of a Brit Pop front man) itself. It’s a great twist, delivering one of the best (musical) moments of the piece – a throbbing soundtrack about chancing your luck. Liam Gerrard plays Alex who bakes pies when he’s anxious and who sniffs his dream girl’s hair on the bus. Alex pathetically rages against the unkind urban spirit who is selective about whose love life he’ll support. Suck it, pie creep! London doesn’t owe you anything.

Striking me as the most genuine in this triad of self-narrating characters are Jack Brown’s mucky pup philanderer, and Katie Elin-Salt, as a woman who knows what she wants. The rise and fall of an urban love story in Nick Payne’s My Thoughts On Leaving You is a funny account of heart break, full of delightful stranger than fiction contrasts – real people meeting in a puddle of wee and trying to create something meaningful out of it.

The show ends on a beautiful chanson note about the City and for a moment the three plays come together under a wicked sound blanket, thickly woven like an urban structure with ideas of fate, predetermination and luck sticking out like passionately moving limbs. Although the unruly punchiness of the piece was highlighted by a crackling soundtrack, surely curtsey of a repeatedly dropped amplifier, the venue hindered the chance to be entirely engrossed in the music festival style art form mix. The raked seating in Assembly’s Bosco Tent is far removed from eyes-closed, swaying in the crowd with an East End microbrewery beer can in hand. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the venue, maybe on that day Symphony was just a love song from the wrong city.

Originally written for Exeunt as part of the Edinburgh Fringe 2014 coverage.

Jack Shepherd’s 1989 play is a fictionalised account of an encounter between Blake, a poet who converses with angels, his wife and Thomas Paine, the political commentator who stirred up the war for independence in America; the conservative meets the republican. Paine is not invited, trails a flock of angry anti-revolution protesters behind him and he also brings some meaty issues to discuss along with him. What good does art do in times of conflict? Is it the moral obligation of the artist to intervene or should he merely observe? Is change of corrupted power always a change for the best? Is it important to carefully ask questions or do you find answers to problems through action?

Tom Mothersdale’s Blake is a bemused and innocent sort of fellow, displaying the odd bout of childlike wonderment and eagerness when playing with his new toy in form of a late 18th century intercontinental revolutionist. Christopher Hunter delivers a forceful foil, playing Paine at first sermonising and later more enraged and provocative. Once warmed up, the belief systems of their characters clash rather beautifully. Paine believes that injustices like child labour and illiteracy need to be fixed in whatever way necessary even if it means overthrowing ruling class. Blake argues that violence must inevitably breed more violence. He argues that there needs to be some sort of revelation before sending people into their deaths for a hazy utopia that has never been created in thought.

Blake and Paine struggle to find a common language to negotiate their seemingly irreconcilable ideas about social change. Their anchor in reality is Blake’s wife, played by Melody Grove who keeps the difficult balance between admiration and bewilderment for these men full of abstract ideas. An unequal woman among men discussing equality. While the men drink and talk themselves into a rage, she is the one who interacts with the people on the streets. She sends the menacing protesters circling the Blake property on their way and protects the Paine from the lynch mob. The naturalistic staging and open performances create a sense of listening in to a dinner table discussion which fails to maintain the same level of engagement throughout.

The immediacy of the revolution around doesn’t quite make it into the garden (Ruth Sutcliffe’s divine design). Even the regular reminder that this is a local story taking place not far from Blake’s residence doesn’t change that. Maybe some of the audio effects are too incongruent to create a sense of danger. Maybe there is not enough externalisation of thought. Either way, Michael Kingsbury’s interpretation of In Lambeth leaves Eden intact. It is not crying bloody murder or even shouting out loud that we desperately need art to examine processes of social change. It remains a tame play of ideas which is a right shame given the explosive power of these ideas today.

Originally written for Exeunt.