HATS off to the Rep for staging theatre aimed at a younger/less traditional audience.
Written by award-winning playwright Douglas Maxwell, this short piece - just over one hour long - is set in a computer games shop and structured, intriguingly, as a computer game.
Each scene is a level and each player has three lives. Particular sequences are re-run , with different outcomes, as the players learn how to avoid defeat.
The play opens on the eve of the shop's closure. It is an outcome Helmet, a pallid youth damaged by life and the hours he spends playing computer games, is determined to postpone for as long as possible.
The play never resorts to gimmick and the pathos of the characters - beautifully played by Ameet Chana as Sal, the shopowner, and Tommy Mullins as Helmet - is skilfully drawn. Sal, a failure to his wife, father and himself, dreams of being a stand-up comic. Helmet just dreams of his next game. PW
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