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 The Tower’s New Directors’ Scheme is an excellent initiative – encouraging new talent to spread their directing wings. For Spring Forward, Nick Hern Books – one of the UK’s major theatre publishers and performing rights’ agents – had allowed us to perform five short plays by established dramatists. So for completeness of record the list of plays, playwrights and directors is:
Distant Early Warning by Tatty Hennessy – directed by Feiyang Yang
Two Billion Beats by Sonali Bhattacharyya – directed by Olivia Chakraborty
Lynndie’s Gotta Gun by Enda Walsh – directed by Flavia Di Saverio
Tituba by Winsome Pinnock – directed by Anna Lindén
That Almost Unnameable Lust by Rebecca Lenkiewicz – directed by Rosie Barwick
 For an evening of which the overall title was Spring Forward there wasn’t a lot of Spring-like cheeriness going on. The plays covered an extensive range of dark themes, including (in roughly playing order) catastrophic climate change and the breakdown of society, racism and bullying, threat and murder, unjust treatment and the subjugation of women, abuse, violence and self-harm. That’s not an exhaustive list. Not a new-born lamb or daffodil in sight.
 There were, however some excellent performances to admire. I liked John McSpadyen’s characterization of “proud Northerner” Frank, and the neatly deceptive Clary (Kate Roche) in the first play. Both Thissy Dias as Asha and Chaachi Deane as Bettina in Two Billion Beats were excellent – there were some truly tender moments between them. I liked Lynndie’s Gotta Gun the least of the five plays – absolutely no clue what was going on – but was gripped by Katie Smith and Chris Frawley’s performances. Couldn’t help feeling that their talents were somewhat wasted in such a short, mad play. Faith Martin Abongo delivered her long monologue with passion and she moved beautifully in Tituba. Her mimicry of the other people in her drama was excellent. Occasionally I lost some of the words – she was quite softly spoken, and being set in the round meant that she had her back to some of the audience some of the time. The final piece of the evening, That Almost Unnameable Lust, was my favourite. It’s not that I’m especially keen on domestic violence, child abuse or self-harm or even women’s prisons – but the piece felt well-crafted and the characters were convincing and nuanced. Emma Cornford was wonderful as the gobby, yet vulnerable Liz, and Vyvyan Shaw was incredibly touching as Katherine. Alice Marie Han-Thomas brought it all together beautifully as the Writer. This piece was also the one that seemed to work best being staged in the round.
 About that, I am not convinced that all of these plays worked brilliantly within the “in the round” setting. Occasionally some of the words were lost when actors had their back to the audience, and it felt like an additional challenge for new directors to try and manage. Overall Alex Kampmann’s lighting felt a bit gloomy - but, hey, as we’ve established it wasn’t a light-hearted night out and he clearly followed the brief of each of the directors while maintaining an overall look for the evening. I could tell that a lot of thought had gone into the sound design for each piece and these worked well – neatly setting the scenes and punctuating the action.
 So what did I come away with? The evening felt rather long. Each piece was – I think – a bit longer than advertised and the unrelenting darkness of the themes made for a rather harrowing night out. So I would have gone for fewer pieces or shorter pieces – and definitely tried to have one or two jollier pieces in the overall mix. Also I might not have called the collection Spring Forward – though I appreciate that Some Good Plays About Difficult Subjects would not necessarily have drawn the crowds (and it was a pretty full house on the first night).
 However, there was some solid acting and directing talent to enjoy – and great to see a few new faces on stage as well as knowing that the emerging directors are getting the chance to try out their skills. I’m looking forward to the next presentations from new directing talent.
Photography by Robert Piwko
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