MAST is the relaunched venue operator at the theatre previously known at The Nuffield in Southampton having acquired the virtually brand new theatre from the administrator for a bargain price of £75,000 when the previous operator was forced into administration during the pandemic. It opened its first season with the Ballet Rambert and then followed up with a week residence of the Rhum + Clay production of The War of the Worlds which had toured in 2019 and was due to play the NST in 2020. It is a four-handed radio play that explores the truth of the original fake news story, Orson Welles infamous radio production of the HG Wells story and draws parallels with the fake news stories on the internet during the 2016 US American presidential election.
The writer Isley Lynn had created a complicated at times confusing mash-up of these two stories with all the characters played by the two female and two male actors, Gina Issacs and Jess Mabel Jones and Julian Spooner (who also directs) and Matt Wells (who also devises the movement). The context is set when all four appear simultaneously as Orson Wells reflecting on the impact of the 1938 radio broadcast which many listeners were reported to believe was an actual report on an Alien invasion. However, although you can compare Radio of the 1930s as a source of news with the social media sources of news in the 2020's it does seem to me that there is a fundamental difference between a radio drama designed to entertain and a blogger deliberately trying to misinform the voting public which undermines the whole concept of the show.
The action is set in a radio studio created by a simple mesh wall but the lighting means we often see the flight cases used to transport the set between venues and can watch the stagehand lower the lights in from the wings fly rail and this breaking of not just the fourth wall but all four walls creates a distracting backcloth to the scenes. Occasionally they do create real dramatic tension as when they recreate the scene of the HG Wells meteor landing and its opening up. The video projections do try to create a sense of location and context but the images are quick moving and fuzzy and slightly overwhelming. The four performers are provided with no costume changes and few props to assist them in creating their characters and have to work very hard on their accents and facial expressions to switch between thirties performers and the 21st-century reporters and interviewees. Sometimes they are seen as silhouettes through the mesh walls, sometimes they are front lit through the mesh and occasionally we are lead back in time through jerky backward movement or see them lit by their mobile phones. Creatively they have experimented in bringing the two worlds to the stage but the effect is too much and disrupts the storytelling flow.
Sometimes this play is staged without interval, and with the bar shut at halftime for alcoholic drinks, it might have been better to have played this straight through. Indeed the show would work better as a 1 hour, more simply staged story or focused on just the truth behind the 1938 radio broadcast rather than the comparison with the fake news around the Trump election and Brexit referendum. The programming for MAST over the coming year needs to draw new and larger audiences into the venue to ensure it becomes financially sustainable and I am not convinced this type of show will achieve this but Southampton needs a successful playhouse to compliment the wonderful Mayflower and it is to be hoped once it gets going MAST will find its place in the Hampshire Cultural scene and enjoy more sell-out night like the NST first show Shadow Factory delivered.
Review by Nick Wayne
Rating: ★★★
Seat: Stalls Row A | Price of Ticket: £29.50
