Manchester Theatre News & Reviews

REVIEW - Lost Atoms is exhilarating theatre, earning its place in the filing cabinet of wonderful theatre memories

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE

On Tuesday, we went to see Lost Atoms at Lowry, Salford. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this brilliant piece of theatre...

For over 30 years now, Frantic Assembly have been wowing audiences with their desire to do something different, to feel fear whilst staring it in the face, and to create bold, innovative theatre. Their ambition and commitment to never stop learning, evolving, or challenging themselves and each other has developed them into one of the UK’s best loved and successful theatre companies. Known for their physical approach to storytelling, they strike a powerful chord, blending a multitude of skills to showcase that strength can be equally forceful and tender. They are a mesmerising company I have had the privilege of watching on numerous occasions and therefore have been looking forward to this production of Lost Atoms for quite some time. The joy of attending a Frantic Assembly production is that you cannot predict what you will watch but you can predict that it will leave you feeling invigorated, empowered, and enlightened.

Lost Atoms, written by Anna Jordan and commissioned and produced by Frantic Assembly in a co-production with Curve, Mayflower Southampton and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, takes us on a living, breathing exploration of love through the pulsing relationship of Jess and Robbie. We experience the heady mix of adrenaline and excitement as they relive those precious “first” memories – the first time they met, the first kiss, first holiday. It's all beautifully sweet……….until a traumatic event shatters their world and tiny flecks of fractured confusion creep in, slowly at first, then bleed their doubt across the entire story. What if the same event is remembered in entirely different ways? Does that mean someone is purposefully lying, or has their memory morphed itself into a narrative that best serves their needs? Does our emotional state at the point of the memory taking place impact how we remember it, and further still, does our own unique personality affect how we remember? Jess is chaos, Robbie is calm. Jess is open, Robbie is reserved. Can their version of events ever truly match? It’s one thing to believe that opposites attract but when events need to be questioned and remembered, can that playful and passionate spark that once formed the strongest of bonds, work against them in the cruellest of ways? Lost Atoms champions how everyday stories can be retold through stylised and innovative techniques, breathing fresh ideas, outlooks, and structure into the populated tales of difficult relationships. The themes explored in Jess and Robbie’s relationship may have been told before, but this is perhaps its strength, for it allows the storytelling itself to be the star. It is also written with fascinating intrigue at the more brutal side of love, exploring the heavy tax one might have to pay in return. Lost Atoms examines how we all interpret the same story, how we mould, manipulate and misremember details on both a conscious and sub conscious level, to elevate our own narrative. This phenomenon that we all experience is the life force of Lost Atoms and through the direction of Frantic Assembly’s Artistic Director Scott Graham, the edges of our memories are blurred alongside Jess and Robbie’s, creating a pathway for confusion which is played out in the most innovative ways. Graham boldly reinvents the linear, unafraid to stop scenes, restarting them with the added memory, and even allows the same scene to be played out across two locations simultaneously as Jess and Robbie disagree as to where it took place. It is a fascinating exploration of the influence of memory and I would have loved to have seen even more of this unfold throughout the play.

Imagine all the imaginings of your life, all the memories, events, conversations, experiences, thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, desires, and then wonder how on earth a lifetime of this can somehow nestle inside your head, all the while making room for every new moment as it happens, and all the future ones yet to come. Scott Graham has formulated a filing cabinet system for Jess and Robbie, with each drawer containing its own memory, whether that be represented by an emotion, an object, or glimpses of sound or light that bring it to life. As Jess and Robbie try to recall, they physically climb, reach, and mould themselves and the set around them to explore these memories, filed away for ease or safety? It is a fascinating concept and is a beautiful example of how creatives have amalgamated their skills into one finished product. With the most creative set design by Andrzej Goulding, lighting design by Simisola Majekodunmi, and sound design by Carolyn Downing, it is a shining example of a production of equals that complement and advance each other’s skills to new levels. The movement is sensational, effortlessly powerful yet beautifully surreal. The lighting echoes the disjointed, flickering memories and as they are forced to question their truths, everything is quite literally turned upside down in a dramatic yet brilliant, unexpected twist.

Hannah Sinclair Robinson (The Play That Goes Wrong, Metamorphosis, Doctors) and Joe Layton (Coronation Street, Othello, Animal Farm) are captivating as Jess and Robbie, displaying an exquisite level of trust in each other as performers, making their every acrobatic and balletic move seem effortless. They partner beautifully and are so slick with the most testing of physical demands. Theirs is a hypnotic performance, and you can’t help but will them on to figure things out. Both providing such naturalistic performances within unnaturalistic confinements, they strike a wonderful balance of stop start, knowing when to let loose and when to pull it back so that the audience engage in their story. There is humour, tenderness, awkwardness, vulnerability, anger, and trauma, blended together into an imperfect perfection as they do their best to navigate life with all its twists and turns. This is a relationship you believe in, and with some fabulous drunk acting from Robinson and accurately awkward ‘meeting the parents’ performance from Layton, there are plenty of moments to connect throughout.

Frantic Assembly fans will not be disappointed with this production as it displays all its trademark expertise in physical theatre and intriguingly plays out the whole story in an abstract space, forcing new and innovative means of connection to the material, the audience, and the two characters to each other. We witness the highs and lows of love through clashing personalities, the joy this can bring and, in this case, its inevitable end as their relationship whips up an untameable storm. With themes of love, sex, pregnancy, loss, and grief, Lost Atoms is not afraid to explore difficult emotions and does so with a dusting of humour as it metamorphosises the felt into the physical. As the play catapults itself towards its own inevitable fate, you realise just how invested you have become, feeling the bittersweet melancholy of life with a tender yet resigned ending that will perhaps mean a multitude of different things to different audience members, with no way of really knowing one way or the other. Perhaps this uncertainty echoes the plays identity, as audiences will conclude the end based on how they remember the play, impacted of course by their own symphony of life experiences.

WE SCORE LOST ATOMS...