The Band Back Together, Arcola Theatre, stage review: ‘The preciousness of youth’
L-R: Royce Cronin, James Westphal and Laura Evelyn on stage. Photograph: Kate Hockenhull
At the age of about 30, nostalgia really starts to kick it up a gear.
If you’re over that great age, I am sure you will scoff and chuckle at this naive statement.
If you’re under 30, or specifically, under 20, stop reading and go and do something foolish that you can be nostalgic about later.
Barney Norris (writer and director) understands this very well.
Hot on the heels of his Evening Standard Progress 1000 awards winner, Eventide, comes not so much a new take on getting older but a tried and tested route navigated by an astrolabe of a playwright.
Salisbury, a sleepy backwater rocked by the infamous poisoning case and then Covid, sucks three ex-bandmates, certainly no longer young, back into its small town embrace.
While preparing for a charity gig and taking trips down memory lane, all seems well and good.
That’s until a few closet skeletons come chasing them down the towpath.
A simple rehearsal room is all that’s needed.
Norris pens the awkwardness of old friends reuniting with a style that is sometimes a bit over-etched.
Our poor trio flounder, bumping over submerged rivalries, love affairs and the subtle differences that saw their childhood friendship fracture.
I think I counted three silent screams as the characters do their best to reconnect without revealing too much about the disappointed adults they have become.
That’s the problem with meeting long lost friends or, god forbid, lovers. They remember you as you were: youthful, hopeful, insecure, with terrible skin and a tendency to drink too much. All the progress you have made in the elapsing time is somehow swept away with one, ‘You know, I haven’t seen you since…’ This is captured with a lolloping mix of humour and sadness by Norris.
But to give life to this everyday Frankenstein of memory (led by Norris’s direction) is a trio both musically and dramatically dexterous.
Laura Evelyn is our lead singer Ellie – think a short-haired Debby Harry with a comedic dorkiness that always catches the other two off guard.
Ellie was a girl in the boys’ club back in the day, and was at the centre of a particularly messy love triangle.
Now she is an adult moving back to try for a baby with her boyfriend, but she is supremely unsure of her choices.
James Westphal has probably the lead storyline, as it is his character, Joe, who has brought the band back together.
Westphal not only has a voice like James Blunt and Paolo Nutini had a baby, and accomplished skill with a piano and guitar, but he also carries off this mammoth backstory with calm comedy and great drunkeness in the second act.
Joe is a lonely, left-behind man in many ways – divorced, struggling with mental illness, and typifying the plight of those who stayed where they were.
Lastly, Ross, played by a rocking Royce Cronin, is a jobbing musician, former anti-vaxxer, and loudmouth.
Cronin has a thumping voice and is a gifted guitarist, giving us a swaying drunken solo that contains so much pent-up frustration.
Two acts of reminiscences and tear-stained truths could be a bit taxing, but thankfully we have original music by Tom Cook, who has crafted some utterly mesmerising songs.
A folk ballad by Joe about love lost, the aforementioned solo by Ross, and the two songs that the group rehearse for the show.
The tunes are slipped in naturally, so don’t worry musical theatre atheists, but they of course reflect the themes being explored.
The band’s vibe is a joyous mix of Gossip, Blondie, and The Zutons, and if none of these names are familiar then its my turn on the nostalgia torture rack.
With the addition of a massive litre of cider, the friends’ fragile renewal comes crashing down.
But the message of personal growth, shared memory and the preciousness of youth has the sweet yet dangerous tang of cheap booze.
The soft tones of the band replay in our heads like a soundtrack, reminding us of our own back story, glowing radioactively like halcyon days have a habit of doing.
The Band Back Together runs until 28 September at the Arcola Theatre.