Speech, Speech – SE Fest / The Jack Studio Theatre, London

Tristan Simpson’s debut play Speech, Speech is a funny, well-written addition to SE Fest.

Speech, Speech

Late summer is a great time of year for festivals local to me. Yesterday I saw CHAIR! at the tail end of the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, and today it is the turn of SE Fest. This lovely little festival, which is now in its third year, has to be the closest one to Salterton Arts Review HQ. It’s a festival of new writing, hosted by the Jack Studio Theatre in Crofton Park and Bridge House Theatre in Penge, two of my favourite local theatres. If you get the opportunity, head along to SE Fest before it concludes on 12 September.

I had only one opportunity to make it to SE Fest this year, more’s the pity. My pick was Speech, Speech, the debut play by Tristan Simpson. A two-hander, it features 18-year old Roger (Joseph Ryan-Hughes) and his uncle David (Paul T. Willcocks) as they work on a speech for Roger’s mum’s second wedding.

Weddings are of course the basis for many a good theatrical plot. Emotions run high, last minute hitches: the dramatic and comedic possibilities are endless. Simpson draws on these clichés in order to undermine them. If we think we know where the play is heading, with a moody and resentful teenager on the one hand and a soon-to-be divorced uncle on the other, we would be wrong. The thing about a good speech, I guess, is keeping the audience on their toes.

The Importance of Supporting New Writing

I thought the character development in Speech, Speech was particularly impressive in a debut work, helped by acting which digs into the characters’ foibles and contradictions. Roger is a believable 18 year old: waiting for real life to start, feeling adrift without the certainty of being the centre of his mum’s world. He’s grumpy, makes questionable choices, probably a bit lonely, but allows glimpses of the man he might become. David, who I’m sure is described as a cliché or a stereotype somewhere in the play, resists being one. He loves a gossip and is a little vain. At the same time he loves his family as deeply as he mourns his relationship with his husband.

The structure of the play is also quite neat. Consecutive meetings between uncle and nephew are broken up by excerpts from a possible variation of Roger’s speech, the kind of intrusive thoughts/cathartic imagined scenarios I think we all indulge in at one time or another. Will Roger really try to undermine his mother’s marriage before it’s begun? Or will something David says get through to him?

The Jack Studio and Bridge House theatres are both champions of new writing even outside of SE Fest. Speech, Speech is a good demonstration of why this is so important. Having spaces to develop new work like this and try it in front of an audience is a key part of supporting theatre as a whole. In Speech, Speech Simpson has had the opportunity to direct as well as write, and keeps things fun and quick-paced while also letting the audience sit with the less comfortable moments. If the rest of SE Fest is of this calibre, no wonder it seems to have such a good audience following.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Speech, Speech on until 5 September only, as part of SE Fest which continues until 12 September.