No Place Called Home
★★★☆☆ Climate crisis drama
Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16): Mon 19 – Sat 24 Aug 2024
Review by Tom Ralphs
Whilst the production team and cast of No Place Called Home are predominantly students, ThirdCulture Productions are not a student led company. At a time when cuts to arts funding in Scotland are making the news again, it’s refreshing to see current and former students committing their immediate future to Edinburgh.
The long-term future of the country and planet is the focus of their debut fringe production. Officially set at an ambiguous time in the near future, the only clue to how near this is comes in the form of a headline inside a newspaper one of the characters is reading that announces the postponement of Euro 2046.
Finn Vogels and Eliana Kiakides. Pic: ThirdCulture.
The world depicted in the play is less a dystopia and more a place where despair has wiped out hope – and denial may be the only coping mechanism available. This is strongly hinted at in Emilie Noël’s set design, where items that will become a house are initially covered in a cloth that suggests a time and place that have ceased to belong to anyone.
The covers are taken off by Laura and Ellis, a young couple played by Eliana Kiakides and Finn Vogels. They have moved away from London into what was previously his mother’s house. Ellis is still thinking about raising a family and having what would be seen as a traditional life, while Laura seems more wary about embracing this ideal.
Introducing a third character into the mix, Ellis takes a call from Francis, played by Amiran Antadze. Francis is looking for a place to stay after his current home is rendered uninhabitable. His relationship to Ellis is never made clear, but as the story unfolds he seems to be influencing Laura’s decisions about her future.
narrators and observers
That these decisions have impacted on Ellis and Laura are clear from the outset as older versions of Ellis and Francis, played by Ben Pearson and Ted Ackery, introduce the story and continue to act as a mixture of narrators and observers throughout the play.
In many ways, the set up could have come from a Channel 5 psychological drama run over four consecutive nights. What sets it apart from this are the environmental issues and themes of vulnerability in the face of climate change that underpin the story and production.
Amiran Antadze and Eliana Kiakides. Pic: ThirdCulture
However, the framing of the story means that this doesn’t come out as fully as it could have done, and its role in creating the domestic drama that has changed the lives of Ellis and Laura and others is underplayed until the conclusion.
Kiakides and Vogels both deliver heartfelt performances, investing their characters with emotion and conviction in their respective hopes and fears. Antadze, as Francis, is initially aloof and always slightly distant, both ill at ease himself and making Ellis and Laura similarly unsettled.
unnecessary commentary
The decision by writer/director Sebastian Elder to have the separate time period and narrators, breaks the development of the story, so that much of the dialogue Pearson and Ackery deliver sounds like unnecessary commentary. Movement director Jasmine Elder has them as omniscient observers but their presence becomes stilted and contrived in places, in contrast with the more fluid movement of the younger characters.
There is a passion and commitment that runs throughout all aspects of the production, but the same message cold be delivered more powerfully without the flash forwards and distractions that come with it.
Running time: One hour (no interval)
Greenside @ Riddles Court (Willow Studio), 322 Lawnmarket, EH1 2PG (Venue 16)
Monday 19 – Saturday 24 August 2024
Daily: 8.55pm
Details and tickets at: Book here
Instagram: @thirdculture_productions
Linktree: @noplacecalledhome
Eliana Kiakides, Ted Ackery, Ben Pearson and Finn Vogels. Pic: ThirdCulture.
ENDS
