Play is a Clear winner
I HAD no idea of what to expect when I turned up to see Clear White Light, a curious-sounding play which is currently enjoying its world premiere at Live Theatre.
I was none the wiser on hearing that it is part-musical and part-Gothic thriller but also something of a social statement about the modern-day NHS.
That the show, set in the claustrophobic confines of a psychiatric unit, manages to be all of those things, as well as a riveting drama, over the course of its two-hour-or-so run, is quite some feat.
The theatre’s own production - and a first biggie for its artistic director Joe Douglas, who took up his post at Live earlier this year – takes its title from the song by Lindisfarne’s Alan Hull which was inspired by his work as a psychiatric nurse at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth.
And Clear White Light is just one of several Lindisfarne tracks featuring in the show which are performed live by former band members Ray Laidlaw and Billy Mitchell and the actress and singer Charlie Hardwick and which help to change the tone and tempo of a story by Oliver Award-nominated writer Paul Sirett which was also inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
In true Gothic spirit, the show opens at the eerie and imposing brick facade of St Nick’s, where young student nurse Alison, played by Bryony Corrigan, is about to start her first night shift.
The atmosphere closes in on her – and us – once she enters the unit and meets the all-male patients, who are under the charge of experienced staffer Rod (Joe Caffrey), who turns out to be just the kind of calm and capable type you’d want alongside you if there was a whiff of any trouble.
During what they hope will be a quiet night, Rod reads aloud from Poe’s psychological chiller, which he reveals is the favourite book of his sister Maddie (Hardwick), who happens to be a patient in another wing.
So far, so creepy and – despite the occasional laughs to be had – an unsettling feeling takes hold without our quite knowing why.
Without wanting to spoil any of the story, it’s one which works on many levels and is driven by performances which pack a visceral punch.
The star of the show, for me, is Caffrey, whose character undergoes the emotional wringer – which must prove exhausting for the actor night after night – and when Rod loses control during a grief scene it’s like our comfort blanket of security has been whipped away.
Great too is the expressive Corrigan as Alison, who is at the centre of some intense scenes, and Hardwick, whose voice is well suited to songs such as Lady Eleanor, adding a haunting quality and capturing both force and vulnerability in Maddie, whose sudden
appearances in floaty outfits also add to the story’s Gothic elements, with other good old-fashioned chills coming in the form of increasingly eerie sounds, wild weather and even an on-stage lift whose jagged doors open like a shard of lighting.
The story takes on new dimensions during songs which see Hardwick joined by fellow cast members Alice Blundell, Phil Adele and Dale Jewitt, who lift the mood as they switch between a number of instruments and also take on roles as nurses and patients, with Jewitt putting in a particularly touching performance as selfharming patient Charlie.
It’s hard to describe a production like this without giving too much away. It’s about as far from a run-of-the-mill play as you can get. After a cracking first act, I did begin to wonder in the second half whether it might be in danger of becoming overblown and losing the plot after what felt like an almost Wuthering Heights moment of windlashed moorland madness.
But then it all comes together in a coherent whole - and in a way I certainly didn’t expect. I didn’t think it needed the little wrap-up explainer from Alison afterwards, while I suppose nobody could really object to the rather weighty Save the NHS message at the very end.
In all, this is powerful and quite extraordinary theatre and if you aren’t one of the lucky ones to have tickets for its sell-out run, which ends on November 10, then keep fingers crossed that there will be a tour and return visit to come.