Theatre: The Distance

All photo’s courtesy of Sheffield Theatres

As some of you may know before I had a career change two years ago, I used to work in theatre.  For several years I worked as a lighting and stage engineer and even have a degree in drama.  However, since switching to publishing I have gotten behind on my theatre viewing.  I assumed I would go to the theatre more as an audience member since I no longer worked in that environment, but unfortunately for the most part this hasn’t really happened.  Recently I have made more of an effort and in the last month I’ve seen Farinelli and the King, Kinky Boots and Gypsy while I was in London.  So I was overjoyed when Sheffield Theatres contacted me to see if I wanted to go and review their latest show The Distance.

 

 

I’ll not beat around the bush, I really enjoyed this performance.  The thing that stood out to me the most was the writing.  The dialogue was fast paced and naturalistic; it really lent itself to the themes involved and made the humour authentic within the setting. It also made the relationships between the characters appear more genuine.  Throughout, it ebbed and flowed at appropriate times and was easy to follow and kept my attention fully.  It is a very female orientated play both in terms of cast and issues, creating some interesting points about what people expect from the different sexes, while never coming across as preachy.
The set was dynamic and put to great use, the action takes place in just two key locations but the scene change was a very clever use of the ‘in the round’ staging.

The play was a great mixture of comedy and emotion that juxtaposed each other perfectly. The serious subject matter was approached in a new way that made it relatable to most people.  The themes flow through every character in some way even if they didn’t realise it.  The story of one women is really reflective of them all.  There were some really great performances, especially from Charlotte Lucas.

The Distance is on in The Crucible Studio until the 14th of November