Make Mine a Double
Park Theatre
 

PARK Theatre continues its exciting commitment to new writing with four new or nearly new hour-long shows. Tunnels and Press share an evening and at first glance seem to have little in common, the first about two men digging their way under the Berlin Wall and the latter, a tabloid hack forced to grow a conscience.

As the plays develop the similarities begin to emerge. Both are fictional accounts based in factual events. Both leave the central character isolated and grief-stricken at the choices they have made.

Tunnels is a claustrophobic drama written and performed by Oliver Yelp as easy-going Freddie while Lewis Bruniges plays his emotionally damaged cousin, Paul. They share hopes, memories and banter about life in East Germany as they work on their 200-metre escape tunnel, but over time the tunnel becomes a petri dish for their anxieties, nightmares and losses.

Stylised digging sequences with incidental music and electronic sound effects heighten the atmosphere and there are moments of real tension as they near their exit point and both the past and the tunnel close in around them.

Unfortunately, some of the intensity gained from two strong performances is sacrificed with the inclusion of several contrived monologues and voiceovers designed to reveal more about the cousins and the country they are fleeing.

Press is an original and striking one-man show written and brilliantly performed by Sam Hoare as an engagingly witty and self-centred journalist with little or no moral compass.

The tragic ramifications of his sensationalist stories for the gutter press force him to take on a new role reporting on state violence and oppression.

The script is sharper than Tunnels and the manipulation of facts for the sake of the drama more effectively incorporated allowing the final scene to be less predictable and more moving.

Romola Garai’s intelligent direction adds to the impact by maximising the effect of small changes to the minimalist set which gradually isolates the journalist from the homely world where he greets us.

Both shows are entertaining and thought-provoking, pitting the personal against the state, and as a double bill they complement each other perfectly.

Runs until December 10 2022. Box office: 020 7870 6876, parktheatre.co.uk