ED2014 3/5 Reviews ED2014 Musical Reviews

Circle Line (Red Brick Rent)

By | Published on Wednesday 20 August 2014

Circles are brilliant metaphors, and Ciaran Walshe uses them to great effect in this musical. Seven passengers, sitting in a straight line on a tube carriage, are forced to interact when their train breaks down. They could cut the chunks of dialogue that turn the characters into caricatures, and the credit crunch theme feels out of date, but the music is excellent. Most of the songs, aside from one or two jazzier numbers, have a melancholy, unresolved quality, lingering on suspended notes and weaving unusual melodies. There is a real sense of the crushing grind of a daily commute in a starved economy, and the wonderful music emulates that sensation of feeling alone even when surrounded by hundreds of people.

Greenside @ Royal Terrace, until 23 Aug.
tw rating 3/5 | [Tim Bano]



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