TheSpace

London

Live Stream – 27th August

Dancing to Disco is, in its purest form, a university diary, acted out, one would say, unpassionately by Tom Claxton. He didn’t write the piece, that’s the work of Nick Dawkins, & it is perhaps the disconnect that made the piece imperfect. Diaries are personal things & its impossible to really feel the nuances thought & life happenings that drive the diarist’s pen.

As theatre, its a monologue, but its still a diary, fill’d with names of various people & the fun & quirky stuff they get up to & said, such as ‘Oxford, Oxford, taxis, coke, Oxford, “I’m doing politics… my dad’s a lawyer”,’ etc., etc..  The character, Tommy, is a young working-class Mancunian who loves his disco. I love my disco, but it does need a bit of glitz & glamour, not a cardboard box set & dancing in socks & dressing gown. Altho’ at one point, the boxes are turned into a night-time’s cityscape beside which Tom Claxton soliloquised his most poetic piece in a half-chaunt – which was a highlight.

Altho’ Claxton comes across as a fine actor, & especially an orator, I just didn’t think this was the play for him – he needs other actors about him to flourish, one expects. On another note, this is not the only play I’ve disparaged on the streaming platform, & maybe it would have been better to see it all in person. But then again, a university diary is not drama, even if you have join’d the first year drama club.

Damian Beeson Bullen