Review: The Here and This and Now at Southwark Playhouse

The topic of antibiotic resistance has been picked up by the media with greater pace recently, but it’s not quite reached the level of urgency which it deserves. Glenn Waldron’s The Here and This and Now, which is at The Southwark playhouse following a run at Theatre Royal Plymouth, uses the impending crisis as the jumping point for a dark comedy filled with mis-direction.

The relatively bare set resembles an industrial estate type of office, but we soon realise that the employees of McCabe Pharmaceuticals are on an office away-day, anyone who’s ever had to endure one of these events will understand why they are ripe pickings for a comedy. Ball throwing, chanting and general office chit-chat are interrupted by remarkably similar sounding monologues, this is the sales pitch that office manager, Niall (Simon Darwen), is trying to coach the team to deliver to medical receptionists up and down the country.

The monologues become increasingly more amusing, and you find yourself starting to believe the pitch, even if at the end you still don’t exactly understand what they are selling. But, just when you think you’ve come to grips with the away-day, the action fast-forwards six years and it become apparent a lot has changed, and it is now meek Helen with her finger on the button, of a projector at least.

The swooping change from present day, to the future, comes at just the right time. The away day portion is amusing, but has reached its natural end when the office set is transformed to Niall’s living room. Two of the characters are lost to this second act, which is a shame as Tala Gouveia and Andy Rush give excellent performances, and in another of Waldron’s twists it initially feels like the focus of the play is on them, but their loss is essential for the second act to work.

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The glimpse of a somewhat dystopian future, is chilling to say the least. The changes the world have seen are extreme, but entirely believable, real events in 2014 could easily have led us to the point now being presented as 2024.

A final epilogue seals the deal in terms of this being a dark comedy, and nicely brings the play full circle, even if there are still a few loose ends. Those loose ends, though, nicely sum up The Here and This and Now, demonstrating that the action we take now will have consequences for centuries to come, when none of us are around to see the damage we’ve done.

The Here and This and Now, part of the Strange Tales from The West Country repertoire season, is a thoroughly engaging play; direction by Simon Stokes keeps it all moving along at the right pace, leaving you in a state of heightened anticipation. As Helen, Becci Gemmell grabs the audiences’ attention from her first line and gives the production the final push it needs.