REVIEW: This Town, Rory Aaron, Leicester Curve, Derby Theatre and Pleasance, EdFringe 2024 ★★☆☆☆

We’re in a pub in a small midlands town, being greeted by a narrator eager for us to listen, to engage. He tells us that school friends Dean and Joe bump into each other, five years after leaving school, before we are whisked back to their younger days of truancy and boyish feuds. After so much time has passed, has anything about them, or their tiny town, really changed?

As is characteristic of a small town, everything seems the same, apart from the fact that the local is about to be turned into a café (who needs lattes when you can have pints?). The writing is charged with creative rhymes that push the dialogue forwards. It is punchy and descriptive, effectively painting a picture of each nook and cranny of the town wherein this story is told. We meet a multitude of characters, all connected to one another in some way, hammering home the reality of a tight-knit community living in its own little bubble. 

Whilst the characters are recognisable, there is a struggle in their credibility as there is little to differentiate them from the narrator himself. It makes the distinction between characters and narrator often hard to spot, helped only by the repetition of ‘he said’, ‘she said’. The language is fruitful, however there are only a few points where the emotions of the piece feel palpable. Liam’s story as the older brother who returns home from the army is one of those moments, where his struggle with PTSD is deeply felt. A lamp turned on and off to depict the explosion of bombs is clever, where lamps used similarly in other parts of the production lack purpose, presumably being turned on to represent a highlighted character or emotion, we’re unsure as to which. 

There are interesting subjects in the story, notably the violence within male-to-male relationships and the homophobic rhetoric frequently shared between young schoolboys. The difficulty is that none of these subjects take centre stage as the core of the story, meaning we never get to delve deep enough into their effects. Paired with pacing that forces us to move through some scenes too quickly, so much that we’re unable to settle into the key points of the piece, produces a fly-by of what has the potential to be a gritty, poignant and rarely told experience. There is no doubt that the conception of This Town is there, but we’re still waiting for the clouds to part.

Recommended Drink: A big cold pint of lager, preferably perched on top of a wobbly table at the local.