Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Harriet Wilson, David Ward, James Dorman.
When the inevitable breakdown in society comes, would you be searching for the best place to hide and wait it out till the authorities find a way to exert control back or would you spend it in a locked room talking about the breakdown in your personal life and that of those you love. It is a question many will hope to never answer but as Thomas Oléron Evans explores in his play to stage production An Everyday Apocalypse, sometimes the end of the world is a lot closer to home than we ever imagine.
Zombies might be the latest fashion when it comes to predicting how society will eventually destroy itself and it is easy to see why when we don’t even understand the nature of how we are being consumed each day, how to be seen as not being consumers we are somehow alien to the rest of society’s ill, that if we allow the very human act of just standing still for a while and taking in the smell of a rose or listening to the heartbeat of one we love, then somehow we have failed. Zombies may be the latest fashion but they probably are closer to our eventual demise than most would dare admit.
When the virus takes hold, one Crosby couple find themselves in that precarious position of being trapped with each, a fate it seems that is harder to handle than making a dash for the car and heading for the wilds of Scotland’s natural habitat and a place to wait out the end of time. It is perhaps the bravest decision, home is where the heart lies and for Maya and Rob, the spectre of their marriage has always been right alongside them, the possible issues that need discussing and ones that any normal couple would see as tearing them apart; the rabid teeth of jealousy so much more difficult to out manoeuvre than a zombie aiming to rip out your throat.
As the conversation becomes harder to bear, the parallels between life and death are brought to life by the cast and in David Ward the feeling of failure in keeping the soul safe from its own internal harm is magnified and played out with distinction; the undercurrent of seething jealousy more destructive than any apocalypse can measure.
A very enjoyable play, one that brings home the idea of humanity willing to eat itself, to destroy itself by its own actions and inadequacies is to know that zombies are real, they just act like us.
Ian D. Hall