Silk Road

By Briony Rawle

Silk Road is a beautifully written, directed and performed one-man show about the shadowy eponymous corner of the internet used for shady trading, dark deals and worse. The play centres around 19-year-old Bruce, who lives with his nan and wants to make something of himself. When he discovers that Silk Road means that class-A drugs can be bought and sold anonymously and shipped using good old Royal Mail, he builds an international drugs empire from his bedroom, but he can only stay hidden for so long.

The frame of the story is well-trodden: young protagonist stumbles upon something dangerous but lucrative, which soon becomes bigger than he can handle. However, Old Vic New Voices writer Alex Oates has created something very modern with this play, which allows the dialectical dialogue to press occasionally into the poetic with the delicacy of Jim Cartwright or Dylan Thomas. As well as being extremely funny, the text is perfectly balanced, with cleverly woven recurring motifs that draw the whole thing together in satisfying unity.

James Baxter is an enormously talented performer, and plays Bruce with cheeky likeability, masterfully handling the character’s narrative responsibilities. His comic timing is perfect, and his precise and specific performance makes each different character in the story instantly recognisable. Baxter is hilarious and totally convincing as each one, from his imaginative nan, to Shaggy the coked-up Michael-Jackson-loving dealer, to a grim-faced Geordie bouncer who performs in am dram musicals. Baxter never lets the energy of his delivery drop, but handles the pace carefully so as to give suitable space to the more weighty moments of the story.

Despite being a play about an abstract online space, Silk Road is a completely human story, light on the jargon and heavy on the heart-strings. The show is elegant and well-composed, but with an honest, unpretentious charm, and is an absolute must-see for this festival.

Silk Road

Assembly George Square Studios

30th July – 25th August @ 13:25 (1 hour)

★★★★★

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