'Freefall' at The Pleasance

emilylouisehardy
Oct 29, 2014
2 min read

By EJ

I never read the blurb for shows. Never. I think it’s because I like surprises. I don’t like anything to give the game away, because as soon as it does my mind starts whirring. Oooooh, maybe this happens… Ooooh, it’s probably about this… and so on. So I don’t do it. I like to have no idea at all what I’m about to experience. I like to jump into the unkown.

So this week, I found myself upstairs in the Pleasance Islington waiting for a new play by Vinay Patel ‘Freefall.’ Ooooooh, what could Freefall be about… a twist on a Tom Petty song… a skydiving adventure gone wrong? Luckily it was neither of these..

As soon as Andrea (Molly Roberts), hurried across the industrial metal grid floor, climbed over some grey industrial breezeblocks and stood, one arm holding nervously on to a steel pillar it all became clear. She was going to jump. Oh God.

Just at the point when we think she is about to leap Roland (Maynard Eziashi) appears behind her, in a high visibility jacket, asking what she is doing on his bridge. “Bungee jumping?” he smiles. I’m going to like Roland, I thought. And there, on that windy Dartford bridge, begins the unlikely friendship.

Freefall is the story of two very different people, meeting in the same place, with the same problems, but looking at life (and death) in completely different ways. And it’s good. Vinay has written a funny, sharp and engaging play here and for me it is definitely the writing that stands out in this production. The underlying desperation and loneliness in both of these characters is beautifully hidden in their spats, squabbles and jokes, only being exposed when one is pushed too far or made to feel something real. The more we learn about them , the more we care and the more we are desperate for a happy ending.

Both Andrea (Molly Roberts) and Roland (Maynard Eziashi) give wonderful performances. Eziashi plays the caring, tired Roland with real ease and honesty. I really empathised with his situation and his simple, honest life - his efforts to help Andrea often thrown viciously back in his face.

Roberts, as bolshie Essex girl Andrea, is strong and defiant, hiding her vulnerability under a brash exterior; her explosions of anger truly intimidating. I wonder if she could have pulled her performance back slightly, in order to create more of the light and shade that is there in the writing, especially being in such an intimate space. For me, this delicacy was the only thing lacking.

This play about desperation, and how it can drive people to change, is quite touching and beautifully written. Far from leaving me freefalling, my leap into the unknown very much left me feeling uplifted.