Snakes and Giants

How did two very different women end up on the same cliff edge, staring at an oncoming storm? This tender patchwork of song, dance and spoken word from The Flanagan Collective collides myth with the present day as we follow the stories of a giantess drinking tea in a seaside pavilion and a woman who’s just broken up with her fiancé.

Performers Holly Beasley-Garrigan and Veronica Hare deliver their monologues separately, taking it in turns to narrate. There’s a mystical allure to the mythicism of Hare’s story, the strange tale of a giant out of time, but it’s Beasley-Garrigan’s half of the show that packs the emotional punch.

Her character has just come out of a long term relationship. She’s moved into a new flat with only one wine glass and she feels alone. "It’s easy to wish yourself too old", she warns herself in one of the many beautiful lines that Wright has written. Hers is a life packed in boxes, reflected in the small cardboard crates from which the performers take out significant objects and place them in patterns around the stage.

In Beasley-Garrigan’s story, on that cliff edge, we confront nostalgia and memory, the inescapability of ageing and eroding, and Wright reminds us that silence has a different quality when you’re with someone, compared to when you’re alone.

With the sound of the sea providing a constant, whispering soundtrack the show swells and surges like waves. This little candle of a show, a small beacon of light and warmth in stormy weather, proves that just because something is gentle doesn’t mean it lacks power.