Nice Fish

Off to London again this evening to see an extraordinary play, ‘Nice Fish’. It was a treat suggested by my son to my mum and I tagged along because Mark Rylance was in it. I knew nothing about the play and have read no reviews so this (spoiler alert) is uncontaminated reaction.
 
For quite a while I was bewildered and confused, unsure whether we were in magical realism, surrealism, fantasy, post-modernism, absurdism, deconstruction or some newer theory/genre that I don’t know about. Then I began to think I was seeing the 21st century’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ (I love that play) and realised I was relishing the journey even though I had no idea where we were going. They chipped away at the fourth wall, stepped onto our side with an alluring clue then closed it again for some exquisite fun with theatre, what it is and what it does. The finale, where life and theatre come back together and the two key players become others is genius. This play will be studied on drama courses.
 
My journey home was on an old-fashioned train with swing doors that don’t close themselves. Unusual, so at the station where I was changing everyone just got off and left them open. So I walked down the platform slamming the huge heavy metal doors shut as I went. The weight, the strength, the solid metal thunks! Pure delight.
 
Now I’ll go and read what proper theatre people thought about the play.