Written and Performed by Joe Dennis. Directed by Will Sutherland
One-man plays present an enormous challenge – unless you’re Andrew Scott or Jodie Comer – yet since Covid we have seen a significant rise in the number of productions and certainly in quality.
To entertain alone you have to have the energy of a stand-up comedian, the character versatility of a Shakespearean actor, simple portable props, complementary soundtracks – and, of course, an excellent director.
It also helps if you have something additional and quirky.
Tides, written and performed by Joe Dennis and directed by Will Sutherland, makes full use of all these elements. On entering the auditorium at Salford Arts Theatre, we discovered many wacky and comical cartoon drawings pinned around. Not only were they all over the stage, they were also up the aisle and blue-tacked to the back of seats. I wished I’d gone to my seat earlier, to have time to appreciate them all, rather than lingering in the bar!
These drawings set the scene of the inner life of our character, Dylan Ward.
Without giving too many spoilers, Dylan charts his life from birth to adulthood; he deals with challenges that life throws at almost all of us but he portrays them through the specific viewpoint and challenges of autism.
From the opening scene, with ‘I wish I was special’ soundtrack, we see his birth as a simplistic illustration and we watch as he lines up his action figures in specific order. He seems to be a contented child within the security of home and he clearly has a loving family. But early sensory overload issues start to show and then, of course, he has to venture out into the challenges of school.
From here, whilst navigating the different stages of growing up, a David Attenborough- style voice-over observes Ryan’s own behaviours as an anthropological study. I really enjoyed this meta-technique especially as Ryan makes comments on it himself.
As Ryan, Joe has excellent physical and vocal command of the stage – and audience concentration during this hour-long performance never falters. He is at his best at characters. The Mighty Oak, an array of other teachers, friends and employers are beautifully captured, believable, and entertaining. These are ably assisted by director, Will, whose half-face drawings bring a comic and credible touch.
With minimal costume, Joe excellently depicts the physicality of each developmental stage. As an audience, we laughed in empathy and recognition. Some of the situations are extremely poignant. I held my breath for Ryan when he waited for a prospective girlfriend to make up her mind. Having been unable to decipher her polite initial brush-off, he had taken her literally at her word.
It is a measure of our engagement that we could feel our characters’ pain in so many situations; for me, it was the group work situation at university that really unearthed some buried horrors of my own.
The call centre scene was laugh-out-loud, from his cross-eyed eyed boss to his truthful way of reacting to awkward customers when their requests ‘Literally don’t make sense.’ In the workplace, however, explaining about his autism saves his job initially, as thankfully, companies are now required to support employees with communication difficulties.
It is all credit to how involved we were as an audience that when Ryan receives the dreadful news of his mother’s death, we all sat in complete silence with him.
The final scene is positive, as he packs up his characters and chooses to display the illustration of a smiling young man. His mother’s voice is always with him and he is secure in the love his parents gave him. And, hopefully, the world he lives in is now more equipped to understand some of autism’s complexities.
It one point in the play, Dylan says that autism is his superpower. But for Joe Dennis, his superpower is clearly his talent to entertain.
Josephine Galvin for Manchester Theatre Academy.
