Lovesong by Abi Morgan, Lyric, Hammersmith, dir Steven Hoggart, Scott Graham, design Merle Hensal, video design William Galloway, Adam Young, lighting Andy Purves, Edward Bennett, Leanne Rowe, Sian Phillips, Sam Cox
Spell-binding. A couple, in their early and late years, interleave experiences, in just 90 minutes. It is the story of their beginning and their end......Margaret and William, Billy and Maggie, live as a believable, seamless couple in a beautifully choreographed and finely judged production by Frantic Assembly. The use of projections, architecture, music and movement show the most simplest of stories: a lovesong. Yet it is epic in design. William at one point asks what if our lives are a series of film strips which we inhabit; in which time is not linear?....The company have captured this concept in a threnody that has left audiences standing. Abi Morgan’s script is a clever contrivance: juxtaposed ideas, themes, objects drop into the action only to recur later with an added poignancy, such as the peaches, the hammock and the boy Adam. We are being unashamedly manipulated yet the subject matter is so contemporary and the performances, so much in tune with each other, that we go along with everything. Even the flocks of starlings as they go about their business, mimicking all they hear in their upward sweep, play a fine, thematic role....And a production that can make sense of ipods,cave paintings and dentistry in the same orbit shows a deft touch.....………Exquisite 
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