Review: Peak Stuff

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It's safe to say that life in Manchester can be pretty overwhelming for Alice, Ben and Charlie, the three characters whose lives intertwine in Peak Stuff, a new play by Billie Collins. 

Ben, for example, is a 6ft tall, 35-year-old marketing associate with a dread of relationships, of allowing himself to form emotional attachments.  

Charlie, meanwhile, lives self-inflicted isolation, only communicating with the outside world remotely to auction her body parts, one by one, online to the highest bidder. When MurkeyTurtle77 pops up in her chat one day, will they change her life forever?   

Finally, Alice is 15, still at school and just discovering a social conscience. She wants to make a difference. Protest is her weapon, a fledgling climate-warrior and a would be Greta Thunberg in the making, albeit one with a gory love of using dead animals to make her point.  

All have one thing in common, a disconnect with society; sometimes they feel like they are not really here. 

As a study of the way today's ever more complex world can affect our mental well-being, Peak Stuff is a thought-provoking, often funny and confusing piece that, like its protagonists, becomes overwhelmed by the message, losing its ability to hold attention towards the end of its ten minutes too long 75 minute running time (no interval).

Raging again globalisation, consumerism and climate change while addressing themes of bereavement, helplessness and fear, Peak Stuff could be a depressing evening of theatre were it not for a wonderful turn from Meg Lewis, who brings the unlikely triumvirate of characters to life as they each embark on their own journeys of personal discovery.

Effortlessly flipping between personas, each is beautifully realised and imbued with a vein of truth and hope that, for the most, allows Lewis to command the room, holding the audience with every look, smile and grimace. 

Neil Bettles directs with precision in the confined space available, ensuring character transitions are clear and concise and handles the contrived nature of the ending as well as somewhat random blast of Sylvester's 70's disco hit, You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), deftly.  

Producers ThickSkin set out their stall in the programme as 'reimagining what theatre can be' through, 'future-facing, multi-disciplined formats' in a bid to 'make theatre accessible and exciting for you people' and Bettles and Tom Robbins' set design is a triumph of mixed media, that finds omnipresent drummer Matthew Churcher over-seeing the action from his 'window' in a wall of bricks onto which scenery is project with striking impact.

Surrounded by his drum-kit, Churcher provides live rolling percussion synched with a dreamlike synth-vibe, which he subtly triggers along with the voices of the various people Alice, Ben and Charlie meet as their stories unfold.

Those disembodied voiceovers, provided by Ajjaz Awad-Ibrahim, Esme Bayley, Hetty Hodgson, Joe Layton, Vicki Manderson, Jonnie Riordan, James Westphat and Churcher himself, add a futuristic computer-generated like feel to proceedings.

All of which tick a number of the aims of Thickskin’s raison d’être, to tell ‘unexpected stories in unexpected ways’. 

Tour dates here.