Strangely absorbing: the first lockdown dramas reviewed

High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the Time of Corona, made up of five filmed reflections on self-isolation. ‘Rainbows’ by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is narrated by a woman on the edge teaching her kids to decorate the windows with coloured paints. ‘Child Two is crying and Child One is giving me the finger.’ Outside, as she takes a photograph, she suffers an anxiety attack. ‘The gurgling panic in the base of my gut, the pain in my chest. Not virus, all fear.’ She decides to flee. But will her children survive without her? Convincingly performed by Katie Lyons, this is a simple, well-made tale with a dilemma, a turning point and a resolution.

‘Bedlam Before The Burnout’ by Aisha Zia is set in late July 2020. We’re in London and a young woman (Jade Anouka) is looking back after spending the spring and summer hiding from a virus she regards as a personal inconvenience. ‘Dropped Mum at the airport,’ she tells us early on. ‘All the flights’ve been cancelled. Shit.’ Sometimes her self-absorption makes her lyrical. ‘Peace finds me finally in the early hours of the morning and I cherish it.’ Sometimes it makes her cryptic. ‘Gratitude arrives with desperation. Day 12. Pub’s closed.’ After three months she morphs into Jonathan Livingston Seagull. ‘Day 91. What is happiness?’ By Day 101, all she can manage is: ‘Are we going to make it?’ A character with more intelligence and humanity might have worked better.

Housetrap Theatre and Arts Festival curated a night of entertainment as a livestreamed event on YouTube. Mostly it was songs, drama and stand-up but the evening opened with a strangely absorbing piece by Yun Collective in Taiwan who brewed tea while a mysterious human hand decorated posters with English slogans.