Theatre Review by our Theatre Reviewer Jonah Zalick #OnePlymouth
To say the past is behind us is a (usually) true statement – but sometimes we benefit most from revisiting it in order to continue moving forward.
Shôn Dale-Jones was approached about restaging his award-winning show ‘Floating’ where fictional artist Hugh Hughes recounts the Isle of Anglesey separating from mainland Wales. Dale-Jones, though, isn’t sure that his 2006 hit is what the drastically different world of 2022 needs.
Through ‘Still Floating’, he explores his uncertainty to remount ‘Floating’ in a post-Brexit and post-Russo-Ukrainian-war world where holiday lets and second homes cause the housing crisis to worsen. He returns to his hometown and wonders: what exactly is home in this strange new world we live in? This is done interchangeably with glimpses at the original ‘Floating’, poignantly showing that, perhaps, the best way to progress is to visit what you once knew.
The lone actor onstage, Dale-Jones’ performance struck right at my sense of humour. I’m a huge admirer of oddballs and the wonderfully wacky, and so I found Still Floating to be as equally a great hit as its predecessor.
You mightn’t expect the production to take the turns it does, clashing with discontent at the way our Britain and further Earth has turned out as well as closer, more personal conflicts – but Dale-Jones manages the discordance well with a concise point: that this is exactly life now – wild and unpredictable. We’re never sure what to feel, or which way things will go next. I find there’s still societal shame at feeling sadness where there’s joy, or vice versa. A lot of us think that while we feel one thing, we’re not allowed to feel the other. Combating this, Still Floating is a fantastic show of ‘laughing at the things that should make us cry’, exploring both sides of the coin and never exhibiting any shame for the realm of emotions we as human beings are prone to feeling.
Accompanying the one-man show are a fantastic set of musical tracks composed by John Biddle, which helped enhance Dale-Jones’ performance with its emotionally provoking notes. Still Floating couldn’t have been as powerful as it was without Biddle’s music.
Life has a way of being totally bizarre, for better or for worse. It inspires us to both laugh and cry, occasionally simultaneously – and that’s okay. Dale-Jones’ ‘Still Floating’ captures perfectly that. I’d encourage people to join its audiences to experience an indescribably unique show from a profoundly creative mind that touches on both the lovely and unforeseeable.
Theatre Review by our Theatre Reviewer Jonah Zalick #OnePlymouth
