Reviewed by Paul Treasure
From the moment the audience enters the Studio at the Blue Room in preparation for Courier, we are confronted by Piers MacKenzie already onstage, pedalling furiously on a stationary exercise bike, dressed as a food delivery rider. We are, by now, used to occasionally entering a space with actors already on their marks and ready to go, it is not very often that we get to see an actor already in frantic action. This introduction gives us the promise that this is going to be a frenetic and highly energised play, and it does not disappoint.
The set is very simple, literally just an exercise bike standing in for a courier bike. But it needs nothing more, in fact any more would weaken the impact of the end of the play. The lighting is effective, and the soundscape is beautifully realistic and exquisitely well-timed and executed,
Waiting for the show to begin we are already engrossed by Piers and his laser-like focus, waiting for the action to begin. He has us in his hands from before the show has even started, and the incredibly wild ride he takes us on is well-paced and interesting. We follow Piers as he plays a bike courier heading out on a delivery. Along the way, he meets a number of other characters, a fellow bike courier, a nurse, and various other customers and characters. Piers jumps between them deftly and believably, each of them clearly delineated and distinguishable from the other, managing the dialogue between characters with ease, even on the occasions when he is pretending to be three or more characters conversing at the same time.
As the play belts along at pace, we are suddenly blindsided by an astonishingly well-written twist. It doesn’t drop its pace at all and continues the momentum, But we are quickly aware that there is another story going on, and it takes us, as the audience, a short time to adjust, which adds to the disorienting effect. With such a major twist, most other scripts will suddenly expose that we are not watching the show we think we are watching. The genius and courageousness of this play are that when the twist arrives, Piers doesn’t go down this route. He hasn’t attempted to fool us, at no point has he ever misrepresented exactly what is going on onstage. Instead, he has allowed us to do our own fooling, he has let our own biases and preconceptions colour what we believe we are seeing. And that realisation is perhaps the secret to this play’s brilliance.
I sincerely hope I have not given too much away, as the twist is an amazing coup, and deserves to be experienced without too much foreknowledge. While Courier is not a play about COVID-19, it is a play that could not have existed before the lockdowns. In the end, we just know that we have witnessed a stunningly clever-yet-simple piece of theatre about loneliness and isolation, and the need and desire to connect to other people, even as we desperately push people away at the same time. It is a masterful piece of theatre and deserves the chance to see it if you can catch it.
Reviewer Note: Tickets for this review were provided by the theatre company.
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