Platform 4, The Visitation of Mr Collioni

Review in Issue 16-2 | Summer 2004

There is much to enjoy in this show – too much. An Italian café is run by a lonely oddball who has assembled a contraption to listen to the speech of angels, but he never realises that right under his nose is a real live one – the waitress at the café. Her secret identity and his suspicion provide an enlivening tension. It is played out sensitively and precisely by the two actors who are the show's biggest asset: Sarah Thom and Colin Carmichael. They play multiple roles; Sarah makes the writing shine its brightest when she speaks the poetic language of angels (although elsewhere the beautiful writing seems to slow the pace), and Colin is as enjoyable in female guise (a bra shop owner) as male (the vicar).

The show is packed with imaginative ideas and whimsical imagery, from the coffee cups to a collapsing church. There is enough material for several shows here – the fact the writer started with three stories means that the plot takes confusing detours. By the end, the distance between the audience and the action has stretched beyond the point of contact – suddenly we are in Venice and someone is having a baby up a tree? We are content with less, and the multimedia input is extraneous.

A great mixture of creative energies have collaborated to produce this show. They just need one last person to be in on the whole creation – someone entirely innocent, to check it all comes across.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Apr 2004

This article in the magazine

Issue 16-2
p. 29