Review: Bridges and Balloons

Bridges and Balloons is a cheerful, inventive comedy from interdisciplinary theatre collective Imaginary Friends. Set in the claustrophobic world of a student house, it shines a light on the bonds linking the political and the personal in modern British society. We’re in Manchester, where five students are hell bent on creating the perfect flatshare. Fuelled by drink and drugs, they think they can block out their conventional contemporaries, living a life of seclusion and hedonism. But the arrival of new girl Wendy soon reveals the strains and tensions that exist under the surface of their supposedly idyllic lives. As the house descends into chaos, the play imparts some salient lessons, while thankfully avoiding an overly preachy or pretentious approach.

The strength of the piece lies in some deft characterisation. Each character, on one level, seems to reflect a specific class or viewpoint, but they live and breathe in their own right, ensuring that while politics is ever to the fore the play is a piece of true drama. Acting and writing combine to ensure that each character has depth and personality. The character of Megan is a gloriously believable bitch, while some subtle understatement from Jess Austin as Wendy and Jordan Lee as Jim ensures that the good guys of the piece have genuine charm and never become cloying or self-satisfied. Austin, in particular, gurns away with convincingly reckless abandon, and the couple’s rhyming, Pete Doherty and Kate Moss inspired love scene works brilliantly.

Likewise, the script is sharp and witty, with a real ear for the language of student life. The characters slide from poetic eloquence to slang. And the writers’ ability to find wit, even in the darker moments of the play, is hugely promising; some great lines include the classic ‘You’re not a freedom fighter, you’re a sexual terrorist.’ It might have been improved, perhaps, by a more vigorous approach to editing, but in general it was tight, punchy and with an eccentric charm all of its own.

The design of the piece also works well. The use of a video projector to replicate the students’ paranoid, drug induced dreams was a very nice touch, and could perhaps have been made more of. While the manner in which the disintegration of the house’s ethos is mapped out by scrawled on, animal farm-esque additions to their rules, is inspired.

If the play has a weakness, it is that the structure can seem somewhat fragmented. The opening act is occasionally lacking in drive, and although the device of using heavy drug taking to justify lengthy political rambling works very well at times, it can also seem a little contrived. Fortunately, the sharp dialogue and nuanced acting means that this is seldom much of a problem.

Entertaining, engaging and thought-provoking, Bridges and Balloons is a promising beginning from a young company with plenty of imagination. The top-notch writing and great performances make for an evening that is refreshingly political, but which never runs the risk of taking itself too seriously. With a ‘two for three’ offer available to students, there’s every reason to see it.

Bridges and Balloons will run at The Rag Factory on Brick Lane until December 18.