Lost & Found comprises two short plays created by a company of recent London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art graduates.
Elijah Lifton and Lisa Gillham’s slice of melodrama Soultide sees a bickering quartet of young musicians enjoying a yacht cruise in the seas around Capri. Under the guidance of manager Zan (Alexander Maker) the group are about to sign a major recording contract. “I’m going to take ducklings and turn them into swans” he tells us. Zoological accuracy is perhaps not his forte. Later he says, “I’m an old man in a young woman’s body”, suggesting some all-round confusion.
Not everything is going to Zan’s plan. Posh Tara (Evie Day), whose dodgy dad owns the yacht, has a solo career in mind and cannot swim. Tara’s best friend Billie (Lucy Gant) has just started a secret affair with fellow band member Luka (Elijah Lifton plays a mean saxophone), who thinks he might be better off at University than on tour. What depths will Zan sink to in order to keep the band together? Anticipate histrionic twists and turns. One suspects Lifton and Gillham may have a possible future storylining TV soaps.
Writer and Director Ethan Simm channels 70s musical A Chorus Line in the more satisfying Voice. It is three weeks into drama school term and voice teacher Tully (Evie Day again) has set a task for her students. Give us a performance through verse and song that tells us “who you are”. It is an invitation for truth-telling that offers an excursion around a variety of Gen Z preoccupations. Aryia (Niamh Spillane) struggles to connect with mum and wants her future self to know she is loved. Arlo (Nina Amos) struggles to overcome the pain of losing her father. Jaz (Milly Thorpe) loves her brother and dad to bits but struggles (there is much struggling in Voice) to come out to them. Simm delivers a pleasing and inclusive slice of soul-searching, though one wonders if most 19 year-olds know themselves and “their truths” quite as well as this bunch do.
Soultide
Writer: Elijah Lifton and Lisa Gillham
Voice
Writer and Director: Ethan Simm
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