Silence

Synopsis

Silence is a provocative comedy set in late Dark Ages England. The Vikings rule the North and the Saxons the South of the country under the reign of King Ethelred. At the King's bidding Ymma, a powerful French princess, is inadvertently married to another woman. Here begins a millennial road-trip and wildly original love story that remains relevant to our own world a thousand years later.

Our Review:

8 March 2013

The fantasy, medieval England of Silence - like theatre - inhabits the present moment more fully than we are used to. It's a shock to the system, a lovely one, to pay visit to a place of sustained stimulation and entertainment, and be introduced to the relationships that have time for nuance.

Jon Bradshaw, director, describes Moira Buffini as a "proven modern dramatist", suggesting that she has a formula and it works. Indeed, Buffini's comic writing is unapologetically algebraic: Ymma obligingly illustrates Agnes' oral storytelling with her vomiting, flies buzz cheaply around King Ethelred (Daniel Brennan's)'s bed, and characters develop catchphrases (Roger the Kyle McLachlan- like priest introduces himself wherever he can, as in 'Lo, Roger!').

With the laughs in place, Buffini builds on what jokes are even for. When Ymma (the dynamo, Brigid Lohrey) proclaims that she would rather be treated with cruelty than endure the ridicule of marrying a 14-ye...

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