The National wants you to watch

Following on from Beyond Caring in the National’s Temporary Theatre, We Want You to Watch is the latest venture from producing trio RashDash, written together with Alice Birch.

Very little is available about the show – the synopsis is a collection of short, abrupt sentences that let you know “this is about pornography.” And that it’s against pornography. That too.

The set doesn’t give many clues either. This is starting to feel like a theme for plays around this time – not much information beforehand, and a set which gives nothing away.

Designer Oliver Townsend has created a scaffolding monstrosity that sits on one wall of the theatre.

Two ladders are strapped to the sides, with a platform sitting at the height of the balcony. Covering it all: what look like soup cans, with the word ‘soup’ replaced by ‘sex’.

This is not a subtle visual metaphor.

The entrance is covered with a picture of an open mouth, blown up to ridiculous proportions.

This is initially the focal point of most of the audience’s attentions, with an odd hush descending every time the flaps twitch a little.

Eventually, a harsh rumbling fills the room, the sound of subwoofers being pushed to their limits, and the lights start to flicker.

It’s starting to sound like the building is crashing down around our ears, and the lights suddenly snap off. A nicely dramatic opening.

"We Want You to Watch very quickly squanders its dramatic potential."

Unfortunately, We Want You to Watch very quickly squanders this dramatic potential.

It opens on an interrogation, two detectives quizzing a milkman with a fondness for violent porn.

No explanation is given, the audience are expected to piece the scene together on the fly.

It soon becomes clear that the detectives believe the man’s porn addictions lead to his murdering a young dental student, using methods identical to those in the videos he can’t stop watching.

It’s all a bit weird, but at least the message is fairly clear. This can’t be said for much of the following theatre.

"Serious points are lost beneath absurd scenarios."

The first scene soon begins to outstay its welcome, with the attempts at comedy mostly falling flat.

Most of the humour comes from the absurd lines, with the rest being supplied by the synchronicity of the detectives’ movements. Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland (the artistic directors of RashDash, and the stars here) have clearly rehearsed this to perfection, which is to their credit if nothing else.

The earnestness of their performance, their commitment to this production, is incredible, but it just can’t support a script which quickly overplays its hand, and fails to accurately express the message it’s aiming for.

This becomes more and more of the problem as the show progresses.

There is no real through narrative beyond Goalen and Greenland’s characters wanting to stop the existence of violent porn and its toxic effects by any means necessary.

This is a vital message, an urgent message, one that needs to be heard, but it’s not one that comes through here.

The show ends up being a blast of frenetic, hyperkinetic energy that (almost) thrills, while also managing to be a confused, meandering mess of a show that knows what it wants to do but hasn’t quite worked out how to do it.

The flashes of genuinely funny comedy immediately shoot themselves in the foot by going on too long, and the serious points are lost beneath the absurd scenarios that take place.

We Want You to Watch is, above all else, a crushing disappointment. There are some clearly very talented individuals working on this show. There’s a painfully important message at the heart of it.

It’s just all a bit underwhelming. Beyond Caring knew what it wanted to achieve and how to get there, and took no prisoners in the process. We Want You to Watch feels like it got lost somewhere along the way.

We Want You to Watch is at the National Theatre until 11th July. Tickets from £15, available online.