The Glow - Time Flies

Alexander Cohen is enthralled by Alistair McDowell's new play The Glow at the Royal Court.

Photo: Manuel Harlan

Arts

by Alexander Cohen
on 28 January 2022

in Issue 1791

Theatre

The Glow

★ ★ ★ ★

Where: Royal Court Theatre
When: Until the 5th March 2022
Cost: From £12

The Glow is a lockdown play, not in the sense that it is about people staying hidden away in their homes, but rather it is about time, and how delicate our perception of it can be. Alistair McDowall’s new play at the Royal Court cannot be captured by a single genre. With a story that unravels across history and space, The Glow borrows from almost every genre imaginable: some mind-bending sci-fi from 2001: A Space Odyssey, some heartfelt melodrama, some M.R. James ghost stories. The final product is more a meditation on life, death, and humanity than a straight narrative play; but that is what makes it so enthralling.

Beginning with a Victorian spiritualist attempting to use an anonymous woman as a medium to conduct a séance, we learn that there is far more than meets the eye to Ria Zmitrowicz’s unnamed protagonist. Simple yet striking lighting, sometimes just from an onstage candle wielded by the supercilious spiritualist Mrs Lyall (effortlessly played by Rakie Ayola), gives the first act an eerie aura that echoes classic paranormal horror stories. But the unnamed protagonist is not just a medium: she is literally beyond time — a concept that the second act goes on to explore. As the horror elements dissipate, philosophy and sci-fi fill its place. Without giving too much away we see the unnamed protagonist navigate relationships with a variety of historical characters who illuminate the spectrum of human emotions. Some are jealous of her ability and want to harvest it for their own. Some want to help her. Sometimes she is outcast as an outsider. Sometimes she is welcomed.

Tadhg Murphy in The Glow at the Royal Court Theatre.

Despite the metaphysical density of the story, McDowall’s writing is unpretentious, always placing something unutterably human at the centre of his dialogue; he brings touching vivacity to each character no matter if they are a dark age warlord, or a single mother slowly feeding his audience clues to keep the play engaging. The complexity of the concepts McDowall explores is also made easier to digest by a delightfully boisterous Fisayo Akinade who multi-roles as Mrs Lyall’s disgruntled teenage son, and a paranormal researcher, amongst other characters. He gives each of his characters an effervescent charm that complements Zmitrowicz’s more reserved unnamed protagonist. Their interactions are a testament to the combination of Vicky Featherstone’s masterful directing and McDowall’s highly perceptive and emotionally charged writing.

Rakie Ayola in The Glow at the Royal Court Theatre.

As society slowly emerges from Covid we are now beginning to reflect on what the last two years has done to our collective consciousness. Many reported how their sense of time passing had become distorted. It felt as if years had passed and simultaneously no time at all. 2021 was an indistinct blur of a year. What if this experience was inverted? What if there was someone who was immortal? What would their experience of time feel like? The Glow not only provides an answer, but invites us to reflect on the last two years, and come to terms with it. Alistair McDowall has delivered a perfect play for 2022, the year we (hopefully) return to normality.