LUNGS

'I could fly to New York and back every day for seven years and still not leave a carbon footprint as big as if I have a child. Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That's the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I'd be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.'
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/

‘Lungs’ is one of those shows where you feel like you shouldn’t be there. Not because it’s uncomfortable or awkward or off-putting, but simply because it’s so convincing that you feel like you’re prying into the lives of two real people, and shouldn’t they be left in privacy?  

The plot is humble but poignant, a couple prepare to have their baby in times when the Earth is under enormous threat from climate change and their relationship is under enormous threat from spontaneously combusting due to all the bickering that comes with producing offspring. No unnecessary frills – a simple and realistic plotline. I usually despise modern plays that try overly hardly to be ‘modern’ and really just end up making everybody cringe, but Duncan Macmillan’s script-writing is the complete antithesis to this. ‘Lungs’’ humour lies in the believability of the writing, as if Macmillan simply used real conversations and made the transcript into a play – it’s honestly that convincing.

The show has a cast of just two - Sian Reese-Williams rockets through her lines with an almost permanently panicky vocal tone, whereas Abdul Salis represents the calmer half of the couple who attempts to calm the situation and think in a more logical sense (to absolutely no end). Both actors were well-rehearsed and bounced off each other through all the complexities of the script, creating a speedy performance that stopped only for us to appreciate the more sentimental parts of the plot. There were no props or lighting changes to fall back on, but it wasn’t difficult to interpret the scene changes and one moment I particularly enjoyed was when the couple snapped into a club scene and took on an awkward upright stance when shouting at each other that they wanted to go home. Sex scenes were kept PG and showed simply the couple moving together then almost bouncing off an imaginary wall – we aren’t shown anything but we all know what was implied.

All in all, a highly enjoyable performance by the Paines Plough theatre company. ‘Lungs’ is on at the Southbank’s Festival of Love until July 18^th at the Roundabout theatre.