Quirky 'Lands' Bounces into Bush Theatre's Studio

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Penny Flood enjoys a play involving two girls, a jigsaw and a trampoline

Dodgy relationships are a bit of a thing in West London at the moment, with Sexy Laundry at the Tabard in Chiswick and now Lands, a quirky little two hander at the Bush Studio.

Leah (Leah Brotherhead) and Sophie (Sophie Steer) have been together for a long time, but their relationship has stalled somewhere along the line and they don't know how to handle it so they're doing everything they can to avoid addressing it.

It looks like they're heading for a disaster, but can it be saved?

Leah dodges the issue by obsessing over jigsaws, telling the audience about what she sees in each piece she picks up. It's all fantasy as she sees dead bodies and teddy bears in almost every tiny bit.

Sophie avoids it by bouncing on a trampoline and she's brilliant at it. For almost the entire show she acts, sings, dances and even drinks a glass of water while bouncing.

If there's a Guinness Book of Records section for doing all this on trampoline for over an hour then she deserves to win it.

And so they go on doing their best to ignore each other and bickering when they can't. And the tension is there all the time, what will happen if the jigsaw breaks and Sophie gets off the trampoline? Or will the jigsaw break and will Sophie stop bouncing?

It's a funny, entertaining, original and full of surprises, and the two girls are brilliant.

My only quarrel with it is that it begins to drag a tiny bit as it gets repetitive and maybe could lose five or six minutes in the middle.

But that said, I enjoyed it.

Lands continues at The Bush Theatre's Studio until 1 December, nightly at 7.45pm with additional matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2.45pm. Find out more and book tickets here.

Penny Flood

November 15, 2018