Writer: Callum Murray
Director: Rose Ryan
Reviewer: Christine Stanton
“Empty Shell“
2 / 5
Esther and Dan’s relationship has been put through its paces. Starting as friends, they soon became lovers, then exes, and now are back to being friends again. Dan suffering an incident that leaves him in a wheelchair changed their relationship even further, though the memories between them still remain, as do the unanswered questions that lingered between them over the years.
There are numerous different ideas and narrative points that take focus in Callum Murray’s script – the impact of social media, the intricacies in a relationship, navigating ghosts of the past, language and the importance of it, and of course more specifically, Dan and Esther’s life trajectory. However, in trying to squeeze so many thoughts into one show, it majorly detracts from the narrative itself, leaving quite an empty shell that feels more like a starting point rather than a fully formed production.
The relationship between Esther (Sam Nixon) and Dan (Phil Nair-Brown) is shown in both present-day and flashback scenes. The pair first spark up a romantic relationship after a date in a pub, where he arrives late in a fake moustache, much to the bewildering amusement of them both. She has recently been given a Nokia 3310 from work and encourages him to also buy a mobile so he can be contacted on the go. As time progresses, it shows he has since jumped on the mobile phone trend (along with the rest of the world), and become more attached, the later years especially focusing on his social media use, with him rarely looking up from his device as he speaks to her. Their conversations frustratingly don’t reveal much about either of the characters, most focusing on her jealous, prying questions about his ex (who he is still in contact with), and his vague, non-committal answers. This repetitive format does show realistic conversations, but unfortunately, they are just not very interesting ones.
The transitions between the present and the past are very slow-paced and for the most part, feel unnecessarily lengthy, and almost as though they are there to fill the time out. The present-day conversations with Dan in a wheelchair after the never explained incident, constantly refer back to the memories between them we see in prior scenes, which rather than supporting them reminiscing, instead is quite pointless because it just rehashes everything shown just moments before. There is a lot left unanswered and never fully explained – snippets of plot points that fizzle out or never appear.
It’s clear to see what the intention is with this production, but it just doesn’t quite land. A lot of interesting points and potential routes for future iterations to go down however, as the subject matter is definitely worth exploring, it just needs a tighter script to encompass it.
Runs until 5th April 2025
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