The reviews for White Open Spaces at Soho Theatre were not good. In fact they were quite bad. The reviews, however, were wrong because it’s an entertaining and thought-provoking hour. Devised by Shropshire touring theatre company Pentabus in conjunction with BBC and BBC Radio 4, the show explores the idea of an unspoken apartheid in the English countryside.
The play is formed of seven 10-minute monologues and while it’s true that some were better written and better performed than others the play still hung together as a whole very well.
The standout monologues were the opening two, which focused on a white man blanking his black girlfriend at a society wedding and a black landlord pinning a ‘no travelers’ sign to his pub door, and the last one, which focused on a farmer's wife who rammed her shopping trolley into a black stranger in the village supermarket.
These three in particular were very funny and quite moving.
The other four pieces although perhaps not as strong still worked well and the idea of hiring different writers to pen each monologue helped the different textures of the pieces and provided different voices.
All the monologues also linked together really well thematically to provide moments of real tenderness, such as the lost Pakistani man who admits to a farmer who’s caught him trespassing on his land that he’s just split up with his girlfriend. The farmer touches his shoulder in a moment of solidarity and support – and in moments such as these the piece offers hope for a more integrated and understanding society.
It’s a smart piece of drama on a tough subject. It’s handled with sensitivity and care and it opens up an important discussion. Just what good theatre does do.
Well worth a look.
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