Based on the ‘Silent Twins’ by Marjorie Wallace, Shared Experience dramatise the true life story of, Jennifer and June Gibbons, with emotion, physicality, exact attention to detail and an outstanding cast.

‘Elective mutes’ to the outside world from the age of four; behind a locked bedroom door the identical twins role play British life in ‘BBC voices’, re-enacting the Queen’s Silver Jubilee with a hoard of blonde Barbie dolls, and mimicking their parents. Natasha Gordon as Jennifer and Demi Oyediran as June give moving and accomplished performances. Their twin world is quickly established but equally they express the individual identities of the girls and the sense of entrapment within which they seem to take turns to hold the power.

Writers Polly Teale and Linda Brogan create wholly convincing portraits with a seamless attention to the details of the era. From Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game, to Dallas, Top of the Pops, Babycham, Eggnog, Twiglets, Angel Delight, the Littlewoods Catalogue, Tupperware and Athena posters, the production weaves a passage of time which not only recalls exactly a way of life, but also offers a retrospective view of how far we have moved in perceptions, although not necessarily in outcomes.

The significance of the written word in the play goes beyond authorship as without voices the girls only self expression to others is in writing. Jennifer and June, aspiring to be authors type fervently in the middle of the night.

Under Polly Teale’s direction the cast play out the girls’ journey to a cell in Broadmoor, and the internal and external forces of power and helplessness they experience. There is the twin bond, the era in which they face their dilemmas, the uniqueness of being of Jamaican descent growing up in an all white RAF base, attending an all white school, parents who embrace the host culture and want nothing more than to fit in, and a ‘system’ which fails them in a number of ways. Their shared intimacy, and the love from their long suffering and isolated mother Gloria (Anita Reynolds), are positive forces in the story; yet the twins are bound in a cycle beyond escape.

Exclusion from secondary school is an early injustice in response to their different identity and refusal to speak. In ‘special education’ they find two opposing and equally intoxicating focuses of attention. Cathy their ‘key worker/teacher’ makes a certain degree of headway with a genuine compassion for the sisters, yet she remains outside, played and ultimately frustrated by her lack of progress. Katie Lightfoot portrays Cathy with a lightness that keeps the focus on the girls but conveys sincerity. Kennedy, on the other hand, the troubled teenage son of a US Air Force officer posted on the RAF base, is far more effective in drawing the girls’ attention. From the moment he appears on stage and kicks a chair over we know he’s going to be engaging, troublesome and impossible to ignore. Alex Robertson as Kennedy strikes the perfect balance between his own emotional isolation and a sense of malice.

After months of making silent phone calls to Kennedy and spying on him from their bedroom window, whilst Gloria the girls’ mother is glued to her television set watching the Royal Wedding, and with the sound of street parties all around (to which she has not been invited ) the girls break in to Kennedy’s house. With a Thelma and Louise/ Tarantino hedonism we witness a scene of heavy metal, glue sniffing, weed, vodka and sex in which Kennedy ‘gets both girls’ and fuels the fire for their demise. Seeming to control and spellbind them with gripping manipulation, he role plays their special school ‘lessons’. Kennedy gets some of the best lines of social commentary and contextualises their story with the wry observation that Charles would not be marrying Diana if the Brixton riots hadn’t occurred.

Music and sound design by Peter Salem contribute significantly to the evocation of the era. Not least of all in the opening scene where the twins are locked in physical struggle in their prison cell, and his ingenious segue from Bucks Fizz to Black Sabbath to Lynyrd Skynyrd in Kennedy’s den of iniquity.

With a long standing track record of producing ground breaking theatre it is incredulous that Shared Experience have lost their entire Arts Council Grant; audiences can only trust in the power of the company’s work to secure them alternative financial support.

Bryony Hegarty

Speechless – Presented by Shared Experience and Sherman Cymru
Arcola Studio 1

TICKET INFORMATION

Runs until 19 November 2011, 7.30pm
Matinees on 29 October; 5, 12, 19 November, 2.30pm

£18 (£11 concessions - no concessions Friday or Saturday evening)
CONCESSIONS CANNOT BE BOOKED ONLINE FOR THIS PRODUCTION

PLEASE NOTE:
• Proof will be required for concessions
• All tickets are non-refundable

PAY WHAT YOU CAN (Tuesdays from 6.30pm - subject to availability)

Box Office: 020 7503 1646 or www.arcolatheatre.com