Find out how critics have been reacting to Alan Fielden‘s show with our review round up.
Broadway World: *** “Container is, ironically, at its best when “contained”, or at least working within this kind of loose context. Hearing the deliberate murmuring of the artists – off-stage but with their mics still on – has potential but ultimately frustrates in its lack of coherence and relevance.”
The Guardian: *** “At 75 minutes, the show encompasses so much that you walk away knowing what you have seen is important but overwhelmed and uncertain too. Perhaps that is the point.”
Theatre & Tonic: ***** “Jemima Young, Clara Potter-Sweet, Ben Kulvichit, Tim Cape and Alan Fielden are a remarkable, precisely choreographed chorus which, ultimately, says a lot about the beauty and humanity that can be found in togetherness; each performer retains their unique storytelling style, while actively listening to each other and being in tune with the group, creating an harmony that is moving to witness.”
All That Dazzles: **** “To further describe Container, to delve into the stories told and the lines spoken, even to attempt to draw conclusions around its intentions or conclusions, feels futile. There are so many ideas raised, both stories told and approaches to how we tell them, that your experience with the material will be entirely different to my own. What can be said with certainty, is that the show is the work of a group of talented individuals, and that their creative ideas have united in something wholly unique, a product of many while shares a singular, clear vision.”
The Stage: ** “Flawed, unpolished performance piece offers an intriguing reflection on modern anxieties.”
The Reviews Hub: *** “Ultimately, Container is a rigorously crafted and thematically rich work that engages the intellect with admirable force. Its linguistic precision and thematic insights are impressive, and the formal risks it takes are significant. But in its pursuit of structure, it sacrifices theatrical vitality. What emerges is a performance that is sharp in thought but distant in feeling—clever, committed, and often compelling, but emotionally unmoored.”
Everything Theatre: *** “This may be a reflection of our inevitable inertia to a never ending, global crises-driven newsfeed, but if so, that does miss an opportunity perhaps to enable us to navigate our way through the noise into individual reasoning. I wonder as well if a more immersive experience emphasising the physical nature of a container, much like the black box set we were part of, would remind the spectator of the shocking reality of global people trafficking, driven in the main by global climate change.”
British Theatre Guide: “Strangely, for a work with a text that seems to seek to directly address its audience, to create empathy with the victims of inhumanity, Container makes little attempt to create any real contact until nearing the end; for most of its 73 minutes, the performers concentrate on their microphones. Though at times it can be very moving, it is as a piece of word music that it holds the attention.”
Container continues to play at the New Diorama Theatre until the 12th April.