Review: Rear View starting from The Great Hospital, Norwich

This IOU Theatre piece definitively gives a new perspective on life: for most of the show the audience are watching from the back of an open-top bus.

Specially converted for this very unusual type of street theatre, the raked seating makes the city a stage as the vehicle circuits around Bishopgate and Magdalen Street, stopping in a few hidden spaces on the way.

Throughout the journey poet performer Cecilia Knapp narrates the story of a 65-year-old woman, reflecting back on her life, her mistakes, her heartaches, and her moments of joy. Her voice comes through headphones, her presence is fleeting: sometimes we see her on an improvised stage, sometimes a car following the bus. More often she is just an ethereal, disembodied voice: a memory of a memory.

The poetics are startling and the approach novel, though the connection between the two – and the host city – could be deeper.

James Goffin

Rear View, which starts at The Great Hospital, is being performed at various times until Sunday. For more details and to book tickets, visit www.nnfestival.org.ukFor more Norfolk and Norwich Festival stories click here

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