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An invitation to lost loves
Love Letters Straight From Your Heart
Malvern Theatres
***** I MUST start this review with a caveat; the show
I saw tonight has never been seen before, and despite being eight years
in the making, it will never be performed again. Let me explain . . . Love Letters Straight
From Your Heart by Uninvited Guests is
not a wholly pre-scripted and rehearsed piece of theatre, but more of a
participatory experience, as I have now come to expect from this
collaboration of highly creative performers and innovative production
company Fuel. Promotional material invites us along to the
event to ‘raise our glasses to long lost loves and current lovers, to
mums, to dads and to absent friends’. Described by Uninvited Guests themselves as
‘somewhere between a wedding reception, a wake and a radio dedication
show’, Love Letters Straight From Your Heart wants us to share
what is in our hearts, and on booking our tickets, audience
members are emailed a form that they are asked to fill in, to choose and
dedicate a song to someone they love or have loved, which then becomes
part of that particular show. On entering the theatre space, audience members
(although I felt more like a guest) are handed a glass of cava or
sparkling water, before choosing a seat at a grand dinner table, which
is covered with red tablecloths and decorated with vases of flowers and
clusters of party poppers. We are introduced to our hosts for the
evening, Malcolm and Jessica, who sit far away from each other at
opposite ends of the long table. They take turns to play snatches of
music, lights fade up and down, and we are unsure where to look. We are soon given our first invitation of the
evening when we are asked to look into the eyes of the person sitting
opposite us for the whole of the following track. A challenge for some,
but sweet, and possibly the first time that I’ve found Johnny Cash even
vaguely bearable. MOVING DEDICATIONS This was followed by the night’s first
dedications, and oh, how moving some of these were. There were
dedications to friends and partners, to absent offspring and past loves.
We heard pop and disco and classical and all things in between. Some people used their own names and named the
person they had chosen the song for. Others remained anonymous, which
gave parts of the production a truly confessional feel. After one
particularly touching speech, I felt that we could do with a wine waiter
to top up our glasses, and was mightily impressed when Malcolm shortly
afterwards opened a couple more bottles of cava and did just that. There was running and hugging, there were toasts
and tears, there was dance and a disco ball, sorrow and joy and . . .
What a fantastic idea for a show. Nearing the end of the evening, we heard snippets
of Scott Walker’s If You Go Away, followed by the French original
by Jacques Brel, the writing of which has its own tale of heartbreak and
rejection. I would have loved to have heard the whole of both of these,
plus my own favourite version by Marc Almond, so was very happy at the
next song which cut in, breaking the misery and lifting the mood rather;
Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, followed by a few bars of Where Did
Our Love Go. There really were songs here for all ages but these
last tunes coupled with a bit of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us
Apart took me right back to other loves and sticky discos, and left
a few of us ready to go and dance like it was nineteen eighty something
long, long ago. Love Letters Straight From Your Heart
finished with a slow dance, another toast, and an entreaty to take
something from the evening’s event with us, to go out into the world
with love. As Malcolm put it in the post-show talk, this is not so much
a show, but more a group of people sharing something, and I for one was
deeply moved at the stories and emotions that some people chose to
share. ‘Thank you for breaking up with me; it did me a
lot of good’, read one dedication. It may not be theatre as you know it,
but I’d urge you to put any scepticism to one side and send in your own
dedication. Go and see this production with an open heart and mind; it
will do you a lot of good. To 19-11-14. Amy Rainbow
18-11-14
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