Don't Let Go

Counting coffee beans might just be the epitome of tedious labour. In Don’t Let Go, Leonard’s job sees him calculating caffeine, day after day. Manic Chord show a man in the throes of inertia, struggling to be joyful and dreaming about travelling to space as a result. It’s whimsical, sure, and sometimes on the verge of jumping over the cliff into saccharine seas, but there are some beautiful images which keep the piece ticking along.

This is clowning with a close connection to the human heart: through the sparse dialogue and four performers, we get a sense of a repetitive lifestyle and where it can lead the imagination. Don’t Let Go lacks any real insight into ideas of work, but this allows abstract—if sometimes obtuse—pictures to be created. A newspaper rides through the air on a breeze. A balloon has a life of its own. A man recreates his own moon landing, complete with floating tie and a bubble shower.

You’d expect a few more laughs in a show like this, but the gags which feature are cheap and irregular. Like many young companies, Manic Chord are also in danger of allowing their debt to Frantic Assembly become a little too conspicuous during moments of movement. Don’t Let Go is about as chaotic as the world that it presents to us, but it could do with being a little more firmly rooted in a recognisable reality. Like Leonard, it needs to be a bit more down-to-earth.