35 Amici Drive

The story is a well worn theme of evil developers in cahoots with a corrupt council threatening to demolish the aforementioned 35 Amici Drive, evicting the residents from what they have come to see as a haven of acceptance. If you want to know how it turns out then you will have to get a ticket but there is no easy resolution just as there is no tokenistic use of actors with disability.

Actors with and without disability take centre stage often giving moving performances for which disability is incidental. One young woman portrays someone physically abused in a gripping ballet scene where she is dragged from her wheelchair by her abusive partner and hurled around the stage the two dancers are later joined by another who attempts to protect her. Acting with her face and body and holding balletic lines in a moving pas de trois it was impossible not to feel every move.

There were many such moments that had me smiling laughing and yes I admit it weeping, like the woman singing to her son with learning difficulties in a prayer begging that she be not allowed to die before her son. I had only just wiped away the tear when the chorus kicked in explaining that her love was suffocating him and I was forced to challenging my own assumptions and not for the first time this evening.

Like the Para Olympians there were some gold medal performances with the cast proving they could deftly move from comedy to tragedy and where disability was secondary to telling a good story.

A final mention for the nuanced performance of the young man who acted as our guide through the telling of the story and who clearly revelled in his natural flair for physical comedy.

35 Amici Drive was produced as a collaboration between the Amici Dance Theatre Company and Turtle Key Arts.

Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.

www.turtlekeyarts.org.uk/