'Unidentified Item in the Bagging Area' Old Red Lion Theatre **

The Off West End and Fringe sectors within London’s theatre industry often pose a problematic application into the sporadic quality of their productions, and the Old Red Lion Theatre’s current performance of aspiring playwright, Sarah Simmonds’, ‘Unidentified Item in the Bagging Area’ was one that never liberated the topic with a well-considered approach. ‘Unidentified Item in the Bagging Area’ is set around the post-menopausal state that women have to go through during their fifties, and how this expected change can influence marriages to eradicate quite suddenly. Victoria Burnham, a fifty-year-old woman is severely fed up, and obviously post-menopausal is unhappy with her husband’s constant ignorance towards her, and his main priority that concerns his garden, and their sex life is non-existent. In addition to this, her son has now ventured off to university to begin his adult life, which leads to Victoria to feel unacknowledged by her family, and she requires a lifestyle change that allows her to appeal gratified with the future. Thankfully, when she decides to attend a meeting with other post-menopausal women, she is introduced to extroverted, buoyant and exceedingly independent Meg, and her life will never be the same again. Meg welcomes us into an environment where any situation can occur; such as running a sex chat up hotline called Mature Madams. Victoria soon overlooks her husband’s presence, and painstakingly leaves her spouse to live more independently, but this plan and fundamentally actioned decision enables Victoria to learn that her spouse is suffering with the life-threatening disease that is cancer. Simmonds’ narrative lacks an array of cohesive structure as it shows that focusing an entire play on the subject of the post-menopausal stage was too far to peeving, and needed enormous amounts of revisions. One found the performances by the company of ‘Unidentified Item in the Bagging Area’ were mediocrely characterised, and the portrayals poorly interrogated the emotive context of the performances, and the dialogue was delivered with limited vocal panache unfortunately. Jenny Oglivie is unexciting as the central protagonists, Victoria; in particularly when we see her passion exude when she tries to be a sex chat up line female, and her facial expressions lacked a real sense of emotion. Paddy Navin is disappointing as the apparently confident, Meg. One found her comic timing was flawed as the audience seemed to respond extremely negative to such moments; moreover, her movements were mind- numbingly disgraceful. John McAndrew is satisfactory as Victoria’s husband, Jeremy; especially the aspects when Victoria and we learn of his upsetting poor health, and his desire for his wife’s return is somewhat agreeable. Louise Shephards’ direction is rotten here as the connection between the company appears under rehearsed, and one found it was not as engaging as one hoped it would be. Kay Howie Nunn’s design is intriguing as we are transported to many locations with acceptable precision, and it slightly vibrates one's happiness throughout this vile performance. Overall the experience of ‘Unidentified Item in the Bagging Area’ was appalling, and a real disappointment for the Old Red Lion Theatre’s quality of theatrical work.