Review by Dan Sinclair
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
As the dust settles on this years Edinburgh Fringe, it remains the most important hotbed for new writing and innovative theatre-makers. If you kept your eye on the Fringe this August, one of the shows you will have seen crop up time and time again was How I Learned to Swim by Somebody Jones in a run which saw it being shortlisted for the Popcorn Award 2024. Equally, its Director Emma Jude Harris was named as one of The Stages Fringe 5, a list of five of the most promising theatremakers to emerge from the festival. After its successful run at Edinburgh, it transfers for a run at Brixton House, but would London audiences fall in love with it as much or would it find itself sinking?
We open at a kid’s pool party, which is everyone’s idea of hell on earth, including Jamie. Whilst her brother dives head first into the depths, she sits on the side, unable to swim. A boy decides to grab her and throw her into the water, but she just sinks. She thrashes, kicks out and punches until one lands. Blood fills the pool, she hates water. She’s now 30, and she still can’t swim. Her family is falling apart and she’s slowly losing control of her life, so she decides to take action and finally learn how to swim. With the help of Molly, a suave British instructor, she heads down to the ‘Y’ (thanks Mike Birbiglia for teaching me that the Y-MCA is what us ye olde Brits would call a leisure centre) and tries to conquer her greatest fear, one toe at a time.
Jones’ script has a wonderful musicality to it, seemingly flowing across you like honey. Monologue shows often rely on scenes of one actor portraying a two-person conversation, and How I Learned to Swim nails this, ensuring each character's voice is distinct. Where the story is surprisingly grounded in realism, these boundaries are moved as the show draws to its climax, choosing to break convention to resolve Jamie’s internal conflicts and use magical realism.
The story is comic, yet with a tragic undercurrent. It is a tale of grief, an ‘expensive and weird’ part of life, but it also explores the complex relationship between black people, the sea, and swimming pools. Molly talks about Kevin Burns and Paul Marshall, the first two black British swimmers to compete in the Olympics in 1976 and 1980 respectively. Note, however, that the first time a black woman competed for Team GB in swimming was Alice Dearing in 2020. They are trailblazers, destroying harmful myths about bone density and floating. But Jamie reminds us of the dangerous role that swimming pools played in the US history of segregation. Jones spins all these plates with real skill throughout the play.
Nicola T.Chang’s sound design and composition work was nothing less than exceptional. From the second the play started, Chang’s soundtrack subtly ran underneath, perfectly scoring each moment and hitting every single line to the millisecond. Working in perfect tandem with Ali Hunter’s lighting design, it took us to a chlorine-soaked children’s pool party, a downtown office block and to the bottom of the sea. It is so refreshing to hear sound design that doesn’t just set a scene and then back away, it lingers and elevates the entire piece to a whole new level. I kindly request that the creative team release the sound design as an album so I can listen to it on the tube.
Having to perform a whole ensemble of characters in what is no doubt a challenging script, Frankie Hart more than rises to the occasion, taking up the role of Jamie with ease. Script aside, the very nature of the show being an in-the-round solo show that toes the line from comedy and tragedy might prove a challenge too far in other hands, but she makes it look oh so easy. Hart effortlessly manages to completely embody Jamie, drawing you into her world. Every actor and director will always say “make it sound like you’re saying it for the first time”, but this performance really does have such a beautiful freshness to it. It really is something special to behold.
Jam-packed with a team of some truly talented theatre-makers that are only just getting started, there is something deeply exciting about How I Learned To Swim. The script has evidently been crafted with care and love, as has the production itself, and the cracking central performance from Frankie Hart makes this a show worth diving into. Take my advice and grab a ticket to join Jamie in the deep end.
How I Learned to Swim plays at Brixton House until 14th September.
Tickets from: https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/shows/how-i-learned-to-swim/
Photos by David Monteith-Hodge
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