Review: The Watch (The Glitch, Waterloo)
- Dan Sinclair
- Jun 3
- 3 min read
Review by Dan Sinclair
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Glitch in Waterloo is my go-to for a coffee, a plug socket and an unpredictable playlist on full blast. Sometimes High School Musical 2, sometimes Cuban jazz, it’s a lucky dip. But tucked away in the basement is a lineup of eclectic, vibrant fringe theatre. Their latest run is Isabella Waldron’s The Watch, originally staged as a short play with Bomb Factory Theatre, a company set up by India Harrison Peppe back in 2019 to champion the work of women and non-binary playwrights. Still supported by Bomb Factory and now developed into a full-length two-hander, The Watch is an interesting look at queer trauma and, well, time itself.
Hannah can’t sleep. A bisexual barista with a passion for videos of babies wearing hats, the bags under her eyes are weighing her down and worst of all, her watch won’t stop ticking, it’s broken. After a hookup with a cafe regular, Carl, she goes to get her Grandad’s watch repaired at William and William’s Clockmakers. Rather than being greeted by a Geppetto-style clock…person, she meets Zoe. And later that night, she meets her again… on Hinge.
As the relationship between the two blossoms, Zoe keeps leaving at 8 pm. Far from the insomniac Hannah, she has two sleeps with a watch in between, like we used to sleep before the invention of the alarm clock, a product of the industrial revolution/capitalism hellscape we are now trapped in. The Watch asks whether Hannah can ever break her habits, and how others can help us confront our pain.
Broadly speaking, The Watch functions as Hannah’s monologue, performed warmly by Ciana Howlin. Where the two come together, Kate Crisp as art-grad/clockmaker Zoe intrudes into Hannah’s scenes and is the well-rested counter to Hannah’s insomnia. Ciana Howlin is effortlessly at ease with the audience, from the outset she is messy, complex, but Howlin manages to keep it together for us and flexes her storytelling muscles.
As Zoe, Kate Crisp is everything Hannah is not, grounded and calm. The play gives us flickers at the potential conflict between the two in their families and privilege, eg: Family responses to queerness, Hannah’s zero hours hospitality job surely being a factor in her reliance on the alarm clock, when we live in a brutal capitalist job, then it is not so easy to live on a time before this was the way?
Conflict between the two was wrapped up very quickly and didn’t make the best use of the beautifully knotty ideas set up by Isabella Waldron in her thoughtful script. For me, The Watch lacked an edge, a bit of flavour to keep you on the edge of your seat - however, being on the edge of your seat at The Glitch is a dangerous game, one that might send your folding chair flying into an actor. Isabella Waldron’s script is tight, certainly a well-made play with gorgeous dialogue, but it falls into the same traps as many plays that have come before it. A firmly London-centric play with its baristas, online dating, Gordon’s Wine Bar and jokes about the tube, it all felt overly comfortable.
Set design from Isabella Sarmiento Abadia pushes the boundaries of fringe theatre, it sprawls across the stage and grounds us in the world of Hannah: her work, the wine bar, the bus stop and the clockmaker's shop. With its limited space, it is efficient, but full of charm. Oat milk cartons erupt with fairy lights, neon strips pulse overhead, and wax drips from the wine bottles onto the floor. All of this gives lighting designer Jack Hathaway a fantastic sandpit to play with, and it injects vibrant life into scenes, notably the grimey Dalston Warehouse rave where Hannah hooks up with a girl whose name maybe begins with a K was a visual highlight, even if it is (conveniently to the plot), right next door to Zoe’s place of work as she’s clocking in.
Direction from Merle Wheldon makes excellent use of the small basement chic in The Glitch, Ciana Howlin remains light on her feet and brings us along on her story. Wheldon peppers in some delicious visual moments and heightens the comedy found in Waldron’s quick writing. The Watch is a touching piece of new theatre from some impressive creatives. Ciana Howlin’s central performance is a treat, making The Watch by no means at all a waste of your time.
The Watch is playing at The Glitch, Waterloo until 9th June.
Photos by Jake Bush