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Anything That We Wanted To Be

Summerhall

Three stars

When Adam Lenson was diagnosed with cancer aged 34, his first world middle class existence was understandably turned upside down. Having upended the path he was on once already after dropping out of medical school to become a theatre director, Lenson found himself taking stock of both his past and potential selves if he had only jumped another way.

As Lenson’s life flashes before his eyes by way of a series of TV monitors rewinding the days, the end result in Hannah Moss’s production is a playful offloading of assorted what-ifs amidst the sliding doors of one’s own mortality. Using a microphone and loop pedals to create a kind of karaoke lecture, Lenson channels his experience into a focussed meditation made even more life affirming by the fact that he is even here at all. 

In a show developed at Camden People's Theatre, geeks might also pick up on the lesser spotted connection between children’s comedy gangster musical, Bugsy Malone, and Daft Punk (simples, once you know it). The former not only gives Lenson’s show its title. The connection lends it a synchronicity that shows how very different parallel lives intertwine. Like the song says, you give a little love, and it all comes back to you. 


The List, August 2023


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