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After Party

Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Four stars

 

Annie Lowry Thomas is flaked out on the sofa at the start of her new solo show for her Hacks company, coming down at the fag end of what was supposed to be the party to end them all. DJ Erfan Shojnoori is still playing in the corner and not all the balloons are burst yet. Thomas just needs a second wind to keep things going, is all. She’s just not sure where to turn and who to believe in anymore is all. Given the current state of the world, who can blame her? 

 

What follows sees Thomas rewind to the New Labour landslide of 1997 that ended eighteen years of Conservative rule in the UK and was supposed to change everything. Thomas was five back then, and has been living its legacy ever since, right up to this year’s somewhat less euphoric Westminster victory that bookends her show.  

 

Moving between the sofa and the microphone, Thomas delivers a frank and disarmingly funny autobiographical dissection of how we got to the state we’re in. Spoiler alert, things didn’t only get better at all, and on current form aren’t showing any sign of doing so anytime soon. 

 

Triumphalism, blind optimism and a lack of someone or something to commit to are all in the mix over the show’s just shy of an hour-long duration. This is before we get to another fourteen years of Tory rule, a global pandemic and rule-breaking lockdown parties in Downing Street. At a more personal level, Thomas’ relationship with her old school socialist mum and dad is clearly a huge influence. 

 

As it stands - and After Party does stand for something in all its complex and giddy glory - Thomas has knitted together a refreshingly incisive and tautly written dissection of the mess of the world she came of age in, with the good times yet to come.


The Herald, October 7th 2024

 

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