10.41°C Part of the fantastic Wonderful Wednesdays series at Colchester Arts Centre – where audiences pay what they can afford – this was an engaging, poignant and quietly moving piece, beautifully performed by Ross Sutherland.
Following a hard-drive crash and a near-death experience, Sutherland found himself housebound with only one companion: an old videotape that had belonged to his grandfather. That tape – presented to us throughout the show – contains a jumble of fragments: Ghostbusters, The Crystal Maze, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, adverts, a football match and the first five minutes of Jaws. As Ross wryly observes, it’s as if his grandfather believed he was allowed only one videotape for life and kept recording over it.
The tape becomes transformative. Within its chaotic layers, Ross begins to find patterns that mirror his own experiences. His monologue gently guides us through the emotional connections between the footage, his grandfather and his own struggles. He is an amiable, warm and honest presence, speaking candidly about depression, family and his brush with death.
Each fragment of television becomes metaphor. The soul-destroying grind of working in a bank, for example, is paired with an old advert for that very institution – replayed repeatedly as Ross delivers a sharp, rhythmic rap about the emptiness of doing a job you hate. The nostalgia triggered by the tape is part of the joy; like life itself, you never know what will surface next.
Sutherland admits the piece is still evolving, that there are elements on the tape yet to reveal their meaning. But what we see already is a deeply personal meditation on loss. His grandfather’s presence runs through the evening as strongly as the flickering images on screen. At times the writing becomes beautifully poetic, though for my taste there was perhaps a little too much rap.
As he closes by speaking about letting go, there is a genuine sense of untangling grief – of beginning to accept, to release and to move forward. A moving and thoughtful experience, and a wonderful sentiment for us all.
