“Velocity” – A play by Daniel Macdonald

Velocity by Daniel Macdonald

Finborough Theatre until 13th May 2014

Dot is 15 and indulging in sex and drugs but her parents don’t care. She craves their attention. Dot conducts her school science project on velocity by interviewing her parents. Yet this is no ordinary interview – her father is to be blown up and sent crashing down from his office on the 72nd Floor. According to Dot’s theory this journey will take six seconds; will time stand still in order to change her plight?

It’s a story that will ring true with many busy parents, but with extra twists. Michael, Dot’s father, is surgically attached to his blackberry as he pursues yet another deal. For downtime he prefers to visit strip joints. There’s a very sleazy scene were Dot challenges that dictum by superimposing herself in his downtime. Her mother, Laura, is completely immersed in her own world of being a TV presenter and all the associated imagery slavery. Dot is a hinderance and only seems to serve the purpose of having boyfriends so Laura can continue to feed her misplaced ego. These boyfriends, Gee and Zoo, also deliver a bomb which launches Michael into the physics experiment. Here there is a reference to 9/11 in the sense of skyscrapers and bombs causing life changing events or do they?

The tiny space of the Finborough deserves strong praise for this challenging production where the audience almost laps up every bead of sweat from the strong cast. Michael hovers precariously on top of stacked stools and the sensation of him falling is brilliantly captured. And just as you think you have finally clinched the story, the ending unravels confusion.Velocity, Daniel Macdonald’s European premiere, leaves the viewer absorbed and asking more questions about the meaning of time – what actually is real?