Nina CaveMedium Font is a one-woman show about the journey of a clairvoyant to accept her gift and the life it offers her.
Claire-Monique Martin plays Lucy Verity, a Law student at Oxford University whose life is dramatically altered with the sudden death of her mother. Shortly after this traumatic event, Lucy and her family travel to France where her father books her and her sister in to see a medium. A medium, who Lucy realises, cannot hear the voices shouting in her ear – revealing that she is the true medium in the room. She laughs at all these phoneys in the world, she is the true psychic despite previously being extraordinarily skeptical of life after death.
The piece is an interesting concept; no one would expect a sensible Oxford Law student to abandon their degree and pursue a career in contacting the dead. However, this is, for me, where my interest wanes. Martin brings Lucy to life, brilliantly balancing her candor about the trials of explaining this gift to others with her excitement about her talents. Yet, this performance is significantly stunted by an uninventive and, at times, awkward script.
The middle of the piece is marked by a painful musical number which seemed as uncomfortable for the performer as for me as an audience member. This segment summarises one of my key issues with this piece – it doesn’t seem to know what genre it is or what it is aiming to do. There are some vaguely funny lines scattered throughout the piece but then also some quite dark sections about the mental health impact of claiming to be clairvoyant. I am quite uncomfortable with this section – this storyline feels disrespectful to those who genuinely are struggling with schizophrenia or other psychological illnesses which can cause you to hear voices.
The production promises twists towards the end of the thirty minute run time, but these fall flat, as clichés tend to do. I am also disillusioned by her choice to travel around the bingo halls and local venues – you would think someone clever enough to get into Oxford University would do something a little more innovative with her talents. Lucy Verity seems like someone who would speak to prior world leaders to get their words of advice or use this gift to make a positive impact on the world. Instead she grabs money from people desperate to hear from their loved ones and involves herself in minor feuds with the most accomplished con-artists in the clairvoyant industry.
Medium Font is a one-dimensional and overly predictable piece which fails to make use of the talent of its actor and the opportunities afforded by the supernatural theme.
Medium Font is available to watch online. For more information see Stables Theatre and Arts Centre’s website.