A post-show discussion, eh?  How very professional.  I want to sneer at the ADC-ers, whose talents I envy, and who are surely bound to treat such a frivolity as an egomaniacal platform, an extension of the stage into an arena for unashamed showing off.  I deliberately booked to see The Deep Blue Sea on Thursday to attend.

But while I’m sure it can’t exactly have done any harm to their egos, the creative team of director, producer and leading cast members were sincere and earnest, showing – unless their acting skills were so good as to deceive me on this point – genuine interest in what the audience had to say.  The discussion created a channel between the audience and the production that was direct and tangible.  While I maintain that there is a fruitful role for reviews, opportunities for direct dialogue can only be a good thing.

The pity was the paucity of students who attended.  Of the twenty-or-so who stayed on after the show, the vast majority were oldies.  The most vociferous was an Am-Dram enthusiast, who had performed in the play himself only a decade or so ago.  The one who enjoyed himself the most, meanwhile, was the man who had ‘hmm’-ed his way through most of the second half; for every carefully crafted silence there was a ‘hmm!’ of surprise, a ‘hmm…’ of contemplation, or an ‘uhmm’ of agreement from The Hummer of row C.  I had to ascribe this to deafness rather than rudeness, though for his humming not to have been offensive to his own ears he must have been a very good lip-reader to have heard the play at all.  He contentedly ‘hmm’-ed along to the post-show discussion, too, thoroughly enjoying whatever snippets he could hear.

That said, proceedings on stage went a fair way to levelling the audibility playing field; there were some exchanges which nobody could have heard over the late show preparations underway.  Taking the discussion towards the back of the auditorium did little to assuage this, though simply watching the set being dismantled was intriguing as an insight into the intricacies of its construction.

Still, it would have been good to see the youth more strongly represented.  It is not like Cambridge students to eschew the offer to engage in discussion, an invitation which is open after most Thursday main shows this term.  Lively debate can be sensitive to a critical mass, and on this occasion the discussion was, while sincere, relatively tame.  The creative team could only work with the questions and contributions offered, many of which were interesting, but none of which was really delving – and it’s not as though I had anything to say myself.  I imagine the whole thing would be vastly more productive, if considerably more awkward, if the play was rubbish.  The Deep Blue Sea had no cause to worry on that score because it was so damned good.