Review: Actual Fact

The audience arrived warm and willing to be entertained – and they were.

Actual Fact explored story telling. Not in a way that is generally celebrated in our society – such as I’m an adventurer, sportsperson, a politician – listen to or read of my noble deeds and deep and meaningful thoughts plebs – and grow because of it.

Actual Fact explored the parts often left out of stories that you or I could tell – the tedious and mundane facts of any journey we may take. The sound of something rolling, how an object appeared, where one was standing, was the milk creamy or just standard? So many facts to be established.

The production team built a whole play out of information usually discarded as not to bore your mum or co-workers to tears when you’re regaling them of tales of your day at work or what you did on the weekend. I’m not sure how the story would have carried if not for the great use of sound though. It was very cool and very clever.

The three actors who played the characters, who each took their tasks of establishing facts quite seriously, each brought a sense of humour to the stage that made their characters all likable – you did form an emotional connection and hoped they would not be killed off. The play has great value because of the content and the cast – if you are not a theater person, but would like to access a production that would not speak down to you, and a play that would make the art from accessible to you – then Actual Fact is a good place to start.

Everyone has stories to tell – important and boring. If there was a lesson to take home from Actual Fact it could be that even the tiniest morsel of information carries meaning.

Go see it.