The Lift

"Stranded as a cloud in the sky."

The lift is a unique and sorry place filled with unhappy characters that stand uncomfortably close to you without ever saying a word. They breathe down your neck, sneeze in your face, and stare with scorn and suspicion, before fading quickly and forgettably back into the chaos of the outside world, never to be seen again. At least, that’s what usually happens…

In his inaugural Bedlam script, writer Fergus Deery asks what would happen if those doors never slid back open, and the lift people were left at the mercy of each other. With the sacrosanct of silence broken, how will a newly-engaged young couple hold out against the stinging cynicism of some embittered pensioners?; how will the hung-over Hockey Boy fare against a hard-spoken wheelchair user, and her claustrophobic, angst-ridden companion?; will the mechanic ever return from his lunch break, and will the (scathingly pompous) Professor ever get chance to deliver his ‘incredibly important seminar’ to the adoring crowds? Only time will tell.

Consciously and shamelessly caricatured, ‘The Lift’ is liberally laced with outlandish and hard-hitting humour, as the self-righteous, narrow-minded and mostly misled characters unleash their backwards and bigoted views into a shaft that begins to reek as strongly of ignorance as it does of old-people farts. Brutally unrefined, the play is illuminating in its every crudity, mocking the mouthpiece rather than the subject, and highlighting the supremely strange and often incompatible variety of human nature in this, our 21st-century world.

This performance of ‘The Lift’ is part of an afternoon triple bill alongside ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘The Elephant in the Room’. You can purchase tickets for all three shows at a discounted price of £7.00 (£6.00 for EUTC members) via the Bedlam Theatre Box Office.