Preview: Three for Two, Alma Tavern Theatre

Bristol’s Groundswell Theatre return to the Alma with three short, linked plays for two actors, exploring what happens when sex, power and money collide. Here’s writer Phil Booth to tell us more about Groundswell (‘high-octane, carbon-neutral’) and the triple bill.

Groundswell  aim to make intimate, provocative theatre in a direct and entertaining style. We formed in Bristol in 2011 to stage my play A Picture Of Home, which was written to create an opportunity for two talented local actors, Dymphna Skehill and Yiannis Askaroglou (Yiannis is now working back in Athens). From the start it was agreed that we would offset the show’s carbon footprint, and carbon off-setting remains part of our policy now that we’ve reformed to stage my play Three For Two, with Marie Pyke coming on board as producer.

The impetus was provided by Winston J. Pyke’s dynamic performance of the monologue Control, the first play in the trilogy, as part of the Bierkeller Theatre’s new writing programme last May. I’d always conceived Control and the second play Nightmare in Paradise (a monologue for a second actor), as the first elements of a longer show which would conclude with a more substantial two-hander. So, with Winston keen to perform the full show, I wrote the final play, Say Yes. Clive Duncan then joined the company in December as the second actor. We hope to tour this show later in the year.

The three plays look at the corrosive effect of power and money on relationships. I am, in essence, a writer of comedy who likes to tackle dark subjects (I can’t reveal the darkest of these in Three For Two without a spoiler – it’s very much in the news at present).

But the plays aren’t exactly morality plays – or if they are, I’m damned if I know what the moral is. Other than, choose your holiday reading more carefully. We hope that audiences will laugh, and think, and feel, and that they’ll see themselves in our characters. There’s a lot at stake in these short dramas, with a sense of menace never far away.

A bit more on the three plays:

Control: A young working man proudly relives for us the day when he refused to be bought for cash. That is, if his version of events can be believed.

Nightmare In Paradise: Prosperous, middle-aged Anthony has taken his younger lover Joe on holiday. But does Joe just want his money? And is Anthony wise to look for answers in the pages of a murder mystery?

Say Yes: Wealthy footballer Gabriel and his steward Barlow share a dark secret. With Barlow threatening to expose them, can Gabriel buy his silence?

Three for Two is at the Alma Tavern Theatre, Bristol until Sat, Mar 26. Tue-Sat 8pm, £10/£8 concs. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.almataverntheatre.co.uk/theatre/what-s-on.html 

Pictured top: Control