Songbirds And Angels

As we enter the La Mama Courthouse we're greeted by a winged angel at home in her cloud being accosted by jumbo jets flying closely by. The design team has done well to create this cloud structure, elevated on stilts, providing an exciting sense of altitude on the Courthouse stage.

Written and directed by Christine Grace, Songbirds and Angels follows an angel cut off from her divine employer. She undertakes a directionless voyage sailing her cloud from one desolate setting to the next accompanied only by a speechless magpie. The production makes effective use of projections and a rich sound design to evoke the movement of the angel's travels. This is an angel from the 'lowest orders' and is not like the faultless beings we recognise from religious texts. Instead, this is a flawed, confused and isolated angel unsure of her place in the world or, how to reconnect with the ambiguously named 'watcher'.

Grace cites Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree as an influence. This was palpable in the fantastical nature of the lands visited by the angel. However, the writing and Glynis Angell's solo performance rarely managed to overcome a whimsical lightness in moments that required greater dramatic punch.