I Think We Are Alone - Liverpool Playhouse

Frantic Assembly are always a hot ticket whenever they visit Liverpool and with this new work, written to celebrate their 25th anniversary year, they once again demonstrate why people flock to see them.

I Think We Are Alone is a piece which shows off the company’s characteristic flair for telling multiple stories and weaving them together into a tapestry. It’s an unusually wordy piece by physical theatre standards, but somehow the subject matter demands this.

It’s certainly true that it can be easier to feel loneliness when in the company of a crowd, and the constant movement of people does serve to highlight the disconnectedness of the individual characters in the piece. Each of them is experiencing some sense of loss or isolation, whether it be through bereavement, separation or their own impending demise. Each tells their individual story in brief, interleaved episodes.

They weave about the stage, herded by the movement of translucent, illuminated panels which dance around them and suggest visions of their surroundings. Unusually for Frantic Assembly there is little physical interaction between the performers – all the movement serves to separate rather than connect them. The connection, when it does emerge, is in the links between their individual storylines.

We live in a world where technological advances that have the capability to enable social interaction than ever before only seems to separate us further. I Think We Are Alone explores this phenomenon in a very direct and emotive manner, and makes us want to reach out and talk to people.

We will all have all seen recent campaigns that encourage us to ask questions of our friends and neighbours to check that they’re ok. Here is a piece of theatre which hammers home this message very clearly. If we avoid human interaction it is at our own peril.

Star Rating: Four Stars

Production Photographs by Tristram Kenton