DIZZY is Sheffield Theatres’ latest production in collaboration with Theatre Centre, whose shows spend part of their run visiting schools and the other performing in theatres.
This afternoon’s matinee in The Playhouse is performed to a packed audience of impeccably well-behaved school kids, who laugh in all the right places and look spellbound as the two-hander deals with sensitive yet wholly relatable subject matter – a ringing endorsement of the company’s ability to appeal to its target audience.
Once I’d gotten over the gut punch of looking older than many of the supervising teachers huddled in the foyer, I took my seat, unsure of what to expect. Mohamed-Zain Dada’s DIZZY centres around two characters, Stax (Brendan Barclay) and Qamar (Sera Mustafa), and explores their opposing strategies for dealing with grief.
The drama unfolds around the untilemy death of the the titular (and unseen) character, Dizzy, who is Qamar’s older brother (or Yaseen, to her) and Stax’s friend and fellow ‘graff artist’. It is his fatal and suspicious accident that brings the odd couple unexpectedly together in grief, as their clash of worlds and cultures leads to heartwarming and often comic results.
The chemistry between the two actors is strong and believable, and their easy rapport helps sell the initial distrust and eventual tentative shoots of friendship as they learn more about each other’s worlds and bridge the slight generational gap.
The sequences in which Qamar gets lost in her own head, conversing with her dead brother in a dream-like state, are effective and well-scored, providing some respite from the slick-paced back-and-forth while offering a healthy dose of abstraction, easily signposted by Mustafa’s expressive movement and the changes in lighting.
Clocking in at just under an hour, the show rattles along on the backs of the endearing performances of Sera Mustafa (Qamar) and Brendan Barclay (Stax) and attempt to cover an awful lot of ground in its short run time. This clipped pace is probably designed to keep the younger audience engaged, but I couldn’t help feeling liek there was more story to be told, given a little more space.
All in all, DIZZY is a well-spent hour at the theatre, and judging by the reaction in the Playhouse, it succeeds in serving its target audience just the right balance of cultural touchpoints and thought-provoking subject matter.
DIZZY plays at Sheffield Theatres’ Playhouse until 12th October. Further info and ticket details can be found here.
