20,000 Leagues Under the Office is a comedy about two office workers who find themselves stuck in a lift that is hurtling towards the centre of the earth. Aside from a series of frantic phone calls that only serve to reinforce their isolation, various coping mechanisms kick in, including the use of cliches, mind-over-matter, heroism, romance and ingenious bracing positions.
“More fun than you would ever imagine an hour spent on the brink of death could be!” The Big Issue
Reviews Colleagues taking the lift to a humdrum office meeting suddenly find themselves speeding towards the centre of the earth and certain death. What follows is an extraordinary mix of dancing, cannibalism, banjo playing, brilliant parody, existentialist speculation, social satire, post-modern audience participation, and more – all in one hour. Saba McKinnon and Angus Barr are, besides anything else, masters of mime: with the help of a few deliberately cliched sound effects they convince you that they’re trapped in a lift. They can speak to people in the upper world on their mobiles, so they act other outrageously stock characters as well. Barr is also responsible for the script, which proceeds according to its own internal logic in all sorts of directions, often at once. And all the time there’s that unspoken and comic sexual tension, which is somehow released at the end – or is it? Underlying the comedy, indeed sometimes reaching the surface, is an implied discussion about the nature of freedom and its relationship to death. But even that’s shown to be funny.” Alan Geary
“Just when you think you’ve got your most outstanding shows of the year sorted along comes this two-hander from Publick Transport to upset the list.
Nottingham Evening Post 11-12-06
Thursday 1 February 2007
8pm (bar open 7pm)
TICKETS: £10 / £9
For more information: call 01983 822490
Quay Arts
Quay Arts, Sea Street, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 5BD
