Wednesday 4 September 2019

World's End @ The Kings Head Theatre


World's End @ The Kings Head Theatre

It’s funny how things can take you back. Films, music, food – they can all be indicative of a certain time and place. In World’s End, the debut play from writer James Corley, it’s the references to a video game that immediately transport me back to 1998 when the latest game in the Zelda series was released, taking me on an epic quest across a mysterious fantasy realm. The play may be set in that year with the political backdrop of the Kosovan war, but it’s the references to this game and the use of its music that set the scene for me more than anything.

Corley draws parallels with the game’s coming-of-age themes and his lead characters – two young men who explore their sexuality as they bond over Nintendo. But life isn’t as simple as saving the princess. Ben (Tom Milligan) is a nervous, fidgeting presence with a stammer, patronised by his overbearing mother Viv (Patricia Potter). Besnik (Mirlind Bega) has an equally overbearing father in Ylli (Nikolaos Brahimllari), who doesn’t agree with his son's Anglicised, homosexual behaviour and is passionately embittered about the war in his home country of Kosovo.

The game’s character travels through time from a child to an adult in order to save the world; equally Ben and Besnik are forced to grow up in a world fraught with adult dangers like war and homophobia. Yet the play takes place entirely in the two family’s flats, a safe haven away from the outside world. Video games offer an extra dimension and become an important element not only in forging relationships, but in providing escapism. Where gaming too often hits the news headlines as it's blamed for violence and gun crimes, Corley’s play offers a positive message – here, gaming is the very antithesis of war.

The Kosovan war is little more than a backdrop to Corley’s main focus: the family drama. As such, Besnik and Ylli feel a little underwritten compared to their British counterparts. But it’s the relationship between Ben and Viv that provides the play’s most tender moments. There’s a great dynamic range between the two actors as their frustrations at one another boil over into arguments, before settling into apologetic compassion, reflecting the very tangible difficulties of two people living together in a one bed flat and the push-pull tension of their inter-locking lives. Both Milligan and Potter are excellent in their respective roles: Milligan likeable as the stuttering Ben who’s not as naïve as his mother suspects, Potter devastating in the play’s final moments as she’s torn between her own moral views and allowing her son independence.

There’s no fairytale ending here, no magical Triforce to put the world right again. But sometimes, it takes a little fantasy for us to truly find ourselves.

4/5

Watch: World’s End runs at The Kings Head Theatre until 21st September.


Photo: Bettina Adela