Theatre Review: The Climbers by Carmen Nasr, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick

The Climbers, Theatre by the Lake

By Ken Powell

As the summer season kicks in for theatres in the north, Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake (TBTL) opens with a fascinating premiere from Carmen Nasr – a new name to me, but one I’m pretty sure I’ll see again.

Building on the success of Swim earlier in the year, this is another production which appeals to Cumbrian audiences. This time, instead of the depths of water, we turn to the heights of mountains. Unlike the previous production, The Climbers isn’t set in Cumbria though. We’re in Nepal and witnessing the aftermath of tragedy up Everest.

See from multiple points of view through flashbacks, interviews and ‘visions’, we follow an unusual investigator, Connie’s (Louise Mai Newberry) attempts to find out what happened to Yasmin’s (Claire Lams) husband Charlie (Marc Graham) while they attempted the trek to the summit. But the altitude plays havoc with your mind and uncovering the truth from unreliable witnesses (such as the seductive climber, Gwen, played by Amelia Isaac Jones) is a task almost as hard as climbing the mountain itself

But how do you bring the mountains into the warm indoors of the theatre? You do it with a superb lighting, sound and stage design team, that’s how.

Alexandra Faye Braithwaite does yet another super job as sound designer and composer – her touch being just as vital for Tom’s Midnight Garden and Kes. Here, the violence of that great mountain assaults our ears at all the right moments.

Max Johns provides us with a set which perfectly ‘unreal’ to match the often-strange memories of what took place. The sheets representing the Himalayas strip back as we get closer to the truth, and yet they never peel away entirely just as we never entirely clear up the mystery. Indeed, it is more the peeling away of the tragedy which occurs.

Jess Bernberg designed the lighting work and this, in many ways, is perhaps the most important in bringing us into the unfolding drama. Sound and light dancing with each other take us on journeys real and unreal as we strip back Charlie and Yasmin’s relationship.

Claire Lams and Marc Graham are entirely believable as the young couple. Feisty, troubled but in love, we learn about their past and the issues in their marriage. Just enough to know them, but not enough to really get to the core of what went wrong for them. Their mountain guide, Tshering (Manish Gandhi) is little help in this despite his eternal optimism and long-suffering attempts to keep the couple safe and content. Gandhi keeps this character enigmatic yet lovable. If I needed a mountain guide, I’d probably want it to be him. That said, a question mark lingers over him that perhaps is never truly resolved.

Louise Mai Newberry playing Connie, the private investigator hired by Charlie’s mum (Shenagh Govan) to find her son, is perhaps the highlight of the show for me. In a sense, she is another ‘climber’ dealing with her own long-held grief while dealing with this entirely alien environment in which she is completely out of her depths. I wanted to see more of this character and she’s reminded me of the importance of jammy dodgers.

Overall, is this a new classic? I’m not sure, to be honest. But it is a gripping story with just the right level of humour and hope in it that stops it becoming an unrelenting tragedy. If you’re looking for a whodunnit which finds ‘the killer’ and ties everything up nicely, you won’t find anything like that here. We find what we come to look for but that’s not the same thing. We know the people involved and we come away when we have what we need to satiate our curiosity. But there is no doubting that all involved will continue to be haunted by what happened long after the play ends. It is a hauntingly beautiful ending – but only for us, the audience.

The Cimbers is showing at Theatre by the Lake’s Main House until Saturday 16 July 2022. To find out more call the Box Office on 017687 74411 or visit www.theatrebythelake.com.