Review: Local at Theatre by the Lake

“…You spend 75 minutes listening to her bearing all…yet you come away feeling heard…”

Local by Liz Richardson, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick

By Ken Powell

“Are there any trigger warnings I should be aware of?” my daughter asks me, eyebrow raised, as we join the lengthy queue at the Theatre by the Lake’s bar just minutes before Local begins. She knows this production is written and performed by Liz Richardson and can remember the impact her SWIM had on us several years ago. I failed to take note of what the show was about and none of us were prepared for the heart-wrenching performance. I’ve never been allowed to forget it.

“Well,” says I, clearing my throat nervously, “it doesn’t sound like anything too traumatic is going to happen.” I feel I need to introduce a caveat. “But you never can tell with Liz.”

I call her Liz. I don’t know the performer and have never spoken to her, yet her performances are always so deeply personal, you feel like you’ve spent a lifetime with her. It isn’t so much she wears her heart on her sleeve as that she spreads it all over her body. It’s impossible to miss.

Her last production dealt with the trauma of grief and loss; this one promises to have no such heavy issues. How bad could it be, eh? A story of a Cumbrian woman revisiting her past and sharing introspective thoughts about belonging and what we mean by ‘home’. This would be safe ground.

The problem is, you really don’t ever know what to expect from Liz Richardson. She doesn’t do anything…well…normal.

She’s bonkers, that’s for sure, and has you giggling throughout and even crying with laughter at times (her teenage dance moves are worth the price of the ticket alone). Self-effacing at all times, she lays bare her most embarrassing and humiliating moments and jokes honestly about herself. I defy anyone over twenty not to identify with much of what she says about her teen self and cringe in recognition.

She’s also very, very real. It helps that my family and I are from exactly the same area of West Cumbria as Liz. We are even able to identify where the photos displayed on the screen behind were taken. The people she talks about and the life she’s lived – they are all ‘everyman’ (or, more accurately, ‘every woman’ as almost all the characters mentioned are female). You can’t help but identify with it all.

And then, out of nowhere, she hits you hard. Really hard.

You don’t see it coming. Everything was so nice and lovely and funny and real and gentle – like chatting to an old friend in a pub, telling long stories. Then, you’re crying and you have no idea where that came from. Yet, this isn’t forced. Looking back, it was inevitable. She was always leading up to that point of realisation of what was really eating away inside of her – and there’s a good chance it was eating away at you too.

That’s the genius of this solo writer-performer. You spend 75 minutes listening to her bearing all, her most intimate thoughts and feelings, and yet you come away feeling heard. Few performers have this ability to pull real empathy out of their audiences like this. That’s what makes everything so funny and so painful – it’s the same skill set in place. Liz makes you feel it is your parents, your bedroom, your teenage memorabilia, your friends, your worries that she’s sharing on stage. We’re all laid bare when she performs.

I said about SWIM that it was a privilege to be there. It is the same with Local too. Part of the reason is that one day Liz Richardson won’t be there anymore. Whether through retirement or eventual shuffling off the mortal coil or just simply not wanting to share every aspect of her life with strangers any longer, one day these productions of hers won’t be performed again. They are that personal. I can’t see another actor pretending to be ‘60% Honest Liz’. And that means these few performances (the show is on a limited tour around the north) are very special. They are a once-in-a-lifetime experience and that experience will stay with you for a lifetime. You come away emotional – yes – but also uplifted, gladdened and just a little bit more in love with your fellow human beings.

At the end, I look at my daughter through bleary eyes and wait until she’s wiped away her own tears. On the way home, we discuss what it means to belong, to be ‘local’ to Cumbria, and different perspectives between daughter and parent. We’ve come away with very different things, but both have the same emotional responses. We’re grateful for what we’ve just experienced – and just a little bit more ready for the future.

Local plays at Theatre by the Lake until Saturday 24 May.

Ken Powell is chief editor for Northern Arts Review and is also a bestselling author and writer for various publications around the world. A former school teacher, he continues to write educational books along with fiction and travelogues. You can find all his books and various websites here including his popular TEDx talk about the Global Village. He lives with his family in a wonderfully isolated village in West Cumbria where he enjoys drinking tea, chatting with the birds and winding up his dog. You can support his work (or just buy him a coffee) here.