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Union Theatre, London
November 4-6
Running time: approximately 75 minutes (no interval)
Writer/Performer: Noah McCreadie
Director: Hannah McLeod
Composer & Sound Designer: Johnny Edwards
Production Company: The McCreadie Company
Eli, the best friend of Tom, we’re told is from “a nice family” – and Noah McCreadie’s account of the pair’s childhood friendship dares to be genuine, simple and nice in the best sense. It is gentle, thoughtful, realistic and quietly devastating.
The single-hander format is also apposite. It compels from the moment McCreadie appears with nothing but a wooden bench and a rucksack by way of setting and props. That we have only the version according to Tom, played by McCreadie, who also plays, or rather evokes, all the other parts, sharpens the sense of absence as he remembers, or misremembers the friendship he once had.
We begin at the beginning. The two meet somewhere rural where childhoods are relatively unspoilt and even teenage years over the summer months turn into beautiful regressions.
Justifying the play’s title, condensation builds inside Eli’s bedroom window, but incidentally, rather than as any kind of clue as to what will happen next. Mentions of the song “Cannonballs” also recur as the musically talented Eli tries to teach Tom.
The play’s blow, at once feared and unexpected as all the other possible dramas have been defused, hits with the force of a stealth cannonball – or like the insidious condition ME that is one of the play’s major preoccupations.
We then get a rendition of the cult classic that in this instance is the theme tune of friends, not lovers. Tom, the bad music student, performs it hesitantly – and that’s fitting too.
Condensation and Cannonballs,
Union Theatre, London
November 4-6
Running time: approximately 75 minutes (no interval)
Writer/Performer: Noah McCreadie
Director: Hannah McLeod
Composer & Sound Designer: Johnny Edwards
Production Company: The McCreadie Company
Eli, the best friend of Tom, we’re told is from “a nice family” – and Noah McCreadie’s account of the pair’s childhood friendship dares to be genuine, simple and nice in the best sense. It is gentle, thoughtful, realistic and quietly devastating.
The single-hander format is also apposite. It compels from the moment McCreadie appears with nothing but a wooden bench and a rucksack by way of setting and props. That we have only the version according to Tom, played by McCreadie, who also plays, or rather evokes, all the other parts, sharpens the sense of absence as he remembers, or misremembers the friendship he once had.
We begin at the beginning. The two meet somewhere rural where childhoods are relatively unspoilt and even teenage years over the summer months turn into beautiful regressions.
Justifying the play’s title, condensation builds inside Eli’s bedroom window, but incidentally, rather than as any kind of clue as to what will happen next. Mentions of the song “Cannonballs” also recur as the musically talented Eli tries to teach Tom.
The play’s blow, at once feared and unexpected as all the other possible dramas have been defused, hits with the force of a stealth cannonball – or like the insidious condition ME that is one of the play’s major preoccupations.
We then get a rendition of the cult classic that in this instance is the theme tune of friends, not lovers. Tom, the bad music student, performs it hesitantly – and that’s fitting too.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, plays, theatre • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre