"Cotton Fingers" / "Twelve Cabins..."

In the past couple of years, National Theatre Wales has received some criticism for their apparent reluctance to stage actual plays in actual theatres, as well as for a perception that they weren’t doing enough with the public money with which they have been entrusted. Thus, it was good to be part of a full house in the Arena at the Sherman, to see Rachel Trezise’s “Cotton Fingers”, a monologue first performed over three nights last year in West Wales as part of the company’s celebration of 70 years of the National Health Service. In it, Amy Molloy engagingly plays a young woman from West Belfast, forced to travel to Wales for the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. A much-needed reminder of continuing struggles.

 

Amy Molloy (photo: Craig Fuller)

Most recently, at Chapter, I saw “Twelve Cabins Twelve Vacancies”, a show spinning off from the fact that director/performer Chris Durnall’s father died on the same night that Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” premiered on U.K television (in 1968), and the effect that this connection may have consciously or sub-consciously had on his subsequent life. Intriguing, especially for film nerds.