Tonsils and Tweezers are friends at school, possibly each other’s only ally. But when Tonsils gets the chance to join the cool group (read the bullying group), the friendship is put under strain – with consequences that are long and deep and terrible.
Despite the serious themes, this is theatre given wings by the spirit of youth. It’s mischievous, energetic and exuberant.
Writer Will O’Mahony gives us a script that’s fun and fast-paced, bouncy and bubbly, but with jagged edges that foreshadow danger. A natural chronology and a flat realism are eschewed, with Tonsils (Ariyan Sharma) sometimes functioning as an upbeat omniscient (and therefore unsettling) narrator.
The script is rich in motifs. Some plainly evoke cruelty – like the recurring reference to a skinned dog, silent and horrible in its suffering. Other motifs resist a simplistic reading. Is the binary star a symbol of loyalty? Or of mutual dependence? Or perhaps, in its wobble, of the loneliness of a loss never publicly acknowledged? Is the fact a piece of paper can’t be folded more than seven times suggestive of the impossibility of packing away one’s pain? Cause it also operates as dreadful portent of the key plot point. It’s all a playful, poignant puzzle.
Director Lucy Rossen leans into the theatricality and, with the help of designer Bella Saltearn, gives us a stage replete with puppets and puckish props, presenting a show of ironic vitality (which is as close to a spoiler as I’ll get.)
Her cast of four – Victor Y Z Xu, Caitlin Green, Toby Carey & Sharma– give excellent comic performances.
This is an example of what I’ve called the Theatre of Audacity. This is theatre that asks to be valued because it surprises, shocks and delights. It has us say of the actors I can’t believe you stood in front of people and did that! (In contrast is the Theatre of Authenticity, theatre that asks to be valued because of its veracity and honesty, theatre that has us say of the actors You made me believe that was true.)
So am I saying Tonsils + Tweezers is without veracity and honesty? That it is, somehow, dissatisfyingly untruthful?
Who is to make such a judgement? In every production, the least convincing performance is always by the critic pretending to be objective.
What the audacity of Tonsils + Tweezers does (it seems to me) is express a scandalised astonishment that the world is not just. That’s why I suggested earlier that it’s a youthful piece. Which is hardly a criticism. To paraphrase someone who was not a theatre critic (though he did associate with the most disreputable members of his society) Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Paul Gilchrist
Tonsils + Tweezers by Will O’Mahony
Produced by Sharehouse Production Company
At the Old Fitz, as a late show, until 27 Feb
Image by Nicholas Warrand
Theatre Red 
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