Review: Slowing Down to the Speed of Light

‘Slowing Down to the Speed of Light’ finds storyteller Jackie Harris, exploring her rather recent ADHD diagnosis through a blend of folk-inspired tales and snippets of autobiography.

Surpassingly personable, Harris strikes an arresting figure on stage, a winning smile and flowing white locks dragging centre stage wherever she wanders. With accompaniment from Norwegian Cellist Maja Bugge, who also composed the show’s soundtrack, both live and recorded – the show acquires a second layer. The performing sandwich, so to say, is usually completed by the show’s Dramaturg, and audio-visual maestro Dominic Kelly – though on the 20th, Graham Kay stepped in to fulfil those vital tech requirements.

The result is a singular undertaking wherein Harris attempts to translate something ineffable into words, images and melody. Does the show revolve around that fateful ADHD diagnosis? Yes. However, it strives for something grander, and far closer to encapsulating a philosophy of life.

“Surpassingly personable, Harris strikes an arresting figure on stage…”

So whilst Jackie is meeting distant descendants in faerie forests and exploring her missing entries in the family history, she is also weaving the tale of a nihilist lord, the Lady of the Lake, and a beloved baby. On a canvas strung behind, artist Marjan Wouda’s conjures a world of cardboard forests and cascading rose petals. Safeguarding this abdunance of creative riches against muddle is the unseen hand of Horse and Bamboo Theatre Company’s Bob Frith in the Mise-en-scène hot seat.

However, back to that super-powered personability. Lacing proceedings with humour, Harris first introduces us to an improbably accurate archer with a highly practical secret, and herself as a child, boldly entering a dance competition amidst the fading grandeur of the Morcambe Winter Gardens. Both fiction and memoir find humorous conclusions when assumptions give way to knowledge.

These are amuse-bouches, preparing the way for grander narratives to follow. Forcefully eschewing the textbook approach to ADHD, the show attempts to define it in action. It’s a blend of ‘Advanced Forgetting’ all folded up in ‘Wet Washing in the Washing Machine’, a grasshopper mind fascinated by everything all at once. It’s not a disorder, just part of a way of being, and one which Harris presents with honesty and charm.

“Forcefully eschewing the textbook approach to ADHD, the show attempts to define it in action.”

The folktale-inspired strands woven around this speak to this theme of ‘simply being’ and of embracing the present. There’s no time to think of the self as lucky or not, only to accept, or even forget oneself. How else to negotiate the death of a beloved sister as the catalyst for a wave of overdue self-understanding in the aftermath?

The more inscrutable elements of the show will appeal to some, but not all. The symbolism of white ravens and rose petals will be as deep as the watcher’s frame of reference. That it all means something is clear – this is a deeply intentional production. Is there a need for raven dress-up? Maybe not, but it’s an impactful choice.

However, the show’s concluding rejection of triumphalism in favour of something far more peaceful and puckish is very well judged indeed. Accomplished and thought-provoking, ‘Slowing Down to the Speed of Light’ is a valiant and superbly genial exploration of life, ADHD, and more.

Featured Image: Geoff Harris