There is a theory that in the course of human prehistory, hunter-gatherers sang before they spoke. The idea crops up in this bitter-sweet monologue by playwright Simon Stephens and singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel as a way to explain the emotional gulf between two brothers. The bereaved Willem is materialistic where his late sibling Pauli was artistic. Where Willem plays a numbers game on the New York stock market, his musical brother was rooted with his Amsterdam family until his premature death. “We are animals born to sing,” says Willem.
And if ever there was an actor born to sing, it is Will Young. He plays the part of the disconnected Willem in this 80-minute miniature with melodic grace. In an expensive-looking ivory sweater and a distinguished grey crop of hair that belies his youthful smile, he glides between a pretty sing-song speaking voice and a brash Manhattan bass. At turns louche, comic and fragile, he has a musician’s sense of rhythm. When he actually sings, as he does in the cathartic pay-off, it is delicate and angelic.
