Michael Walters, left, and Tom Ratcliffe in Wreckage
(Picture: Marshall Stay)A young gay man communes with his dead partner as he struggles on through life in Tom Ratcliffe’s slight, sentimental exploration of bereavement. The 60-minute script is not without narrative skill or ambition, but it’s too skimpy to approach anything profound. And Rikki Beadle-Blair’s production, which originated at Harlow Playhouse, is too emotionally OTT to ever be truly affecting.
It’s performed by two barefoot actors in shorts and t-shirts, on an empty stage hung about with ivy and backed by a screen on which images of the relationship are projected. Sam (played by Ratcliffe) experiences the usual five stages of grief but with added guilt, as he haplessly caused his lover Noel (Michael Walters) to make the car journey that killed him.
