THEATRE REVIEW: Tonight Im Gonna Be The New Me ★★★★

Tonight I'm Gonna Be The New Me

Warwick Arts Centre

26th April 2016

Half way through Jess’s second dance routine, where certain moves afterwards are dedicated to certain individuals in the audience, Tim, her boyfriend, returns with a beer that Jess asks for shortly prior to the dance, and as he returns, we as the audience get a first full detailed look at him, who has before just been a voice, standing there, watching his girlfrie dance around, and we can almost strangely feel comfortable at being uncomfortable, no matter how strange that sounds.

This was ‘Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me’, a production created by Tim Cowbury and Jessica Latowicki, who performs solely throughout the whole production, as we listen to her stories about herself and Tim, her boyfriend, who Jess also refers back to after moments of tense speech. To me it had the essence of Grounded, a show set primarily in a box, and This Is How we Die, a show by Christopher Brett Bailey, but then that's no surprise when I find out that was an Associate Dramaturgy, along with Deborah Pearson.

What I loved about this production was just how Jess drawed me into the show, how when she spoke into the audience, the lights were up on us, so she could personally give eye-to-eye contact and talk to us, even going as far as to say ‘Bless You’ when a lady sneezed in the audience. Jess made us feel at tease, and even though some may have found the static movements to some of her pieces uneasy to watch, especially with the last routine where she was spinning around and falling over, I almost felt it like something very comfortable to watch, because Jess came across so genuine on stage.

Her words and stories that she told drew the whole audience to silence, and what I also found quite entrancing was how throughout the play Jess felt like the puppet master, putting words into our mouths for us to repeat back to her, and no one hesitated to do this, which was so fascinating because you never know how many of the audience are avid theatre goers, but even if some aren’t, they were in a way given a voice to which Jess orcastracted.

Overall, Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me was an entrancing, engaging and exciting piece of theatre that was charming and funny and saw an insight into cracked relationships and those involved in them.