Promises Promises

Promises Promises is a thoughtful and thought provoking piece of theatre that challenges with issues of culture, religion and sexuality, deftly balancing gravity with humour. Set in a London school populated with recognisable teachers, Promises Promises operates in a politically correct world where everyone is right, which makes navigating the inevitable clash of cultures highly impossible. At the heart of the story is “Rosie”, the mute Somalian girl believed to have devils inside her and Miss Brodie, the teacher who decides to act to save her.

Douglas Maxwell’s writing is seamless; his beautiful turn of phrase, wordplay and rhythm of language is simultaneously delicious, entertaining and poetic which plays beautifully against the taut situation. In Miss Brodie, he has created a tour de force of a character. Joanna Tope’s performance is amazing in this 90 minute monologue. Maggie Brodie is a fascinating and complex woman who could be branded the same number of names she calls others. She is a mixture of extremes; vulnerable and powerless, whose behaviour is compassionate and righteous, a woman whose first and last defence is her sexuality.

Her character polarises opinion, she could be either a hero or a villain but the great tribute to Maxwell, Tope and director Johnny McKnight is that while you don’t condone her behaviour, you understand her, and this shows the degree to which her humanity has been achieved through writing and performance. Tope plays her with great gusto, sensitivity and passion; likewise the other characters that populate this drama are made very real in her capable hands.

The multimedia aspect of Promises Promises works well: Rosie’s entrance, by way of projection, echoes the music at the start with its rhythm of being led then being dragged and the image projected towards the end of the play visually captures and matches the chilling climax of the play.

The word promise carries such weight in this play: there is the promise of education, the assurance of protection, that a secret is concealed. But despite best intentions it’s as if the title of the play is spoken by someone who knows the repetition of the word brings empty hope of promises actually being kept. For us however, it’s a night that delivers on its promise – a play that lingers in the mind long after the performance.