Sunny Side, Northern Rascals
Sunny Side, Northern Rascals © Elly Welford
Works about mental health tend to deal with extremes. Storylines of despair and depression and anxiety leading up to major, dramatic moments of crises that we hope will resolve in a moment of hope.
But life isn’t like that and Northern Rascals, the dance theatre company formed by Anna Holmes and Sam Ford, recognise this. Their latest work, Sunny Side, which premiered last night at The Place, offered no solution nor a dramatic moment of crisis. Created in collaboration with the men’s mental health charity Andy’s Man Club, it meditates on the forgotten young men left behind in sleepy towns. Where girlfriends move on and best friends have escaped for university adventures, changing their relationship dynamic forever. While the world moves on, K (our protagonist) is left to rot in his room every evening after his construction job, social media muffling the sound of his parents arguing downstairs. Each morning brings the same monotony as he eats less and less of the breakfast his mum shoves through his bedroom door each morning. The dance here is lyrical and dynamic, performed by our trio with feeling and finesse. Soul Roberts as K was a compelling lead, especially when faced with the challenge of hardly leaving the stage.
Sunny Side, Northern Rascals © Elly Welford
But there are sparks of joy in K’s life. His best friend (Ed Mitchell) coming home from uni to play video games, a stolen night with his lover (a read of the synopsis after suggests that these were in fact flashbacks, but they came across more as real-time events). As time moves on, his community fades more into the distance as life pulls them away and K becomes more isolated, craving connection.
And it’s in these moments of connection that the choreography shines: physical battles while playing Xbox; swirling his girlfriend (Sophie Thomas) around in pure bliss; collapsing hugs as each friend struggles to hold up the other. In a club, K dances slightly out of sync with his friends, subtly rejected. His diverted path is crystal clear here, even without the poetry spoken over the top.
The soundtrack brings the whole work to life. Wilfred Kimber’s mix of music and soundscape is perfectly balanced, while Anna Kimber’s pre-recorded poetic script (which works both as the characters’ speech and inner monologue) adds context (although on occasion the poet’s love of language masks subtleties in the narrative).
Sunny Side, Northern Rascals © Elly Welford
Unfortunately, K’s final scene, where he sits reflecting on the lack of emotional parenting from his father, came a little out of nowhere and felt overly expository, which was a shame when the balance between show and tell had been so well balanced until this point.
I’m a little conflicted by this work. It is a slick production and an easy-to-follow meditation on young men’s mental health. It’s also a fresh angle on the wider mental health conversation, choosing to focus on the “duller” story of loneliness over the dramatics of more overt breakdowns. Although I concede it succeeded in its aims, I almost wish it had gone further. To look deeper at the consequence of K’s isolation. A resulting interest in far-right narratives, absorbed through his late-night phone scrolls, perhaps? A conversation rising now, but maybe not five years ago when the work first started development. Part two is forming before my very eyes.
★★★★
Sunny Side, Northern Rascals
The Place / 8 April 2025
Press ticket
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