Blink at Bristol Old Vic

So, there’s this boy, Jonah, left a tiny fortune by his dead mum. He’s alone. And there’s this girl, Sophie, suffering a similar loss, without the hard cash but with the flat that her dad has recently bequeathed her. Alone. Lonely. They are invisible: he is dressed in grey, she in beige. 

The boy moves away from the northern family farm that he has been (pointlessly?) guarding and travels to London, where he takes up lodgings beneath his new landlady, Sophie. But he doesn’t yet know that.  

She’s mischievous in her solitary existence and decides to send the boy downstairs a camera link, so that he can watch her every move. And he does.  The pair embark on a journey of togetherness, without openly acknowledging the other.  They travel around London.  Side by side.  Apart.  He is the voyeur; she is the watched.  Until …

He has a reason to be constantly by her side, every moment, caring, watching, waiting.

Blink is the story of two young people who are sick in their loneliness and may even be able to find solace, love and warmth.  It’s the tale of being alone yet, perhaps, not wanting to be.

Blink is about how two people can find each other against the odds. But also about how fleeting love can be.

Lizzie Watts and Thomas Pickles are convincing in their independent monologues, each sharing their lives with us, the audience, and with each other.   But it is evident that something is not right, something has to give – her stubbornness? His persistence?

We came away from the Studio Pit at Bristol Old Vic feeling deflated.  Is that all there is to love?  What does it take to tear down crumbling walls?  A word? An action?  Does one person feel annoyed, or even hounded, while the other is left wondering what on earth just happened?

Well acted, witty and intimate, Blink is showing at Bristol Old Vic until 1st March.

– Review by Becky Condron