An election plays out on a television. A group of people come together in a darkened room. Maybe they’re friends or maybe strangers, but nobody wants to go to bed and nobody wants to go home.
After Party is an autobiographical performance of personal and political comedowns growing up in the aftermath of New Labour. It begins with the election party Annie’s Dad threw in 1997, and reimagines possible parties from the past, present and future, scored by a live DJ. It’s a show about late nights, early mornings, party politics and men who let you down. It’s about Britpop, Brexit, broken promises and 7am breakdowns. It’s about Tony Blair, Keir Starmer and all our Dads.
After Party takes on a new charged relevance in the year of a general election. What comes after the party, and what comes after that? You know what they say, things can only get worse…
We enter the performance space to the beats of DJ Erfan Shojanoori and a plethora of balloons strewn around the floor with Annie Lowry Thomas lying on a beaten up sofa.
Combining archive news footage with her own personal story in this contemporary performance piece Lowry Thomas’ work is particularly resonant in the post-election UK. The first few months of Keir Starmer’s new, New Labour have not exactly been plain sailing. The optimism and shine of the new government, having somewhat eroded already.
Lowry Thomas explores the political events that have shaped her and her fellow Millennials lives. The end of Tory rule, the rise of Tony Blair’s New Labour (and its downfall) the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, Brexit, the resurgence of the Tories and the lasting effects of their austerity policies, Partygate, the Pandemic to the recent Labour election win.
Lowry Thomas also wants to start her own political party and plays several “either or” games with us, tests the mood of the room with some brutal Shag, Marry, Kill options, spouts the hollow catch phrases of each of the previous governments and even at one point gets a (sort of) willing audience member to play her mum circa 1997. Thomas weaves all of this within the party we are supposed to be attending.
Lowry Thomas is looking for the hope among all of this. Yes, things have changed, but inevitably they just stay the same. While DReam’s Things Can Only Get Better blasts throughout, we are left feeling that they surely can’t get any worse.
A thought provoking piece but it feels that too many ideas have been combined that ultimately lack cohesion and Lowry Thomas’ delivery is lacking in energy and drive at times.