REVIEW: One of Two – Platform, Glasgow
Jack Hunter’s One of Two has undergone some streamlining since it first appeared on stage at the 2022 Fringe. Out is the framing device of the aftermath of a failed relationship, out is the Darth Vader clad Mr. Potato Head demon whispering on his shoulder. Instead Hunter jumps straight in to the nitty gritty of what the play was always about: his and his twin sister’s lived experience as kids with Cerebral Palsy and the pair’s unbreakable bond.
Bec and Jack experiences of life with Cerebral Palsy are very different. Bec, a wheelchair user, has Spastic Quadriplegic CP, the severest form of the condition, affecting all four limbs with significant motor impairment, Jack who can walk, has Ataxic CP.
Life at home with family is good, happy, entirely normal, life at primary school is not ideal but there is support with well-meaning but hollow-feeling praise. But nothing compares to secondary school which spectacularly and resoundingly fails Bec. Confined to the support unit “base” every break time resulting in no friendships made to support her, she experiences raging ignorance and insensitivity on a daily basis from those around her. For Jack there’s still the daily “riptide of abuse” but there’s hope of a journey along the ‘normal’ path but Bec, labelled a “problem child”, they literally do not know what to do with. School, Hunter concludes helps you cope, not succeed. He emerges from the experience scratched – she scarred.
On a sparse stage: a red plastic chair, a mic and a monitor, Hunter recalls his tale with a mixture of humour and real bite. Bec is represented through audio and video recordings. Hunter builds an easy rapport with the audience as well as mildly unsettling them with frequent eye contact and a tiny bit of audience participation.
This isn’t a relentless tale of woe, a tear-jerking inspirational tale of overcoming the odds, instead it’s a heart-felt, brutally honest, first hand account of negotiating life limited by others’ low expectations and societal labels. While it can stray into being a little lecture-like at times, it is a thoroughly entertaining, utterly compelling piece of theatre and the perfect illustration that there is an appetite and audience for stories that don’t tread the ‘regular’ path.
Image: Kat Golloch
