WALKOUT

Walkout! is your 90-minute guide to this life and the next, complete with route map

If you were still pondering the meaning of life, the universe and everything, it turns out that the answer lies somewhere in Portsmouth.
               Set in ‘a mythical part’ of Pompey, Walkout! is a modern adaptation of Pilgrim’s Progress, one man’s quest to find the Celestial City, with as many snarl-ups and diversions as the Eastern Road.
               Murray Watts’ modern adaptation of Bunyan’s classic, performed here by Top Cat Theatre Company, describes Christian’s epic journey of faith, via the Slough of Despond, supermarkets and toffs’ soirees.
               Christian’s search for The Truth is thwarted time and again, by Pimms-swigging decadents and Beelzebub’s snipers, stinking bogs and slick salesman offering him shortcuts to happiness and quick-fix adultery.
               This is a sweeping allegory squeezed into a small space, with the sparsest of sets and some clever though occasionally jarring multi-media, including live video links. The cast is tiny but tireless, their energy sufficient to portray heaven and hell - and get away with it.
               Walkout! is your 90-minute guide to this life and the next, complete with route map, humour - and pretzels for the front row. Will Christian make it to those Pearly Gates? Come find out for yourself.

Seren Boyd
Portsmouth News