Theatre, and the world of entertainment in general, needs more shows that have audio description built into them. Accessibility is vital, and this is perhaps the best element of the show Gameplay , as it is aggressively audio-heavy. We sit in a dark room, and a single narrator comes to the mic, describing everything in the room in detail and at length, including their fellow performer, the musician who begins to add a soundscape to this show which, honestly, could have been a podcast.
The narrative mostly focuses on Vasily Arkhipov, a Russian sailor who is notable for making the wise decision to veto the launch of a nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We revisit Vasily multiple times in the story as timelines are split. Swan Lake is sampled and quoted throughout, as that piece of music tends to be played by Russian state media during crises. It all feels very historical and old school. At times it seems this show has been deliberately designed to go over the heads of the majority of the audience.
The show’s main thrust is about the horrific and tragic death of an old and broadly irrelevant English man. These sequences are presented in a wholly unsympathetic way because this person is an unpleasant critic famous for saying unpleasant things. Though it is broadly about the horrors of thermo-nuclear annihilation, it’s also an angry little polemic against someone the audience would likely not wish to care about. It feels petty and loud and broadly pointless.
We get some solid and clever criticism of the current state of UK politics, the music is well done, and the narration is solid. It’s just very niche and specific. STARBURST readers looking for a good old-fashioned Cold War polemic would be happier diving into back issues of 2000AD, but Gameplay will do in a pinch because it is quite short.
