Peddling

Peddling
at the High Tide Festival, The Cut, Halesworth

Review commissioned by Eastern Daily Press, but not published by them through their administrative oversight! April 2014.

Remarkable drama sets tone for national festival

Halesworth’s High Tide Festival with its reputation for new, experimental and unexpected work is in its 8th year and running till 19th April.

Only able to catch one from a tempting catalogue of new, homegrown and visiting acts, Peddling came up for review in an afternoon showing.

An inspired choice as it turned out. Steven Atkinson, co-founder of High Tide and child actor Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies, wrote and performed this remarkable drama about a young offender peddling household goods door to door in London.

He wakes in some sordid field and journeys back from a ‘long list of yesterdays as the concrete sets’ and his life, world and future emerge into uneasy focus. That is no mean feat in an hour and his energy, tribulations and breaking new ground are deeply moving.

Set in a square see-through tent, finally the screen drops revealing the vulnerable man close up. Nothing is typical of High Tide. If you can catch any of it, you’ll be spoilt for choice in thoughtful entertainment, performed beautifully.