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236 Cavendish Mansions is a work-in-progress that falls somewhere between a monologue and an installation. It is a work about memory, encountering this through the palimpsest of a Victorian tenement flat in Camden, a physical space and a repository of the histories of its former inhabitants.
This autofiction is told by an actress who lives in the flat with her husband and child. By stripping wallpaper, cleaning, pulling up the floor, the history of the place and the people who had lived there start to emerge.
The monologue embodies these previous existences, and we see the journey of the performer researching the traces left by bodies and objects that have been in the space before her. In addition to the monologue, the work takes the form of an installation, with objects from the flat and from the research process on display.
These dwellings have housed people who have lived alone, facing the difficulties of their epochs, as well as some we might recognize today. In the current context of a housing crisis, and in a society where basic needs are increasingly less accessible, it is vital to examine how such spaces embody political identity and agency.
Tobi King Bakare and this theatre deserve a shout-out for such a young, diverse audience. There is so much talk about audiences being full of over 60s and why, why can’t theatres get the crowds in to reflect society in general? Well, I’m happy to say that on a rainy Thursday evening, the theatre was completely full.
Caiti Grove on Before I Go in CPT's Spring 2023 season London Theatre Reviews
