Anna Burnside reviews a production that ‘is a great subject for a play’ but misses the mark.
It’s Karen’s first night as a Samaritans’ volunteer. She is expecting loneliness, depression and suicidal ideation at the other end of the line. Not men asking about her knickers.
Harry Mould’s debut reveals a little-known area of the charity’s work - providing a pre-internet service to men. They could ring up and ask for Brenda and a volunteer - usually a woman in her 60s or 70s - would stay on the line for as long as required.
The Brenda Line operated between 1972 and 1987. Mould heard about it from her mother, who had been a young volunteer. And so, she pits young Karen, aged 18 and full of second wave feminist zeal, against the older Anne.
Tea-drinking, scarf-knitting, dungaree-wearing Anne sees helping these callers as part of her Samaritan duty. The plot revolves around her fears for one of her regulars who has yet to ring in.
Despite the brown and orange set, there is too much 21st-century sensibility at play to make this a period piece. It fails to take the arguments head on.
Do the Samaritans, or anyone else, have a responsibility to stay on the line while men masturbate? In light of Andrew Tate and the much-discussed male loneliness epidemic, this felt like a missed opportunity.
The Brenda Line is a great subject for a play, but this is not it.
The Brenda Line performed at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Traverse Theatre. Its run has concluded.
RSS