Arlington
★★★★☆ Powerful
Traverse: Thu 6 – Sat 8 Nov 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
There is a rare intensity to Arlington, at the Traverse until Saturday. This is a new production by Glasgow-based dance/theatre company Shotput of Enda Walsh’s 2016 play, which features Isla (Aisha Goodman), a young woman trapped in a room in a state-controlled tower block.
Isla is apparently trading her memories to a nameless young man outside (Alex Austin), waiting for ‘her number to be called’ so she can leave. The young man is in control of a bank of surveillance monitors, but he is new to the role (his predecessor having abruptly left) and the power is fluctuating.
Aisha Goodman in Arlington by Enda Walsh. Performed by Shotput Theatre. Pic: Brian Hartley.
The setting is a bit like 1984, a bit like Brazil, a bit like any number of SF or YA dystopias. It isn’t particularly clearly explained or thought through, but this largely doesn’t matter; the impact comes from the impressionistic, poetic writing.
Then there’s an extended dance piece, here performed by Jack Anderson, that makes up a full third of the play’s 90-minute running time. This is an absolute tour de force, featuring someone apparently learning to walk and appearing like an amphetamine-injected Thunderbirds puppet, before coming over like a cross between a 1980s raver and a warming-up athlete, all the while trapped in some enclosing net.
a marvellous performance
It almost certainly isn’t anything to do with any of those things, but it’s a marvellous performance by any standards. The links with what has gone before are all the more effective for not being made explicit. It is not the only piece of remarkable movement, as Goodman has danced a wonderful duet to the Ramones’ Baby I Love You with a cloth dummy.
Jack Anderson in Arlington by Enda Walsh. Performed by Shotput Theatre. Pic: Brian Hartley.
Up to this point, the drama is about as elusively powerful as you could possibly wish. Unfortunately, the last act, while structurally and dramatically necessary, undermines things slightly.
It starts spelling things out a little too clearly, causing the underlying story to lose its mysterious impact. It also falls prey to woolly hints about the power of love, undefined hope and the kind of noble self-sacrifice that is reminiscent of the worst excesses of Victorian literature. Even in a production where the staging is largely very fine indeed, the play becomes both over-emphatic and too sentimental.
a mighty piece of theatre
It is still a mighty piece of theatre, however. Goodman and Austin are both excellent, touchingly human and physically controlled. There is (unsurprisingly) strong support from the recorded voices of Ann Louise Ross, Andy Clark, Pauline Goldsmith and Benny Young.
Co-directors and choreographers Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello helm the whole thing with almost endless invention and intelligence.
Aisha Goodman in Arlington by Enda Walsh. Performed by Shotput Theatre. Pic: Brian Hartley.
Cat Myers’s composition, Garry Boyle’s sound design, Anna Yates’s scenic design, Rob Willoughby’s video design and Emma Jones’s lighting are all very impressive; the lighting and sound during the dance sequence are almost overpowering.
The video design, meanwhile, is an integral part of the narrative rather than bolted-on as it sometimes appears to be; AV technician Andy Reid also certainly deserves a mention.
So much of the production is so impressive that it is a shame that it wobbles a little towards the end, but the overall effect is still very fine.
Running time: One hour and 30 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED
Thursday 6 – Saturday 8 November 2025
Daily at 7.30 pm; Matinee Sat 2.30 pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Shotput website: www.shotput.org
Facebook: @ShotputTheatre
Instagram: @shotputtheatre
Linktree: @shotput
X: @ShotputTheatre
Alex Austin (with Jack Anderson) in Arlington by Enda Walsh. Performed by Shotput Theatre. Pic: Brian Hartley.
ENDS
