JADAR

★★★☆☆

An artist on the brink of catching her big break – who falls pregnant after being told she would never be able to have children. Written by and starring OFFIE-commended Caroline Lamb, Dangerous to Know’s Make It explores the reality of making art in a landscape of limited support and shrinking opportunities for artists.

Make It is performed at the intimate venue of Salford’s The Eagle Inn. Director Kitty Ball acknowledges the “creative challenges” that come with putting on pub theatre as opposed to a traditional theatre space, but as a fan of pub theatre, I’m always convinced there’s a way to make constraints work. The drama happens in and around us in the small, yet unusually tall, back room usually used for music gigs. Sculptures of feminine bodies, covered in white sheets draped in a hauntingly beautiful way, loom at the back of the stage, alongside shelves lined with artist clutter. A numbered keypad protrudes at the front, representing the entrance to Gina’s storage-unit studio.

We follow sculptor Gina (Caroline Lamb) as she decides between her career and a potentially final shot at motherhood, all while navigating an unsupportive and underfunded creative sector. This lack of support is explored primarily through Avery (Cal Phillips), an owner of the ‘Leochares Collective’, the company providing the artist residency Gina has been selected to join – although there’s a catch. This year, the residency isn’t allowing deferrals due to budget cuts. Avery finds themself caught between the company’s financial priorities and a genuine passion for supporting emerging artists, regardless of background or privilege. The script also touches on the story of an arts venue recently franchised into a “millennial grey” bar, and how difficult it is to keep independent venues open; a story Manchester knows too well.

Ball says that “deep down, it has been so scary, but also freeing… to explore… this idea of artists trying to break through… versus these kind of corporate ideas that maybe people in the arts industry don’t understand… how governments and organisations value and see art.” (@dtkmanc) It’s a pertinent theme in an age of dwindling budgets for arts organisations and education; Dangerous to Know tackles it head-on, focusing particularly on how lack of opportunity and funding affects working-class creatives.

Rue (Sara Abanur), the best friend, and Ferg (Joe Clegg Prada), the father of the unborn baby, fill the gaps in Gina’s life, gently pushing back against her attempts to shut herself away in her storage-unit studio and avoid the reality of her pregnancy and uncertain future. Abanur also multi-roles as the pompous business investor Claire, Avery’s niece, delivering both parts with assurance and comic precision. Her performance keeps the heart of the piece beating, and she shares easy, believable chemistry with Clegg Prada; their back-and-forth gives the script some of its most natural moments.

Make It opens with a series of videos played on a TV at the back of the stage, followed by an in-person Zoom conversation between Gina and Avery revealing her residency place. The set-up is clear, but the opening lands a little stiffly, creating a slower start and some emotional distance. The technological elements are ambitious, though not always seamless, and at times interrupt the dramatic flow; key plot points are easy to miss in the projected audio.

Dangerous to Know promoted complimentary one-to-one artist advice sessions after the show and on flyers throughout the venue, alongside a baby-friendly matinee performance and a makers’ market ahead of opening night; a thoughtful touch that shows the company practising what they preach and offering tangible, real-world support for creatives.

Distilled, Make It has the capacity to be a really important piece of theatre, covering an incredibly significant feeling that a large majority of artists struggle with in the current state of the arts in this country; but in its current form it lacks the narrative depth to fully achieve this. The production doesn’t quite find the crescendo needed to keep engagement consistently high, often circling its central dilemma rather than building to the stronger emotional peaks between the characters.

Make It runs at the Eagle Inn, Salford until February 4.