Adam Barnard’s play Buckets is about death, dying and all the circumstances that may or may not surround croaking it.

Richmond and Twickenham Times:

Buckets: Many plays within a play 

Consisting of 33 individual and largely disconnected scenes, six actors explore the way we see life and deal with those around us.

It is a fine idea, with some of the pieces leaving you wanting more, and others just one or two lines of dialogue.

The question you must ask yourself is whether or not it covers all that it promises from the outset.

One of the strongest scenes in the play is a young girl, filming her suicide note on the edge of a railway platform, until she is approached by a less than convincing mugger.

The dialogue between them is hilarious in places, as well as moving, and could probably warrant a short play in its own right.

Towards the end, a scene titled Terms and Conditions explores the idea of a man signing his soul away to a corporate industry providing vessels to live through the human body.

These well-worked scenes are held together masterfully by a strong group of actors, able to convincingly perform characters so different from what the audience might expect.

But that is how Barnard has penned this play– to be performed by any number of actors, of any sex and any age.

It is far from the perfect play, as can be expected with 33 almost entirely separate scenes, but there can be no question that buckets will leave you smiling, surprisingly perhaps.

  • Buckets; Orange Tree Theatre, Clarence Street, Richmond; runs until June 27, evenings 7.30pm, matinees 2.30pm; tickets £10-£15; orangetreetheatre. co.uk.