Much like a disaster movie offers a collection of characters we identify with to some extent, Bound deals with issues touched on in the original Alien film by Ridley Scott. Themes of Worker's Union pitted against the Company. Other unions and bonds such as family and partnership are threaded into the narrative, so by the time the journey of the play ends, we are feeling for the fishermen and appreciating the relative normality of their humble lives.

The magic of theatre is an element summoned to convince the audience that the world they are watching on stage is real. When you are comparing say, the movie, The Big Storm with this play, all you are lacking is the camera's magic cinematic view and some special effects. The drama is just as compelling, and the magic is the way these actors manage to use the simplest of techniques to create the energy and atmosphere of the environment they are at odds with.

This play is a small ensemble piece tracing the last movements of a crew of fishermen off the coast in treacherous weather. The men sing sea-shanties that punctuate most scene changes, as well as connect us to the long history of people and the sea. Small deceits are played out that have enormous consequences. Union concerns, multiculturalism and life values are chewed through as the fishermen are forced to enter waters they would rather not during a storm. The ensemble work between the cast is well measured as the play builds towards a shocking climax.

Theatre does not always set out to resolve issues, and the themes a work presents can sometimes appear like a high tide, all at once. In this play the themes ebb and flow along with the sea that encompasses most of the action. Given the lack of anything but humanly created self sustainable special effects, and the basic duality of live theatre – we are on a fishing trawler/we are in a theatre, Bound also suggests the real situation that all people are usually, in some ways, at odds with the system and the culture they accept as inevitably their own; and you know that saying about death and taxes...? Great piece of theatre, well worth the effort to go and enjoy.

Reviewed by David Jobling