The Herald

Susurrus ****

Pleasure gardens are named thus for a very good reason, and the secrets contained deep within its foliage are it. Writer/ performer David Leddy understands such earthly delights pretty much perfectly in this solitary sonic derive through a Botanics where, in his world at least, the most sensuous spirits of Arden linger large about the hothouses.

Out of such observations is conjured a multi-stranded narrative concerning afternoon idylls in the sun, old-style bohemian divas, life imitating art in the grandest of fashions, love that dares never speak, let alone sing, its name, and a park bench where strangers are immortalised to a Benjamin Britten soundtrack. Played out on headphones as one makes one's own personal promenade about the flora and fauna, the different voices that punctuate each location gradually weave together this saddest melodrama of corrupted innocence, misguided affections and the lonely decline of one man and the aftermath of his one mistake.

On a summer's day, each stopping off point – hidden garden, hump-backed bridge, public toilet – is sumptuously appareled in all manner of natural fragrances to illustrate the story's inherent loneliness. Even so, a pilgrimage at dusk might still serve Susurrus – it means the wind that blows through the trees – in an even more melancholy manner.

If the scenery and the story, performed by the voices of Stuart Ennis, Gabriel Quigley and Karen Ramsay, are exquisitely realised , it remains a generically old-fashioned piece of in situ sight and sound.

The experience would benefit, too, from better on-site sign-posting. While one doesn't wish to be sidetracked from the sensory and poetic immersiveness of it all, more practical acknowledgement of its artifice wouldn't lessen the funereal ennui of the occasion.

Neil Cooper, June 28 2006