Metro

Home Hindrance * * * *

There’s a convivial, intimate air when you arrive at Home Hindrance due to the fact that the site-specific piece takes place in the flat author and host David Leddy shares with his partner Calum McCallum.

Introductions over, Leddy and McCallum depart leaving us in the hands of the cast who in turn appear in the different rooms delivering monologues regarding the death of the terminally ill Rory. They include Rory’s health-conscious sister Joanna (Gowan Calder); gay friend Eammon (Paul Thomas Hickey), whose reminiscences border on the obsessive; an ex-girlfriend played by Louise Ludgate, whose monologue is delivered stark naked in the shower; old university chum Dr Tommy (Brian Conaghan) and Clare Yuille, who turns in a tender and poignant performance as Rory’s girlfriend Leah.

Given we’re made aware that Leddy’s partner Calum is chronically sick with kidney failure, it’s safe to assume much of the material about the strains of coping with an ill partner are autobiographical. Each character in their own way touches on the subject of illness and mortality. That said, Leddy blurs the boundaries of what’s real by having characters refer to ‘the author’. Structurally reminiscent of Chris Goode’s similarly flat-based Fringe hit Home Made, there’s also a touch of Alexander Masters novel Stuart: A Life Backwards, about the piece. An up-close and personal co-production between Leddy and Vanishing Point, Home Hindrance delivers a moving portrait of lives lived and, just as importantly, a life lost.