The Beast's Pen

Lowri Evans is a conceptual artist, a presenter of ideas using both images and words. She is a sweet, smiling lady who exudes a charming innocence belying her 31 years. It would be difficult to write anything nasty about her or any of her work for fear that she might read it and start to cry.  And, to be fair, there is absolutely nothing to dislike on display here. Her wry observations about past, future and what lies between them are gentle, sentimental and quite touching. Inspired by her personal relationships and experiences gained from working with dementia sufferers, she uses images drawn on or projected onto screens (sometimes inserting her live self into them), short poems and children’s play things to focus our minds on the quirkiness of life. Each of the segments here would provide anyone with a pleasurable five minutes, meditating in a gallery. However, when strung together flimsily to form an hour-long show in a theatre space, the result is rather like a stand-up routine stripped of the comedy, lacking in real bite, substance or serious insight. As memory is a recurring theme throughout, it is rather ironic that this show, mildly entertaining whilst in progress, is so instantly forgettable; wandering outside afterwards, I could only barely remember what it was that had brought me here. Surely, I had not planned to watch Cricket on an evening in the middle of Winter?