Review: Learning to Fly (Touring)

Thursday, 26th October 2023 at York Theatre Royal.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Learning to Fly, with its premise of a lonely teen unexpectedly bonding with the isolated old lady in the creepy house down the road, engages with a pretty popular dynamic when it comes to telling tales and reflecting on the state of ourselves and our world. How the young and the old connect – or fail to, has so much promise, and Learning to Fly benefits greatly from having the “younger” representative as an impressionable but well-intentioned teen. As writer and performer, James Rowland gradually walks us through his time with Anne, merging music, wit and lyricism to tell a story littered with universal truths about the human condition.

As storytellers go, Rowland is pretty gifted. He has enviable presence and energy and he’s lively but disarming, displaying an easy charm which runs through the whole piece as he interrupts himself to add commentary as if it only just struck him, or as he has a casual chat with the audience before the show begins. We may linger a little too long on some moments and not enough on others, but the balance is generally spot on and Rowland is as credible and endearing in the glimpses of his younger self as he is sentimental and heartfelt in his older form.

The show impresses with its easy fluctuations between witty asides or tangents and moments of lyrical, confessional details and reflections. It impresses more so though, with a script which paints the stage with people and places in a way that is throughly engaging and impressively impactful. Somehow, a completely bare stage with just a table and turntable for company, becomes the places he so vividly describes, offering all kinds of touch points for our imaginations as we go along with him.

Learning to Fly offers that ever-winning combination of heart and humour, and Rowland has his audience in the palm of his hand as he illustrates his story of friendship and understanding with well-crafted lyricism, generous dashes of silliness, and a good dose of Beethoven for good measure.

Learning to Fly tours until March 2024 – more information about dates, venues and tickets can be found here.