Anna Burnside reviews a production with impressive visuals that lacks ‘emotional punch’.
Flora has had a terrible shift. The ward where she works is at breaking point and her phone pings with manipulative messages asking her to give up her time off and come in. Again.
On one high-stress evening, Flora volunteers to look after a needy new admission. While dealing with this frankly annoying old lady, she is worried about a patient who should be going home. Instead, she’s being sent to the neurological ward.
It’s not a spoiler to say that none of this ends well.
This co-production from Vanishing Point and Teater Katapult showcases the considerable visual strengths of both companies. It looks amazing, from the strip light stage to the stark lighting that has actors appear and disappear from a thin cloud of dry ice.
The dialogue switches between English and Danish, with projected supertitles in both languages.
Flora remains centre stage while the four other cast members switch between roles. Sometimes they are a character, other times a narrator. It is simply and cleverly done and never hard to follow.
There is a lightly done floral theme which pays off in a visually stunning ending.
Technically, this production has it all going on. But what it lacks is the emotional punch the material demands. Unlike Katapult’s fringe hit The Insider, the audience is not pulled into Flora’s moral dilemma. The lights and smoke add distance rather than immediacy.
Last year’s National Theatre of Scotland production Black Hole Sign told a similar story with less visual elan but more soul. In nursing, as in theatre, the human touch is sometimes all that’s required.
What I’m Here For performs at the Tron Theatre until April 4, 2026. It then tours to Dundee Rep (April 9-11) and the Traverse Theatre (April 15-18). For further details, go to Vanishing Point’s website.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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