Lookout – Dublin Fringe Festival – Review
by Frank L.

Performances: 17 & 18 September – 11:00 – 15:30,
Various times, €12
Venue: Meeting Point: Capital Dock Park

In collaboration with The Ark

Field and Darlington have created this production which is to be performed overlooking a city. They have done so in many cities throughout the world. They have now brought it to Dublin. They have chosen as their vantage point the 18th storey of Dublin’s tallest residential building; Capital Dock.

On the 18th Floor, you are on the roof of the building with panoramic views of Dublin and its distant horizons in a magnificent 360-degree sweep. It is awesome. You are given an allotted space and a small electronic device from which the voice of a child explains what her, in my case,  hopes, fears and fantasies are about the city and its environment. After about six or seven minutes, I was joined by a girl aged about eleven who asked me questions about myself and then expected me to ask her questions. She then resets the electronic device which imagines how the city will be at various times in the future. The imagination is that of a child and as an adult you are propelled into a means of thought which is not within your normal sensibility.

The whole experience lasts about forty-five minutes and it is uplifting. Not only the spectacular location but the interaction with a child whose thought processes are dominant creates a novel and healthy view, you see the world afresh through younger eyes. It was a beautiful and memorable experience in the heart of Dublin on a sunny morning. Field and Darlington have created a universal piece which connects an adult with a child in an intriguing manner. Congratulations to them, the children from the Ark and the Dublin Fringe for a memorable happening. 

Lookout by Andy Field & Beckie Darlington