An extraordinary performance by Henri Merriam

Posted on 19th June 2025

Henri Merriam’s extraordinary performance in her own play must be one of best we’ve seen at the Corn Hall in a very long time. Her acting throughout was intense, sometimes uncomfortably so, but never less than compelling. The fact that she also wrote this solo production – effectively a seventy-five minute monologue – only adds to the well-deserved plaudits that There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention has received.

The play maps out the trajectory of a relationship that turns sour from the perspective of a woman beguiled by a handsome man who writes his phone number on a borrowed handkerchief, but who then turns out to be other than expected, while our protagonist constantly makes excuses for him. We witness nothing less than the pain of no longer being loved, but also the loneliness of being misunderstood and disbelieved. Tom can be charming and great company when he wants to be, and when he wants to be is when they are in the company of others. Merriam lends her voice to the friends that can’t see what her problem is, while a disembodied voice speaks for Tom.

Staged with economy and precision, there’s a bold surrealism to storytelling that revolves around a chest of drawers from which chaos explodes, only for the mess to be tidied in a way life never can be. Tom is probably sexist, lazy, and manipulative, yet Merriam nuanced text suggests our heavy drinking narrator may be unreliable. He is as disillusion as her, and we never really get to find out why, but if the play closes on a note of uncertainty then isn’t that what happens in real life? To question who is on the side of the angels is to miss the point. The play is about suffering from the perspective of the sufferer – a pain that is real regardless of mitigation