The world is suddenly smaller, the walls are closing in, she’s avoiding things – people, work, the box of things in the corner waiting to be unpacked, nothing makes sense anymore …. Ziazan is lost.

The only way to make any sense of what’s going on is to write a diary, a blog.  Something to help her get through each day.  

Written by Abi Zakarian and directed by Emily Carewe and Jessica Rose McVay, Found is an audio play with a difference.  Not only are you able to hear Ziazan’s blog entries as she reads them aloud, you can also share some of her experiences.  There is a recipe for making a cocktail, and a video of how to make Ziazan’s magic nutmeg cake. We are encouraged to go away and make them and then come back and re-join her story.

Lockdown was hard for a lot of people and this piece captures the feelings of being alone, hopelessness and how each of us in our own circumstances had to deal with issues, because there was nothing there to distract us anymore.  We began to experience life in different ways.  Things that were on our doorstep suddenly became fascinating, when before we never really acknowledged their existence.

Ziazan teaches us that we need to remember childhood memories and looking back on our lives is the way to move on, moving forward and using our fears to deal with loss and see life through new eyes.

Interspersed with detailed illustrations by Katie Gabriel Allen, are Ziazan’s (Jessie Bedrossian) diary entries, comprehensively put together by sound designer Anna Short.

This is a complete entertainment package.  The story is lifted off the page and makes this production something different, we see and hear from a new perspective just as Ziazan does as she begins to fill her diary with her thoughts.

**** Four stars.

Reviewed by: Rachel Louise Martin.

Found is available online.