Walking into The Dictionary of Moments feels less like entering a theatre and more like stepping into a warm, collective dream. Greeted by a gentle guitar serenade and an atmosphere of intimate curiosity, the audience is invited to slow down, listen and remember. The set is minimal with just enough chairs for the 7 actors on stage. To the right sits the musician, Ollie Howlett, whose soft, continuous accompaniment provides the pulse of the performance. Above the performers are projected words, fading into and out of view, for the audience to call on if they should require inspiration.

The show extends from the podcast of the same name, created by Jason Geary, who is also a performer in the piece. The inspiration of the show is to tell the stories of people through a single word, creating the vivid imagery that each performer tells through their personal interpretation of the word. Each word is random, ranging from ‘Rupture’ to ‘Beacon’ and from ‘Pufferfish’ to ‘Euphoria’. What follows is a kaleidoscope of tiny human experiences: humorous, tragic, surreal, and tender.

The piece begins with a song about The Dictionary of Moments. It’s an apt opening, creating the feeling that the show itself feels like a living lexicon of emotion. Along with Jason, the performers are Jennifer O’Sullivan, Wiremu Tuhiwai, Ian Harcourt, Jo Prendergast, Ben Jardine and Emilia Higgs. Upon receiving their word, each does their best to give a definition and describe how it feels to them before the scene unfolds.

‘Rupture’ introduces us to a couple divided by circumstance, performed with surprising gravity for an improvised scene. ‘Debonair’ extends the tale of a worldly man, wise in his years but still flirtatious with his wife. Through the prompt of ‘Quandary’, the performers compare the hilariously realistic feeling of juggling all of one’s children, with their bickering and pleading, to the ‘hobby’ of tightrope walking.

Many of the vignettes are deeply comic, often in absurd or understated ways. ‘Pufferfish’ features a man attempting to buy a fish on eBay, only to scare off other bidders with his intensity. Yet, amidst the laughter, The Dictionary of Moments excels at sincerity. ‘Beacon’, one of the final entries, portrays a dying man conversing with Death, delivered with such quiet dignity that the audience stayed silent and drawn in throughout the entire scene.

The collaboration of these performers is a bafflingly warm understanding. To have come together as a team to put on such a wondrous piece of improvised theatre is no easy feat and truly speaks to the personal character of the performers. Each performer seems to meld perfectly with the others. Some take roles as Writers, spending short minutes hastily sketching stories from single words, before delivering them to the audience. Others jump in one after the other to be bombarded with shouts of words from the audience.

What holds this collage together is its tone: gentle and playful but unflinchingly humane.

The performers seem to honour every prompt as a small truth, a piece of someone’s lived or imagined experience. The guitarist, who plays continuously, stitches the vignettes into a musical whole; his melodies shift effortlessly from melancholic to buoyant, from folk to jazz. Together, the ensemble crafts a rhythm that feels organic, as if the stories were being discovered rather than invented.

By the end, The Dictionary of Moments feels like a love letter to language, memory, and the unrepeatable beauty of improvisation. It’s theatre as a series of fleeting definitions, each one incomplete, each one alive and celebrated for its unkempt humanity.

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