Issue 13, 2008
Prompt Corner 
As I write this page, I am still affected by news of the suicide of Thomas M Disch, author, poet and sometime drama critic for the Nation magazine. You may have gleaned from these columns that I have more time than many for what are euphemistically called "genre" works, the genres in question being science-fiction, fantasy, horror and the like; in truth, though, I limit myself to a few authors or franchises whose output I consume voraciously. Disch was one of the first on my list, before it even was a list. His novels – first SF, then in the 1980s and '90s modern American gothic horror – have an articulacy that is ostentatious and unashamed even at its most malicious, which was increasingly frequent. It's the kind of evil glee that repulses and impresses simultaneously, as sometimes happens with a damning theatre review as well.
Fury
Which segues us neatly into All Bob's Women, which closed not only before its reviews could be reprinted here, but before even my Financial Times piece could make it into print at all. That's fine: I often say that it's not the purpose of a review to advise, but at each extreme of the spectrum there are occasions when one simply has to go on record as saying it's important that as many/as few people as possible go to see a particular show, and this was one of the "as few" cases – so, no show, no need to counsel folk to avoid it. Because in truth, sometimes one's response to a show can go far beyond mere dislike, to the point of fury that it ever got to see the light of a stage. I've been known once or twice to feel so angry about having paid good money to see a given show that I entirely forgot I was there on a complimentary ticket.
I managed to cram the major indictments of All Bob's Women into the 160 characters of a text message to a friend: "1) It's at the Arts. 2) and 3) It's an Italian musical 4) about a five-timing man, and 5) it thinks it can do it all in 70 minutes; 6) it can't." Given more space, I would have added that the cast included 7) an alumna of TV prison drama Bad Girls, whose stage musical version so irked me last year, and 8) one of the Nancys from the latest small-screen talent-search series I'd Do Anything (on the basis of this show, yes, she certainly would), and that 9) it's the kind of production where the offstage team get their biographies in the programme ahead of any of the performing "talent", and the producers even give themselves a picture. (The tone of their closure announcement reinforces this view: one got the impression that they simply couldn't understand why the show wasn't working in London, but that this was because they'd never properly looked at it or considered that it wasn't enough that they were behind it.)
Mangled
Of course, none of those factors is damning in itself, but when so many of them come together in one place they amount to a strong circumstantial case, especially when found looming over a mangled corpse of a show like Michael W Kelly's adaptation of Romy Padovano's musical. Looked at from another angle, its brevity was a positive mercy but really, trying to fit in Bob/Rob/Ronnie/Roger/etc's seduction and bedding of five women of radically different characters, to delineate his and theft personalities and find space for musing as well as recounting his comeuppance in less than an hour and a quarter was ludicrous. Matters seldom even attained the depth of a comedy sketch. And that's without even considering the musical numbers, because they simply weren't worth considering (except to note the similarity of one to Diana Ross's hit "I'm Still Waiting") even when they could be made out: the actors were over-miked when speaking and way over-miked when singing. (The Arts only seats around 350 people.)
Add an incomprehensible drag-disguise motif, a clutch of aperçus on the sexes pitched at the level of the stereotypical Italian man (and consequently far below almost any real person, Italian or otherwise), and an utterly incomprehensible fable loaded with abstract nouns that began, "Madness wanted to play a game..." Well, Critical Tolerance pelted out the door and didn't stop running. And that's got that off my chest,
Drilling
In contrast, I found myself marching out of step with most critics in actually being better disposed to Black Watch on a second viewing than I was first time out in Edinburgh back in 2006. On that earlier occasion I felt, as some do now, that the movement sequences by Frantic Assembly's Steven Hoggett were too self-conscious, even precious, in an otherwise physically brutal evening. This time they didn't worry me nearly as much, perhaps because I knew they were coming. Also, a testimony to the length of time this company has been together and the degree to which they have honed their acquired skills: in my childhood, when we watched television coverage of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo or the like, my father (now deceased) would hark back to his own military days and pass almost invariably withering comments upon the standard of drilling exhibited by even these showcase companies. Ever since, whenever I've seen any such synchronised movement, military or theatrical, I've inwardly heard my father's wryly disparaging voice. But in the Barbican, the Black Watch company shut him up. That's praise indeed.
I missed David Bradley's performance in The Quiz on its first London outing last month at the Rose in Kingston, but caught up with it in Trafalgar Studio 2. It's one of those endearingly bravura pieces, which couldn't help but remind me of my late friend Val Widdowson's signature performance in James Saunders' (more or less) monologue Triangle – I wonder whether this play's author Richard Crane had encountered the Saunders piece. I also wonder whether he encountered Bruce Myers' performance for Peter Brook in 2006 of the Grand Inquisitor monologue from the Brothers Karamazov which forms the backbone of Crane's play, and whether that experience inspired the erratic conduct of the protagonist here...
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
- At the Back does not appear this issue
Contents / Reviews
Reviewed in issue 13, 2008 |
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London |
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ALL BOB'S WOMEN New musical by Romy Padovano |
Arts |
24 Jun |
28 Jun |
738 |
ALL NUDITY SHALL BE PUNISHED Première of play by Nelson Rodrigues (Stone Crabs) |
Union SE1 |
27 Jun |
19 Jul |
753 |
BLACK TONIC New adaptation from story by Clare Duffy (The Other Way Works) (Sprint Festival) |
a central London hotel |
6 Jun |
22 Jun |
737 |
BLACK WATCH London première of play by Gregory Burke |
Barbican |
24 Jun |
26 Jul |
739 |
BODYCLOCK New play by Allan Swift (Ant TC) |
White Bear |
26 Jun |
13 Jul |
734 |
COLOURINGS New play by Andrew Keatley |
Old Red Lion |
19 Jun |
5 Jul |
724 |
DE PROFUNDIS Reading of essay by Oscar Wilde |
Lyttelton |
16 Jun |
2 Jul |
747 |
DIVAS New dance piece by Peter Schaufuss |
Apollo |
25 Jun |
5 Jul |
745 |
THE DIVER New play by Colin Teevan and Hideki Noda |
Soho |
23 Jun |
19 Jul |
735 |
FALSTAFF New adaptation from novel by Robert Nye |
Warehouse Croydon |
19 Jun |
13 Jul |
744 |
FULL CIRCLE New pyrotechnic piece by The World Famous (Greenwich & Docklands International Festival) |
Wennington Green, Mile End Park |
21 Jun |
21 Jun |
734 |
GRAND SLAM New play by Lloyd Evans |
King's Head |
26 Jun |
27 Jul |
750 |
THE INFINITE PLEASURES OF THE GREAT UNKNOWN New piece by Bock & Vincenti |
Toynbee Studios |
19 Jun |
21 Jun |
730 |
LE MARIAGE New play by David Lescot, tr. Ruth Bey (Cherub TC) |
Arcola |
25 Jun |
19 Jul |
749 |
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Globe |
18 Jun |
5 Oct |
731 |
THE QUIZ New play by Richard Crane |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
17 Jun |
28 Jun |
725 |
RUNNING THE SILK ROAD New play by Paul Sirett (Yellow Earth) |
Pit |
25 Jun |
28 Jun |
748 |
SUBURBIA Revival of play by Eric Bogosian (LOST Th) |
Southwark Playhouse |
10 Jun |
28 Jun |
726 |
TERRORISM Revival of play by the Presnyakov Brothers (Kadmes Th) |
Greenwich Playhouse |
26 Jun |
20 Jul |
734 |
TORN Return of play by Femi Oguns |
Arcola |
27 Jun |
2 Aug |
752 |
2000 FEET AWAY New play by Anthony Weigh |
Bush |
16 Jun |
19 Jul |
720 |
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COTTON DRESS GIRL? New play by Anton Burge |
New End |
17 Jun |
20 Jul |
729 |
Regions |
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|
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CHESTER MYSTERY PLAYS Revival of traditional cycle in new version by Robin Goddard |
Chester, Cathedral Green |
26 Jun |
19 Jul |
760 |
DON GIOVANNI Revival of opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with new libretto by Chris Monks |
Newcastle under-Lyme, New Vic |
27 Jun |
19 Jul |
760 |
MONKEY! Revival of adaptation by Colin Teevan |
Leeds, WYP Quarry |
19 Jun |
12 Jul |
755 |
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Revival of play by Shakespeare (Creation TC) |
Oxford Castle |
18 Jun |
16 Aug |
754 |
OLD PEOPLE, CHILDREN AND ANIMALS New play by Sonia Hughes (Quarantine) |
Manchester, Contact |
11 Jun |
15 Jun |
754 |
RICHARD Ill Revival of play by Shakespeare (Ludlow Festival I Northcott Th, Exeter) |
Ludlow Castle |
25 Jun |
5 Jul |
759 |
TEN TINY TOES New play by Esther Wilson |
Liverpool, Everyman |
18 Jun |
5 Jul |
755 |
TRADE IT? Ten new short plays - see review pages for full credits (Show Of Strength) |
Bristol city centre |
24 Jun |
6 Jul |
756 |