Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Max Tyler’s new play offers some witty dialogue, laugh-out-loud moments and a telling insight into the male psyche. Taking the midlife crisis as its starting point, 101 Ways rapidly and sparingly sketches out a series of well-observed character types.
Norman Barker (Michael Wilkins) rapidly emerges as the protagonist, a loving husband who seeks to escape from banality through Sixth-Form poetry and (unobservant) observational comedy. When Barker checks into Pinegrove Lodge, an institution for curing men of their midlife crises, he meets a range of similarly chronologically-challenged chaps, notably David Hilberg (John Rushton), a blunt Scouser in denial about his own life status, who yearns for a rock star lifestyle. Through a series of vignettes, we see this pair exploring their own problems, and those of a number of other troubled forty-somethings – most memorably those of would-be thespian Cedric Romley, hilariously portrayed by Robbie Birchall.
It sounds like a sitcom set-up, and in essence that’s what we get. Hilberg’s teenage mentality (and Scouse accent) possibly remind us of Red Dwarf’s Dave Lister as he blunders unfeelingly into the more uptight of Barker’s emotions. Although the glimpses of the institution’s advert, fronted by Dr Edwards (Rosie Fletcher) and Rex Pinegrove (the always-watchable Dan Wood), are amusing, they come over as disposable comedy sketches, rather than elements in the drama. The characters don’t so much evolve as settle into their “types”, and the end of the play is unsatisfying, with an unconvincing show-down moment ultimately wasted, and the Barker character ending up conforming to the Pinegrove model of how to survive when “life begins…”
Some of the direction, too, seems better suited to filming in front of a live studio audience – with the extended scenes featuring little in the way of dynamism and movement. But, as mentioned, Tyler has a great ear for dialogue, and the comedy never palls, the scenes never outstay their welcome. Tyler also has an unforced way with set-ups and one-liners, and the evening as a whole provides several moments of hilarity and triumph. Gemma Whitham handles her role well, patronising and sexy by turns, and Katherine Timms makes for a convincingly terrifying madwoman. Michael Wilkins, though, really excels in the role of Norman Barker, a character designed to evince laughs a-plenty and sighs of sympathy from the female portion of the audience. Who, by the end of this amusing take on the male psychology, didn’t want to take poor Norman home and cure him of his midlife crisis?
101 Ways to Pretend You're Not Forty is on at the Drama Barn from Friday 22 May - Sunday 24 May. Doors open 19:20. Tickets should be available on the door. Arrive early to avoid disappointment.
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