There’s only so much straight news anyone can swallow, even when it is about the looming demise of life on this planet. So thank god for satirical cartoons, or to be precise: Earthworks 2008, a collection of environmental caricatures recently on show at City Hall.

The exhibit showed a selection of the best of 600 cartoons from around the world that were entered in this year’s Biennial Ken Sprague International Cartoon Competition. Cartoonists were invited to submit works on the subject of our threatened environment, particularly the impact of global warming.

After looking at 50 images in a row you do develop immunity to cracked earth and deforested tree stumps, however a good one in five cartoons caused me to express myself anywhere between a wry snort and a caustic cackle. 

The laugh-o-meter shot the highest for All This Will Be Yours My Son by Serbia’s Miodrous Velickovic. This depicts a man standing with one arm round a wide eyed youngster and the other extended with a flourish to illustrate the overflowing rubbish heap they are standing over. The glazed half smiles of the figures involved shows with hilarity-inducing accuracy how little attention the average Joe pays to their surroundings.

There is always a fear with irreverent humour that you will cause serious types to choke on their Cornflakes, but as John Green, secretary of the Ken Sprague fund points out: ‘Cartoons can reach parts that other arguments can’t. We have been inundated with doom-laden predictions and scientific facts on the inevitability of global warming, but here we can exorcise our fears.’

And how familiar these fears are: from a laptop whose screensaver of tropical fish is the only colour in the desert that surrounds it, to the labourers rolling out a grass carpet complete with sheep over parched ground, this is stuff we sense is upon us but cannot bear to watch.

Competition entrants were from all over the world and there were allusions to real environmental disasters such as the Myanmar flood.

John Green had another point to make about using cartoons to express one of the most talked about concerns of 2008: ‘What is striking about all of them is how unnecessary language or translations become – the visual imagery transcends the need for words. Despite cultural and language barriers, most cartoonists have used an imagery that can be understood internationally, across cultural, religious or political barriers and boundaries.’

Let the last word go to someone who would like to be concerned about the environment but who is instantly bored by the subject, me: buy a print and be humorous and topical for a mere £10.

Unfortunately the exhibition ended at the weekend, however it is possible to see some of the featured cartoons at the Ken Sprague Fund website.

For further information please contact the Ken Sprague Fund:
tel: 02085793553
infor@kenspraguefund.org

Prints are £10 each and originals range from £25 -£100

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

I had two tickets to see The Class, winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes, at the newly opened Everyman cinema in Belsize park. But I had no date to go with. During an inspired moment, I advertised on a well known dating site: ‘Free ticket to see a film at a luxury boutique cinema…will you be my date tonight?’.

I even said that they ‘didn’t have to fancy me, just be charming and like film’. You’d imagine I’d be overwhelmed with offers, for the free ticket if nothing else. Was I hell? Not one message. So I took a mate.

It’s a shame because the Everyman group of cinemas are the perfect place for that second date (the first generally you want to talk/assess the other person). I was invited to the Everyman cinema in Hampstead for a screening earlier this year and was impressed by the luxury sofas, cocktail tables, plush furnishing and business class leg room.

The Everyman’s interior at first glance looks like the decor for 2001: A Space Odyssey, all space-age styling and retro swivel chairs. There is a late Sixties living room feel to the foyer, with books, vases and modern knick-knacks on shelves.

Inside at the back you have the Parker-Knoll style sofas with little side tables and waitress service. These are ‘premium’ seats that cost £16 each. The rest of the ’salle’ is filled with spacious electrical reclining armchairs for £12 a standard seat. Seat kicking will not be a problem here. The vibe is more modern than at Hampstead, with easy-wipe leatherette rather than velvet.

Everyman has also started to produce their own cinema snacks with pretzels and chilli bites on sale at the bar, and beautifully packaged posh sweets such as the E=MC2 chocolate selection (yup eating these chocolates actually turns you into a genius) and the more old-fashioned pear drops and jelly beans. However a packet of chocolate buttons at a steep £3.50 are probably only for those who have a date to impress.

Speaking to one of ushers - who sits on a little podium at the front like a maitre d’ in a restaurant - I’m told that Hampstead celebrities often visit: ‘Last night we had Jon Snow and Bianca Jagger! Not together though. I think I also saw the actress Lindsay Duncan but I can’t be sure about that.’

Years ago, when it was the Screen on the Hill, I remember watching a dodgy comedy in front of Princess Margaret’s daughter Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones and her boyfriend. This is definitely the place to see the stars in the audience as well as on the screen. You never know, you might see Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin holding hands in the back during one of the ’scream’ screenings that allows babies.

The Everyman Belsize Park
203 Haverstock Hill
NW34QG

Reservations: 0870 066 4777

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Living in London you sometimes feel like a kid in a sweetshop: big-eyed and spoiled for choice. Especially when it comes to the theatre.

But often, when you actually get to hear about any decent live shows, it’s apparently so bloody obvious to just about everyone else that the only option is to bend over for some nerdy e-tout - in a virtual, financial sense, of course (personally, I’d at least like a sketchy geezer with a roll of twenties).

Fear not, I am here to help. Here are a few stonewall review predictions for the new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which ends its national tour at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in April, starring, almost solely, of course, two of the finest Royal Shakespeare Company stalwarts, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen: ‘A veritable tour de force!…awe inspiring!…unmissable!…theatre’s greatest joygasm!’ You get the idea.

So what?

Well, time upon time, the latest octogenarian RSC production is lauded as the answer to world poverty, and I get all excited (great reviews, star cast, loved-one’s birthday coming up, sounds ideal). And so begins the tortuous process, starting with 87 bastardised websites that all profess to be the official outlet (the show it turns out doesn’t actually have a website of its own but conducts business through a franchise operation based in Swansea with an answerphone message already so bombarded with calls about the production in question that they have recorded a special patronising message to inform you it’s all sold out); fake impetigo and go to the box office on Monday; only open on show days; idiot on Gumtree lives in Oldham. And so on.

The last time I went through this process was with King Lear. Bizarrely, I went through the whole rigmarole for the Stratford (on Avon) production and ended up like an animal in a trap, gnawing at itself in frustration, before I found it was coming to London and got in early.

I regret to say that, come show time, I had built the damn thing up so much that the feeding of the 5,000 would have been an anticlimax and I was unmoved; perhaps it was the woman next to me texting in her handbag that spoiled it for me. What can you do?

Well, just this: book now. Tickets are plentiful, they have a real office, there are seats in the theatre, you can go and talk to someone about it, or actually just do it on the internet, it exists. Forget Ivanov, don’t even try for Russell Brand, just plan ahead, go and wallow in its baffled conflict. But don’t you dare, whatever you do, sell your ticket on the internet.

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

‘Darlings I’m ready for my close-up’ cries the personification of glamour as the audience of the Comedy Theatre are treated to a voyeuristic glance into the opulent excesses and corruption of ’50s Hollywood that is paramount to Sunset Boulevard.

The revival of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production also carries the credits of choreography and direction for Craig Revel-Horwood and musical arrangement for Sarah Travis. Based on the 1950 Billy Wilder film, this Gothic masterpiece tells the tale of Norma Desmond, a faded starlet who failed to make the transition from silent movies to the talkies and is quite the Hollywood Miss Haversham.

Kathryn Evans projects this lead role masterfully, exuding glamour and melodrama. This part was made for her, and it is not an easy one. In two hours and fifteen minutes the audience see Norma’s downward spiral from exuberant femme to a desperate ageing woman teetering on the cusps of destruction.

Ben Goddard’s performance matches in credibility as his portrayal displays a varied and complex repertoire of characteristics. Understandably Joe Gillis exudes a naïve arrogance which is justified in the young aspiring writer stemming from his new-found prosperity, kindly donated by the doting Norma. However, Joe also shows tenderness towards Norma and a desperation to escape her dependent clutches.

Space is something that is used ingeniously in such an intimate venue. The small area is quickly transformed from an opulent mansion into a swimming pool and a party with the use of a spiral staircase-come-organ, some swimming pool steps and a chez-lounge that when turned over doubles-up as a neon bar sign. 

The cast manoeuvres around in an effortlessly seamless fashion. Not only is the possibility of size being a hindrance completely turned into an advantage, but the ingenious use of the instruments as props provides a quirky charm to this adaptation, for example when Norma is being pampered the ensemble use their string bows as nail files.

The multi-talented ensemble not only performs masterfully but also plays the music. Unfortunately the baroque score sometimes overpowers the cast’s voices at points, but Revel-Horwood has achieved a superb depiction, and the choreography is faultless. The rich performances and wealthy production of this small-scale production provides a somewhat sumptuous evening to be had.

Sunset Boulevard
The Comedy Theatre
Panton Street
SW1 4DN

Box Office: 0870 060 6637

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

The Mighty Boosh finally have their name up in lights – the lights of the O2 Arena, and not before time. For ten years Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt have slowly built up a cult following for their BBC3 show. But in the last year, their rise to comedy stardom has been nothing less than meteoric.

They launched the ‘Boosh Band’, hosted their own festival and released a best selling book to accompany their mammoth five month sell-out tour. This week, the Boosh circus descended on the O2 Arena with such energy and enthusiasm, you’d never guess they were over 80 shows in.

Taking to the stage with Fielding on a gigantic glittering galleon and Barratt in an inflatable dinghy, the pair launched into Future Sailors before commencing their usual front-of-curtain banter. ‘Fuck me!’ said Fielding as he stared into the abyss of the O2, clearly overawed by the sheer scale of the event. ‘Yes please’ heckled a female voice, predictably! Whilst Barratt retreated behind the curtain, ‘I can’t do this’ he joked. The famous rapport that underpins everything is evident throughout; little nods, winks and nudges and still seeming to make each other laugh.

Fielding and Barratt effortlessly assume their Boosh alter egos Vince Noir and Howard Moon respectively, to introduce an energetic first half cabaret of favourite characters. Bob Fossil (Rich Fulcher) got the entire audience up to teach them his dance moves. A pimped up Naboo (Mike Fielding) in a full length purple fur coat delivered a hilarious rap about his love of pussy, with his gorilla sidekick, Bollo (Dave Brown) bigging him up at every opportunity! Tony Harrison - essentially just a head with tentacles and not an easy character to play live - was a real crowd pleaser. Fielding ventured into the crowd as the Hitcher ‘It’s a fucking puppet show at best from here’ he said in disbelief from the back tiers, and he was right. It was a bit of an odd choice for a comedy gig, how the audience could see anything from the back is beyond me.

The second half saw wannabe actor Moon (Barratt) presenting his apocalyptic drama, which was predictably hijacked by Noir (Fielding), a Barbarella vision in gold loin cloth and knee-high gold boots, and his robot side-kick (Fulcher). Mayhem ensued, the pair reconciling their differences in a foot-stomping rendition of favourite ‘crimps’.

But it didn’t end there, the encore followed with Fielding (in true rock-star style) performing favourite Boosh songs like Nanageddon and Charlie. With their live band and Barratt on lead guitar, it was the perfect culmination to a unique show, blurring the boundaries between comedy and music, and getting the audience up and dancing. They were encouraged by Mike Fielding (brilliant in his own right) who seemed to be the Boosh’s answer to Happy Mondays’ Bez!

Although not the tried and tested ‘journey into time a space’ formula, the show is constructed with trademark deceptive skill and cleverly executed. The props and effects are fantastic but it’s the shambolic, ‘handmade’ feel that the fans adore, and amazingly the show manages to keep this innate ‘Booshyness’. In a venue the size of the O2 - that’s no mean feat!

This is the Boosh at their best with laugh-out-loud moments at every turn. It’s not meant to be seamless; it wouldn’t be the Boosh if it was. Lines are fluffed, props fail and hilarity sets in, but the strength of the material, the relationship between the cast and the interaction with the crowd draws you in - and once you come in, you can never leave.

The Mighty Boosh are on tour until January 2009
www.themightyboosh.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

A few frosty days before their O2 Arena gig I meet up with Stereo MCs Rob Birch and Nick Hallam at their Brixton studio to right the wrongs of the world over a piping hot cup of builders. We muse on muddy festivals and Simon Cowell, applaud the credit-crunch (’people are suddenly changing their take on life aren’t they?’) and deliberate the formidable demise of the music industry.

Fully deserving of their Mercury-nominated, Brit Award-winning status Stereo MCs’ genre-bending, bass-fuelled mesh of hip hop, house, soul and funk has spawned such hits as Elevate My Mind and the enduring classic Connected.

Now, with their roots still firmly planted in south London soil, it seems the electro veterans have swung full circle: from late ‘80s urban underground success-on-a-shoestring to chart-topping, Top of the Pops and back again. But for Rob (vocals/producer) and Nick (DJ/producer) Brixton has always been central to their sound.

Nick: ‘There’s just so much going on here. You know where sometimes you go to other cities and you don’t really feel that kind of energy, apart from probably New York in the late ‘80s. That was really buzzing and exciting. I think it just feels good around here. I really like Brixton.

‘We were living up Lavender Hill before, in Battersea, and I actually think that half of Connected was written in our flat in Lavender Hill, and then I think we had to move out because we were sharing a flat there…my daughter was born about that time and we just didn’t really have any space, and the only place we could really afford was Brixton.’

Rob: ‘There’s still a lot of business going on. The drugs change as well you know…there’s so much violence going on now, I think that’s the worst thing.’

Nick: ‘We were living here at the time of the riots and after that everyone put those shop front shutters on. Every shop had one because all these shops in Brixton were kind of burnt out weren’t they? It’s kind of weird really. I think what’s so nice about it is it’s so mixed. You just get a feeling like nowhere else in London really.’

Chugging on cigarettes both guys are chilled, chirpy and affable, and devoid of the air of coolness you’d expect from one of the biggest dance acts of the late ’80s. Their recently unleashed, brilliant sixth album Double Bubble is a reintroduction of the MCs to the masses and reflects the dynamic duo’s melting pot of influences.

Rob: ‘We were really a bit kind of fed up with dance music because it was just generic house everywhere you went. It was either drum ‘n’ bass or it was house. But this sort of music that’s going on now was really giving us a vibe and we could see how we could fit roughly in that ballpark because it had a bit more attitude to it. It sort of seemed to nod its head a bit more to hip hop music, and the attitude of what rap music used to be.

‘So we started making dubplates of our instrumentals and playing them in our DJ sets to see where our music was at, and what we had to tighten down to make our music work on a club level, and that was a sort of starting point for getting ourselves together and realising where it was we wanted to go.

‘We did an Australian DJ tour with M.I.A and Digitalism and Justice and DJ Craze and people like that. It was a sort of re-education for us, just seeing how everybody worked and there we were with our crate of vinyl, and there was everyone else with a laptop!’

Nick: ‘When we started we had our own label called Gee Street which was this whole group of us in the late ‘80s, and it felt like we were part of something and then we went through you know like the charts and all that type of stuff, and I think it’s easy to kind of end up getting…caught up in this music business somehow, and I think we realised that we had to get away from the big record label.

‘We got a new manager and…we got out of our deal and I think that’s helped us get the impetus back for really enjoying what we’re doing and feeling like there’s a point to it rather than it just being like “oh when’s your next record ready”, you know some marketing guy coming up with really crap ideas for people to do remixes…now it’s down to us really and I feel good about what we’re doing. It’s just more interesting. And we don’t have to deal with like 50 people instead of one.’

It’s obvious Stereo MCs aren’t afraid of hard slog. They were spawned before the current slew of manufactured music shows and bubblegum pop svengalis. So I can’t resist probing - with the TV final still fresh in our minds – what did they make of X Factor?

Nick: ‘I actually think people are sucked into that whole thing really, even people you think would have a bit more taste. It’s kind of like that whole Simon Cowell thing. I actually find it quite sick to be honest. People go on about Simon Cowell having a great talent for finding talent, but actually it’s like I remember him when we had our own label through RCA about ten years ago and I think he worked there…it’s just all the total vacuous, non-event music, you know it’s like cornflakes isn’t it? It’s just how you market it.’

Rob: ‘I watched her, the girl who won [X Factor], and she had a good voice and after all of that television coverage…I don’t wanna sound negative, but whatever she does is bound to be a massive hit. Like anybody if they’ve had ten or 15 weeks on the TV, I mean you’re going to have a massive record aren’t you?’

Nick: ‘…it’s like buying £6million worth of advertising you know what I mean? If you hammer that down people’s throats long enough…’

Rob: ‘…it’s sewn it up, really, you know the whole thing’s a TV show and that’s kinda sewn it up. And sure it’s a springboard for artists to build a great career but it’s not very unique like, as I remember groups being, they’d muck their way through and make their sound, and they’d kind of carve it like they was carving it out of stone. And through their uniqueness they’d find a little pathway to eventually getting somewhere, and they were a unique thing, like Led Zeppelin…’

Nick: ‘…yeah exactly, like Jimi Hendrix or Run DMC or The Specials or The Clash, you know what I mean? Normal people like us, it means something. [X Factor’s] like a little game plan isn’t it, it’s nothing to do with music. I think that’s why it’s good that the music business is, in a way, just completely dissolving as we know it, because I think it needs that change to make the real music creative again and find a different way of exposing itself.’

Stereo MCs play the O2 Arena with Madness tonight
Double Bubble is out now
www.stereomcs.co.uk

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

We had some trouble finding the Underground Rebel Bingo Club. ‘What the bejesus is Rebel Underground Bingo?’ I hear you squawk. Well read on my friends, and prepare to discover one of London’s best kept secrets.

We had trouble finding the night because it is such a covert operation. Based on the premise that Oliver Cromwell outlawed London’s only bingo club in 1657, driving its members underground, RUB is a mysterious affair. So we were wandering around amidst the cool buzz of Exmouth market for almost 15 minutes, until a likely looking know-all spilled the beans that it was being held in the church.

We’d already walked past the church you see, and hadn’t even considered it might be being held there because of the huge ‘Christmas card sale’ banners hanging from its front gates. We walked up to the entrance to the unlikely looking event room at the side of the church (the kind where you can buy homemade cake and a VHS for 50p at weekends) and knocked on the door. A lithe young vixen with glittering eyes and a fur hat answered the door.

‘Are you here for the, ahem, Christmas card sale?’ she hissed accusingly.
‘Yes,’ came our reply.
‘Come through.’

And so we were ushered into the room where tables full of pleasure seekers were sipping on wine and making merry. We gazed around us in wonderment at the cabaret-cum-music hall scene and made our way to the bar, where we picked up some drinks and bingo cards from a man with impressive sideburns wearing a very nice caftan.  As there were no more tables to be had we squeezed our way onto one with a group of very pleasant Americans who had adopted London as home many years back.

And so the games commenced, and the witty compere explained the rules of the underground, yet tongue-in-cheek operation. Assisted by two glamour-puss assistants in rather risqué outfits, with even risqué-er tongues – ‘come on my tits, sixty six’ - the bingo began. The game was split into rounds, the first two of which were playing for prizes from I Want One Of Those – and included such sought after gadgets as tattoo sleeves, illuminated umbrellas and limbo strings.

The further into the game we got, the bigger the prizes, a very lucky girl on our table winning a giant polar bear and, the most envied prize of the night, an iPod speaker. Anyone who got the right numbers and called bingo was then taken onto the stage and introduced while their cards were checked, which made for increasingly amusing viewing, the drunker everyone got.

The third and final round was for cash prizes up to a £100 pounds, and by this point everyone was in such high spirits that when the game ended and the prizes were all gone, the night turned into a disco, and Mexican waves broke out around the hall.

I could tell you about many more things that happened, like nearly getting busted by the bingo police, and other such debauchery, but I don’t want to spoil it for you, because if there’s one thing you should do in London right now, it’s go and play Rebel Bingo.

The Underground Rebel Bingo Club - December 19 and 20, 2008
The Mission Room
26 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QE

Tel: 0207 278 0816

www.rebelbingo.com

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

It took me a few moments to stop sniggering at composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s name (I’ve never been able to see past Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride), but once I was over it I was surprised how much I really enjoyed this screening of Hänsel und Gretel live from the Royal Opera House.

To clarify, they went for the marginally less scary version of events: instead of being abandoned in the forest by a father who can’t afford to feed them and dropping the legendary breadcrumbs (that they could have been eating) to find their way home, Hansel and Gretel are sent to collect berries by a mother who doesn’t know there’s a witch in the woods who eats children, and is appalled when she finds out. By which point, of course, it’s too late.

Act III hits, the witch captures them and starts fattening up Hansel to make him into a gingerbread man. Never fear; Gretel to the rescue, the witch gets pushed into her own oven and the siblings release all the trapped gingerbread children, whereupon Mum and Dad find them and they all live happily ever after, as they should do. Oh, and they eat the witch.

There are some fantastic moments in which directors Mosche Leiser and Patrice Caurier exercise their artistic license. One of my favourites is when the father (played wonderfully by Thomas Allen) strides in jubilantly with food for the family – carried prosaically in SPAR bags.

Another is when the (utterly superfluous) Dew Fairy glides onto the stage to wake the children, bringing with her a cleaning trolley complete with rubber gloves and mop to clean away all the terrors of the night, or some other metaphor of that nature.

But the best is undoubtedly the angels who watch over the children as they sleep. The angels, with their beautiful white costumes, glorious fluffy wings and, um, squirrel heads. Really.

Acts I and II flow along very calmly before this, with wonderfully childlike performances from Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau as Hansel and Gretel, and a mesmerising rendition of the children’s evening prayer that brings a tear to the eye. But it’s Act III where the pace is kicked up, the real action happens and the true horror of this fairy story begins.

We are treated to a backdrop of children’s bodies hanging from the rafters, and Hansel is quickly shoved into a chest of drawers with his limbs yanked out at cringingly impossible angles. Gretel’s terror is almost tangible and there is some serious suspense and relief when the bad old witch with her hideous eyebrows ends up in the oven, and it’s all topped off nicely when the children turn up the heat and the resulting explosion blows the door off.

Overall, the performance is incredibly moving, and the theme of hunger is prevalent throughout, making the whole thing nicely relevant to today. The melodies are not overly heavy or trying for an opera, and the subtitles make everything completely comprehensible. One wonders, however, how sick of gleefully stuffing their faces on sweets Kirchschalger and Damrau are going to get.

Hänsel und Gretel runs until January 1, 2009, and is being broadcast on BBC2 on Christmas Day.
The Royal Opera House
Covent Garden
WC2E 9DD

Box office: 020 7240 1200

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Over the years I have seen both great (French and Saunders) and terrible (a drunken Molly Parkin) shows at The King’s Head in Islington. This revival of 1994’s Brighton Beach Scumbags by East End playwright Steven Berkoff definitely resides towards the good end of the spectrum.

The stage is bathed in sunlight where two chav couples on deckchairs, girls in white sandals and boys in trainers and socks, have gone for a day trip to Brighton. This is yer typical working class British day at the seaside, the sort that we have seen eloquently captured in Martin Parr photographs, all special brew, fags, burgers, ketchup, chips and litter.

The play explores discomfort with the transformation of Brighton into a homosexual haven. The action is centred around the mutual incomprehension between two heterosexual couples and a gay couple in an open relationship.. One of the gay men says: ‘You know what they hate about us, the difference between us? Apart from the fact that they smell worse…’

His companion continues…’that they are trapped’.

For their part, the heterosexual couples, particularly overweight Dina (who claims her size is caused by ‘water retention’ and not the packets of Maltesers she scoffs), feel that the gay men look down on them. She is referred to as a ‘monster’ by one of the gay men, a culture that can over-value the aesthetic. But she has ‘given birth’ she wails, therefore how can they understand?

This piece pitches ‘breeder’ heterosexual culture against gay culture, and acutely observes class differences, with the gay men being aspirational middle class ‘Dinkies’ (Double Income No Kids). In the end this tension explodes in violence, with revenge for a dirty look given in a gay pub.

It’s a short piece lasting just under an hour, with witty direction by Berkoff devotee George Dillon, and good performances from all concerned, particularly the chav couples.

Brighton Beach Scumbags runs until 21 December
Kings Head Theatre
115 Upper Street
Islington
N1 1QN

Box office: 020 7226 1916

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.

Under any other circumstances, the concept of producing a one-man stage play based on a comic strip is the kind of pitch that will get you thrown out of the boardroom for being stupid.

In the past, such endeavours have ended with tragic exploitation of the entertainment industry such as Garfield: The Movie. However, Robert Bathurst’s quick wit and director Phelim McDermott’s unconventional approach to theatre production make Alex a fairly enjoyable, topical way to spend an hour (and a bit) out of an evening.

Peattie & Taylor’s original comic strip has been around since the early ’80s. It is, perhaps, an unusual springboard for a theatrical production as it suffers from a Buzz-Killington-variety sense of humour (’Being rich and greedy! Hur hur hur…’).

The stage variation gives the comic’s premise a sense of unity and consistency, as it follows the everyday life of arrogant, shallow investment banker Alex Masterley. His typically cosy, hedonistic situation becomes unexpectedly threatened with the prospect of losing his job, mounting issues in his married life, and uncomfortable revelations about his flamboyant Eurotrash assistant. Hilarity ensues. Sort of.

Although Bathurst is undeniably a charismatic and talented actor, the production suffers a number of kinks which hinder Alex’s potential. First of all, Leicester Square Theatre was evidently constructed before the concept of ‘ergonomics’ kicked in. Zero incline in the stalls means that the entire audience spends 80 minutes craning their necks in an attempt to bend light around that one really tall guy (possibly due to top hat, considering the target audience) sitting right in front of them.

Secondly, the idea of Alex interacting with animated secondary characters projected onto screens is innovative – but far from perfected. The cartoon supporting cast moves at a rate of three frames per minute on endless loop, possibly in an attempt to remind the audience of their humble ink-on-paper origins. This doesn’t work; it’s simply annoying.

The technicalities aside, Alex has its moments. ‘If you can’t eat it, drink it or smoke it, don’t invest in it’ is the kind of witty one-liner the script offers consistently. Alex himself never fails to stay true to himself in all his money-loving, soul-selling glory. Fortunately the production team has resisted any kind of moral ‘lesson-learned’ outcome for any of the characters, which probably echoes the real world more than intended. Yes, it’s meant to be a satire and a parody, but ascend above the fifth floor of any grey, gold-plated building in the City and you will inevitably find an Alex or a Mr Sterling furiously mashing his BlackBerry keypad.

In a word, Alex is alright. Probably a stronger appeal to the higher echelons of corporate society (which could explain the excessive £45 ‘business class’ ticket price – which gets you a fancy seat cover and skinny booklet), since that’s where the humour will take on a facet of it’s-funny-because-it’s-true.

Die-hard fans of the original comic strip may be disappointed by a different tone and style of humour. Probably also an interesting exhibit for theatre production majors for the unconventional approach, but otherwise not the most fantastic bit of entertainment on offer this season, though worth a look if you’re into that kind of thing.

Alex is showing until December 20
Leicester Square Theatre
6 Leicester Place
WC2H 7BX

Box office: 0844 847 2475

This post is from The London Word and should not be republished elsewhere without prior permission. Please check out our site for more great stories and features.

No related posts.