20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE OFFICE. To 6 March.

Tour

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE OFFICE
by Angus Barr.

Publick Transport Tour to 6 March 2007.
Tour Info 07989 377263 publicktransport@f2s.com.
Runs: 1hr No interval.
Review: Alan Geary 10 December in Nottingham.

Just when you think you’ve sorted out the most outstanding shows of the year along comes this one.

Just when you think you’ve sorted out your personal list of the most outstanding shows of the year along comes this two-hander from Publick Transport.

Colleagues taking the lift down to a humdrum office meeting suddenly find themselves speeding towards the centre of the earth and certain death. What follows is an extraordinary mix of dancing, cannibalism, banjo playing, brilliant film parody, existentialist speculation, social satire, post-modern audience participation, and more - all in one hour.

Saba McKinnon and Angus Barr are, besides anything else, masters of mime: with the help of a few deliberately clichéd sound effects they convince you that they’re trapped in a lift. They can speak to people in the upper world on their mobiles, so they act other outrageously stock characters as well.

Barr is also responsible for the script, which proceeds according to its own internal logic in all sorts of directions, often at once. And all the time there’s that unspoken and comic sexual tension, which is somehow released at the end - or at least it seems to be.

Underlying the comedy, indeed sometimes reaching the narrative surface to become explicit, is an implied discussion about the nature of freedom and its relationship to death. But even that’s shown to be funny.

On the evidence of this piece, Publick Transport, a Bristol-based outfit, deserves to be more widely known.

Cast: Saba Barr, Angus McKinnon.

Director: Angus Barr.
Additional Direction: Phil Booth, Andy Burden.

2006-12-11 02:00:25