ALEX: LIVE ON STAGE. To 8 December.
London
ALEX: LIVE ON STAGE
by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor
Arts Theatre To 8 December 2007.
Tue–Sat 7.30pm Mat Fri 4.30pm & Sat 3.00pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.
TICKETS: 0844 847 1608.
www.artstheatrelondon.com
Review by Harriet Davis 20 October.
A light-hearted, playful adaptation of the popular cartoon strip.
First printed in 1987 by the London Daily News, before ascending to the pages of the Independent and Daily Telegraph respectively, Alex is first and foremost an eighties creation, a City-dwelling, money loving investment banker, who loves his job but hates to work.
Robert Bathurst – no stranger to foppish Oxbridge types – plays Alex, interacting with various stills and projections that constitute the other characters. Among these is Alex’s long-suffering wife, the company’s flamboyant junior assistant Sebastian, and Alex’s ruthless boss, Rupert.
The play opens with a shaky intro: a rather uncomfortable Bathurst cracking jokes in the vein of a wavering stand-up comic. But once the first character is introduced, Bathurst relaxes, and from here on in makes for an engaging host.
Creators Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor thankfully opt for a plot rather than a series of sketches, and while it holds no big surprises (the threat of divorce, corporate takeover et al) it provides a nice framework for the largely apt social observations. Alex is a shameless strategist, and the frequent insights into his head are nothing less than hilarious. Particularly poignant is the scene in which Alex’s wife bargains the terms of their marriage, which include frequent holidays, weekend away-breaks and access to Alex’s hidden bank account(s).
Phil Eddolls’ setting for Phelim McDermott’s production, is inspired. The animations are living and breathing, able to interact almost fully with Bathurst, who after a while turns 2D himself. The penultimate joy of the piece is a 5-minute animated dinosaur fight, in which Alex quite literally does battle with his boss - and wins.
Although sometimes predictable and by turns archaic, Alex is nonetheless a relentlessly cheerful and cheering production, likely to raise smiles across the board.
Alex: Robert Bathurst.
Director: Phelim McDermott.
Designer: Phil Eddolls.
Lighting: Colin Grenfell.
Sound: Ed Clarke.
Video Design: Leo Warner & Mark Grimmer for Fifty Nine Productions.
Animation: Charles Peattie.
Assistant video: Lysnder Ashton & Robert Sharp.
Assistant animators: Nina Wilson at somethinggraphic ltd, Monica Herman.
Animation Preparation: Philip Valentin, Graham Pearce, Matt Partridge at Expresso Animation.
Animation Consultants: Hugh Welchman, Dino Athanassiou.
2007-10-21 23:56:38