ANGRY YOUNG MAN. To 2 February.

London.

ANGRY YOUNG MAN
by Ben Woolf.

Trafalgar Studios (Studio 2) To 2 February 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr No interval.

TICKETS: 870 060 6632 (booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 16 January.

Swift, fluent, comic and pointed.
It’s singles night every night for this Angry Young Man, since illness overtook a cast-member in The Explorer, another Ben Woolf play which was to have been its nightly companion. Whether Woolf’s other script offers comparison or contrast, we will never know – not for a while, at least.

This play, and its author’s direction, ensure there’s a feeling of loss rather than relief at being so deprived. For there’s nothing grey about this piece – except the costumes which suggest the uniform of a public school dedicated to training stereotypical bureaucrats.

The first sight of the cast as they cluster on chairs, exchanging snatches of pre-show chat, reinforces that image. They make a fine foursome, if not a Famous Five, and there’s something Buchaneering about their subsequent story, resembling the reworking of an old-style adventure.

It’s a tough task, bringing off a comic version of such daring-do, and the story is the least interesting aspect of the piece – though still managed with more accomplishment than many such attempts.

Events anyway seem largely strung out to enable individual physical-theatre moments (there’s no set). These reveal a collection of Anglo-Saxon attitudes in telling the story of an immigrant doctor, though one who brings his own dubious past. The play’s trick is to keep shifting roles between the four identikit-clad actors, ironically showing-up character differences between the performers’ personae as the central characters shift between them with the rapidity of a championship squash match, a scheme established with several deliberately overlapping starts

If this group were a gang, it would soon be possible to distinguish the alpha-male leader no-one would question, or the dependable group member, even more serious than the clan chief in holding to his status. Then there’s the joker in the pack, gaining and retaining any status he has by a cheeky wit (guess who gets to play the only dame mixed up in this fellows’ tale). And the hanger-on, ever-willing or limited in showing reluctance when the others automatically turn to him with also-ran bit-parts like dog or statue. Altogether, it’s a tale that tells more than its apparent story.

Yuri/Roger/Gjerg/Brian/Ensemble: Hywel John.
Yuri/Patrick/Nick/Ensemble: Gary Shelford.
Yuri/Ensemble: Hugh Skinner.
Yuri/Allison/Ensemble: Alex Waldmann.

Director: Ben Woolf.
Designer: the Company/Will Holt.
Lighting: Richard Howell.
Assistant director: Kane Moore.

2008-01-18 16:14:21