ANOTHER PARADISE. To 25 April.

Manchester/Newcastle/Stockton/Leeds/Plymouth/Coventry/London.

ANOTHER PARADISE
by Sayan Kent.

Kali Theatre Company Touring to 25 April 2009.
Runs: 1hr 50min No interval.
Review: Stoon 12 March 2009 at Contact Theatre Manchester.

Would you like Biometric Chips with that?
Biometric Identities, Personal Data Reappropriation, Digital Algorithms… all very “Bladerunner” and potentially a bit soulless and prophetic, but Sayan Kent’s entertaining script largely avoids 1984 rhetoric and focuses on the comedy – via a cute mix of ridicule, self-parody and the surreal.

It’s a hi-tech opening, screens and scanners aplenty, but all sleekly brushed metal and plasmas without blingy overkill, and along with the choreography creates a real sense of the world. There are two victims of ‘lost’ identity – Enoch (Chand Martinez) who’s refreshingly live-wired for an accountant & Abi (Shelley King), forty and not so fab who turned to hugging trees rather than husband Marcus (Richard Rees). He’s wonderfully slimeball, superior and sneering in equal measures (almost CJ-esque), but ultimately becomes a third victim by association.

The faces of tyranny are ageing Police Captain Fisher (Karen Mann) & Lisa (Sarah Paul) who works in Customer Services…at the Alien Regn Office. These twin Sisters of evil put our victims through the system in different ways. Lisa plays the fair-faced unyielding bureaucrat to a tee, oblivious to the obvious. Her early encounter with Enoch and his tie is excellent as he conveys the frustration we’re all familiar with. He eventually wilts but with a sigh of resigned acceptance. Fisher is the cop ensuring compliance, though she lacked menace, being neither Dirty Harriet nor Robocop; more Juliet Bravo - her fluctuating accent didn’t help.

It’s left to Enoch & Abi to come to each other’s rescue; their ‘courtship’ scene is the highlight and Abi’s subsequent unraveling is perfectly measured.

The play is too long and by the end feels stretched with an unnecessary contrived Cyber Terrorist Plot twist. Worse still, it starts to go a bit ‘Guardian’ (“Corruption is endemic”). The scenes with preachy speeches lack the entertainment of those involving routine dialogue; we don’t need explanations as to the rules of the asylum, we’ve been studying the inmates! But it’s an enjoyable evening nonetheless as Janet Steel’s punchy pace cranks the twisted humour.

It was good to see schoolchildren from out of town (Yorkshire, even), even though a few weren’t impressed.

Abigail: Shelley King.
Fisher: Karen Mann.
Enoch: Chand Martinez.
Lisa, Michelle, Thomas Paine: Sarah Paul.
Marcus: Richard Rees.

Director: Janet Steel.
Designer/Costume: Alice Hoult.
Lighting: Chris Corner.
Composer: Sayan Kent.
Video Design: Eva Auster.

2009-03-14 13:14:50