BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. To 9 November.
Scarborough
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
by Neil Monaghan
Stephen Joseph Theatre To 9 November 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval
TICKETS 01723 370541
Review Timothy Ramsden 21 October
The usual Stephen Joseph mix of comedy and compassion, though with not enough flesh on the characters to disguise the dramatist's schematic skeleton.It's probably the name that gives too much away. There's little that's lovely about this externally suave group of e-technology innovator and spongers. JJ, though, has to be beautiful - and sophisticated - since these are the qualities for which she hires herself out to seriously rich IT men, keeping quiet about the scam on the side.
So, the title must be ironic. And irony's an overplayed card in this kind of business-sting drama. To work, it needs at least secure plotting. And Neil Monaghan doesn't quite provide that. There's something a bit casual about the thrown-in references by insider-trading Leo that he and JJ are into big-league computer crime.
And we have to believe that she'd strike up a conversation on a bench in the middle of nowhere with the scruffy Barclay, let alone go back to his pad. Let alone stay there when, having tried an unwelcome sexual advance, he mutters with apologetic tedium about date-rape, and how he'd never.... Even if she'd gone there in the first place, she'd have been out of it with boredom.
Neither are the relationships clearly-focused. As one half of a pair supposedly experienced in scamming, Leo is remarkably unable to keep to the script. Any successful conman knows when to keep out of the picture. Leo keeps barging in unplanned - and he's the one always going on about how much depends on the scam succeeding.
Nor does JJ's pal Amber, the failing publicist who takes up with Leo in her friend's absence with millionaire mark Skelton, help drag us back to the plot. That's not the fault of Eleanor Tremain who makes her character's hopes and fears of failure apparent.
There's good work all round, Gina Bellman maintaining a cool elegance and the three men making as muchg as possible of their thinly-drawn characters.
Edward Kepmp's efficient production works best when he gives scenes a sense of overlap, having one of the characters apparently observe the end of a scene between others, covering events which one of the participants would credibly relate to them. But the action only allows this device to occur early on, and it peters out.
The play isn't a total washout: it almost retains interest if you're not thinking too much about plot and character coherence and development. Spiced up by camera angles and pacy editing, with realistic establishing shots and the buzz of everyday-life background settings, it would be a very efficient TV suspense drama. But on Jane Heather's necessarily spare set (there are many location-shifts) it throws on the actors an intensity of focus which, despite their fine efforts, reveals the thinness of dramatic construction.
JJ: Gina Bellman
Amber: Eleanor Tremain
Skelton: Joseph Bennett
Leo: Stephen Beckett
Barclay: John Lightbody
Director: Edward Kemp
Designer: Jane Heather
Lightying: Jon Buswell
Sound:Ben Vickers
Music: Mike Woolmans
2002-10-26 18:42:39