BILLY WONDERFUL. To 4 April.

Liverpool.

BILLY WONDERFUL
by Nick Leather.

Everyman Theatre To 4 April 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 4 April 2pm.
BSL Signed 27 March.
Captioned 4 April 2pm.
Runs: 1hr 20min No interval.

TICKETS: 0151 709 4776.
www.everymanplayhouse.com
Review: Stoon 21 March 2009.

Match of the Day? Not really Lawro.
Efforts of footballers and thespians can be gauged by how often they perform a taboo act: spitting. Here (mercifully perhaps) no player saw red for such a practice but neither did we see a shower of saliva borne out of passion. It felt like watching everyday conversations.

Young Billy Walters (David Lyons) finds himself on the verge of playing in a Merseyside Derby. He’s dreamed of scoring the winner since he was 8 years old. Then there’s Billy’s ex-player father, best mate Moz, Shiner and The MC. All play a host of other characters, including teammates and opposition – nearly 60 in all!

Writer Nick Leather stipulates an all-male cast, which could’ve worked, but not here. From the outset it’s problematic because they remain in football strip throughout, so there’s only a distinction of characters by mannerism and vocal variation. When Claire (Shaun Mason) speaks, it’s like over-egged Lilly Savage. Later Mason plays another character with such overkill that one is minded of The Honey Monster. Many other peripheral characters never gain any identity and the narrative detail becomes blurred; the script has a ‘bite your legs’ feel but there’s no necessity for shin pads whilst watching this.

It’s staged in-the-round, the cast sprinting around splicing action from matches with off-pitch events; even commentators rotate more often than past Benitez first teams. Yet it feels like an episode of ‘Runaround’ from yesteryear; though at least that had a purpose in its frenzied movement.

There’s an almost educational feel to this moral tale, which painstakingly explains the good and bad. That, coupled with the ‘route one’ style of whiz-bang movement and overly comic portrayals perhaps suggests that the piece may have been tailored towards the audiences at the 17 performances prior to the Everyman run, which were all in schools, colleges or youth centres.

As someone whose love of the game was nurtured listening to 70s match commentaries by the legendary Peter Jones, I hoped this would give a sense of match-day drama in the same way that he uniquely conveyed over the radio. Whilst watchable, it never threatened to scale those giddy heights.

Bill Senior/Ensemble: Neil Caple.
Moz/Ensemble: Rob Low.
Shiner/Ensemble: Michael Ledwich.
Billy: David Lyons.
MC/Ensemble: Shaun Mason.

Director: Serdar Bilis.
Designer: Hannah Clark.
Lighting: Ian Scott.
Sound: Kal Ross.
Movement director: Dan O’Neil.

2009-03-26 02:41:11