BLUE/ORANGE. To 26 March.

Tour

BLUE/ORANGE
by Joe Penhall

Tour to 26 March 2005
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 March at Royal Theatre Northampton

Kathy Burke's excellent and excellently-acted production is fast yet clear in every detail; in fact a triumph.This Sheffield Theatres production is the first major one since the National Theatre's Cottesloe premiere and it's by far the better. What seemed manufactured in the crises between a short-term psychiatric patient and junior doctor plus consultant, here flows far more naturally.

Paul Wills' design is colour-dry, splashed only by the bowl of oranges that play a key part in analysing Chris's preparedness for life outside. There's just a rear panel with, significantly, 2 doors. Chris is looking forward to the end of his 28 day internment. His young doctor Bruce wants to extend the stay but is overruled by the more senior Robert

Amid this Chris, for whom the whole medical superstructure supposedly exists, is frequently asked to leave or wait outside a door as he's marginalised while the medics hold confidential discussions in which he becomes the object of a tussle between medical ambitions and schools of thought.

Penhall keenly mocks medical value judgments through social detail; the food Bruce's wife served Robert is fondue, Welsh Rarebit or cheese-on-toast according to mood. Who pays for rugby tickets becomes a status matter. In a late collapse, Bruce is shown as craven as Robert is career-minded in fomenting Chris's Oleanna-type complaint against the junior man.

Compared with the premiere's mannered playing, both Shaun Evans' Merseyside Bruce (nothing like that accent in muted form for seeming genuine and unpretentious) and Roger Lloyd Pack's confident Robert are miracles of realism. Evans drives into a fury of integrity before sacrificing all dignity, Lloyd Pack enters jacketless and shifts to formal dress and manner, taking the stage with a commanding prowl and posture as he approaches the clincher, where he kicks away the prop of professional integrity, reducing motivation to a matter of personalities.

Jimmy Akingbola gives Christopher (the sole part well-played at the Cottesloe) a vulnerability at times rolling-eyed and distracted, at others trying momentarily to join in the interactions moving around him, plus a moving mix of verbal aggression and frankness. Kathy Burke again shows herself an ace director not by self-advertising tricks, but by bringing the play's qualities vibrantly to life.

Christopher: Jimmy Akingbola
Bruce: Shaun Evans
Robert: Roger Lloyd Pack

Director: Kathy Burke
Designer: Paul Wills
Lighting: Paul Keogan
Sound: Nick Greenhill
Assistant director: Dominic Leclerc

2005-03-08 15:01:12