BOTTLE UNIVERSE till 12 November.
London.
BOTTLE UNIVERSE
by Simon Burt.
Bush Theatre To 12 November 2005.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 29 Oct, 5, 12 Nov 3pm.
Runs 2hr 10min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7610 4224.
www.bushtheatre.co.uk (24 hr, no booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 October.
School again as pupil hell and teacher purgatory in fine production with superb performances.
Nice of the programme to call Jeff Rawle’s teacher ‘Mr Richmond’ – nobody else does. ‘Bastard Face’, as dissident pupil Dave calls the smarter Lauren, is among the politer terminology in Simon Burt’s play. In this school, you’d expect nothing else. Lauren sticks out as posh, though her new school will call her common; all she wants is to be normal, and lack of acceptance as such (even Richmond favours her as the school’s star pupil) is driving her to despair. Which is how she meets Dave.
The difference is apparent in attitudes to parents. Lauren rejects hers for opposing private education till they found they could afford it. Dave shows his want of affection in proud talk of watching TV with mum, and her making him a sandwich.
The anguish piles up high as Bob Bailey’s rubbish heap, over which the cast spends so much time clambering, awkwardly moving towards each other or finding uncomfortable shelter in the waterproofed den Dave’s constructed. There’s a lot of comedy in this world, where you gotta have bottle to survive, mostly emanating from Mikey North’s Dave. As the relation with Lauren proceeds he asks her if they’re going out, assuming huge relief the instant she rejects him. North makes Mikey’s vulnerabilities clear beneath a convincingly hard surface.
He looks for a father figure in Jeff Rawle’s Richmond, with his initially blase surface, through which inadequacy slowly seeps. Misbehaving his way into isolated detentions, Mikey endures writing obscene variations on the lines he’s given as a tedious prologue to the soccer-talk with Richmond that brightens the lad’s existence.
Avoiding tragedy onstage while maintaining gravity through disposing of an unseen character might seem unfair, while aspects of onstage relationships could seem contrived without Sue Dunderdale’s production, giving apt attention to each moment, quickly and confrontationally comic or filled with doubts and indecision. You could surmise North and Jessica Harris are young actors playing close to their generational experience, except both range flexibly through varied emotions, Harris from the opening where her face registers utter misery, North with feet eternally restless in constant agitation. Superb work.
Cock Dave: Mikey North.
Mr Richmond: Jeff Rawle.
Lauren: Jessica Harris.
Director: Sue Dunderdale.
Designer: Bob Bailey.
Lighting: Simon Mills.
Sound: John Leonard.
Fight director: Terry King.
Assistant director: Thorunn Sigthorsdottir.
2005-10-20 17:11:37