CHRISTMAS CRACKERS. To 20 January.
Hull
CHRISTMAS CRACKERS
by John Godber
Hull Truck Theatre To 20 January 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 6 Jan 2pm
BSL Signed 5 Jan
Runs 2hr One interval
TICKETS: 01482 323638
www.hulltruck.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 December
A play with pulling-power, that brings jokes and surprises.
Two interesting audience comments. Hull Truck’s like some big commercial name operating out of a couple of offices. Famed nationwide for its tours, its home stage facilities are few (see the actors’ hernia-inducing lugging during set changes in John Godber’s new play), the seating worn, its environs currently a desolate building-site as it awaits a new building. Yet, as someone remarked, the new glass-and-gloss risks losing something of this place’s spirit.
True; but the crowded foyer’s hot, even in December. Lunging outside for cool air and finding the cigarette fumes of exiled smokers I heard guilt-laden conversation. There’s non-politically correct humour here, and in the light of memos going around some workplaces, people were wondering if they should be finding it funny.
Such humour’s mostly from hospital security-guard Keith, who by the interval’s been so illiberal no-one could take his word for law. He’s a loner who hates Christmas, New Year and Summer and prefers the cold outside, even as he tightens his freezing-bare fists, to the artificial heat inside Accident & Emergency.
But Godber’s playing a trick in a 3-part play that’s purposefully divided by one interval. The outer slices are familiar Godber; realistic comic observation with brief cameo characters building a world where most accidents and emergencies are lifestyle consequences waiting to happen.
In the central section, transporting nurses Kath and Holly to wintery Prague thanks to an anonymous gift, the mood alters. At first Godber seems to have gone awry, his time-scales appearing ludicrous as Keith arrives, unaccountably more enlightened and considerate, and as the nurses become separated on the bridge from which designer Pip Leckenby provides an atmospheric, yet (as it turns out, aptly) never quite focused townscape. Unlikely, ill-co-ordinated events occur: a Mime Artist takes Holly away; a puppet-booth arrives.
It’s when everyone returns to A & E everything falls into place. While recognisable Godber-land, Christmas Crackers also represents an extension of his territory, a welcome one, directed and acted with Truck’s usual expertise, especially by Robert Angell who from early on suggests Keith’s inner-life beneath the cold, unsympathetic edge, justifying sympathy and laughter alike.
Keith: Robert Angell
Alan/Len/Man/Mike/Hanz: Robert Hudson
Kath/Anna: Una McNulty
Billy/Stevo/Franz/Mik: Matthew Booth
Holly/Lilly/Kit: Amy Thompson
Director: John Godber
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Graham Kirk
Composer: Stuart Briner
Choreographer: Lucy Cullingford
Costume: Samantha Robinson
2006-12-26 18:13:19